The Horror Of The Vietnam War In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

O’Brien wrote the book “The Things They Carried” to share the stories of the Vietnam War and to expose the truth through writing. Tim O’Brien grew up in a small town in Minnesota and was fascinated by literature and writing. As a kid he “hated Boy Scouts and bugs and rifles”, instead he would go down to the library and read books like “Huckleberry Finn” and “Tom Sawyer” (NEA Big Read). Although he went to college and graduated with a political science degree and wanted to become a writer, he was drafted into the Vietnam war. He was a foot soldier and was stationed in My Lai, but during a grenade attack he was hit from a shrapnel and was sent home with a Purple Heart. He then went to Harvard University and after he graduated he then worked for …show more content…
Dwight D. Eisenhower supported South Vietnam and would help them fight against the North Vietnam Communists. So, when Ho Chi Minh rose to power the United States declared war against the communist viet Minh part of North Vietnam. The United State’s strategy was “to kill as many enemy troops as possible rather than trying to secure territory” (HISTORY). Peace activists were against the war itself and the group started small on college campuses and then gained attention after the United States bombed North Vietnam; staying true to the goal of killing as many people as they could. Although a good portion of the country supported the war, there was a small group of Liberal minorities that were against the war. As the war went on more and more people died, in fact by November of 1967, “U.S. casualties had reached 15,058 killed and 109,527 wounded” (HISTORY). Then more and more people changed their views on the war and joined the Liberals against the war. In O’Brien’s book he talks about “the weight of responsibility and a sense of abiding guilt” that he and other soldiers felt from not only killing people but from watching their warmates being killed