War, the whirlpool of society that brings in all manner of young men to fight a war they not always wanted to fight. In the novel, The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, the matter is taken into depth for the author himself was one such person in his youth. The life of a soldier and that of a civilian are so apart from one another, which it’s impossible to assume the transition between either one an easy one. As a soldier, every day could be your last in the field, a stray bullet, a forgotten mine, the dangers of the bush, the looming presence of death that beckons to each individual at every step of their journey, yet they simply hump on. Many a youth considered Vietnam a mistake, a war that was so senseless; they would simply refuse to
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O’Brien’s friend, Norman Bowker experienced such isolation first hand, people treated him overly kindly, almost as if they held no real sentiment for what he had done, for the things that occurred in Vietnam, for how could they, they were oblivious to the atrocity of war, the days spent hiding, the days spent marching, they men and women killed, the villages they would burn, the lives they would take, the lives they would see fade away, the faces of the men that once spoke to them now lying on the cold red ground of the fields, the jungle, the very silence of it sending chills down their spine. It was impossible for those back home to understand that, there was no place for the returning vets to go, no place for Bowker to go to, nothing to do that would keep him at ease, for he himself stated, “there’s no place to go. Not just in this lousy little town. In general. My life,..” Going from being a soldier to becoming a civilian was too hard to go through alone, with no way to muster all that ate the minds of the returning veteran, O’Brien remained sane through his writing, he remained alive, he was no longer the young man that left to war, he was not the soldier that strode the fields of Vietnam, he was someone different, someone new. For Bowker, there was no such thing, he could not find the words, he could not find what to do with himself, he wanted to talk to someone but there was no one to talk to, no one who would listen, as it was written in the letters from Bowker to O’Brien, “I can’t ever find any words, if you know what I mean, and I can’t figure out what exactly to say. Something about the field that night.” Norman Bowker hanged
O’Brien’s friend, Norman Bowker experienced such isolation first hand, people treated him overly kindly, almost as if they held no real sentiment for what he had done, for the things that occurred in Vietnam, for how could they, they were oblivious to the atrocity of war, the days spent hiding, the days spent marching, they men and women killed, the villages they would burn, the lives they would take, the lives they would see fade away, the faces of the men that once spoke to them now lying on the cold red ground of the fields, the jungle, the very silence of it sending chills down their spine. It was impossible for those back home to understand that, there was no place for the returning vets to go, no place for Bowker to go to, nothing to do that would keep him at ease, for he himself stated, “there’s no place to go. Not just in this lousy little town. In general. My life,..” Going from being a soldier to becoming a civilian was too hard to go through alone, with no way to muster all that ate the minds of the returning veteran, O’Brien remained sane through his writing, he remained alive, he was no longer the young man that left to war, he was not the soldier that strode the fields of Vietnam, he was someone different, someone new. For Bowker, there was no such thing, he could not find the words, he could not find what to do with himself, he wanted to talk to someone but there was no one to talk to, no one who would listen, as it was written in the letters from Bowker to O’Brien, “I can’t ever find any words, if you know what I mean, and I can’t figure out what exactly to say. Something about the field that night.” Norman Bowker hanged