Only those who fight in a war know how traumatic of an experience it can be and question how they made it out alive. It is hard to adapt from the normal way of life to being in a warzone for months or years. It takes an effect on soldiers’ personalities and they tend to as much as they can to distance their minds from the harsh reality of war. Many civilians have no clue as to the hardships they endure. Tim O’Brien communicates his experience to many through his short story, “The Things They Carried”. As O’Brien lists off the physical things the soldiers carry day in and day out in Vietnam, he also exposes the mental and emotional burdens they carry. He reveals the horrifying experience of war in what they carry: from guns and weapons to disease,
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In a place where they can die at any moment, it should not shameful to be afraid. Dying is a fear for most humans and especially in war it can be random and instantaneous. O’Brien explains the senselessness of the war in saying that is was “a place where men died because of carelessness and gross stupidity. Kiowa was right. Boom-down, and you were dead, never partly dead” (1014). War was a harsh place and there is little room for mistakes. In revealing the true feelings rather than the fronts of soldiers, O’Brien points out the death of other soldiers affects and disrupts their sanity. As a coping mechanism they either try to become emotionless to numb out the pain. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is the main of example of how death takes an emotional toll on the other soldiers. He feels totally responsible and haunted by Ted Lavender’s death. He tortured himself with the thought that if he hadn’t been fantasizing about his love Martha, he could have kept Lavender and most of the men alive. Along with the theme of things the soldiers carried, his guilt was “something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war” (O’Brien
In a place where they can die at any moment, it should not shameful to be afraid. Dying is a fear for most humans and especially in war it can be random and instantaneous. O’Brien explains the senselessness of the war in saying that is was “a place where men died because of carelessness and gross stupidity. Kiowa was right. Boom-down, and you were dead, never partly dead” (1014). War was a harsh place and there is little room for mistakes. In revealing the true feelings rather than the fronts of soldiers, O’Brien points out the death of other soldiers affects and disrupts their sanity. As a coping mechanism they either try to become emotionless to numb out the pain. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is the main of example of how death takes an emotional toll on the other soldiers. He feels totally responsible and haunted by Ted Lavender’s death. He tortured himself with the thought that if he hadn’t been fantasizing about his love Martha, he could have kept Lavender and most of the men alive. Along with the theme of things the soldiers carried, his guilt was “something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war” (O’Brien