Guilt In The Things They Carried

The Vietnam War, the war that took the lives of many soldiers and left them with emotional wounds and physical scars, while also leaving many innocents to suffer and over two million from both sides to die. In Tim O’Brien’s book, The Things They Carried, we read about the experiences of soldiers during this war and how some died, how some carried grief and guilt until after the war, and how some had to endure physical and mental wounds post-war. In this work of fiction, we get to dive into a deeper understanding of the fictional soldiers who lived through the war Although The Things They Carried is a work of fiction, it coveys truths about the Vietnam war through accounts of fictional characters who experienced the long-lasting impacts and

Guilt. The Vietnam War had long-lasting impacts and effects on soldiers that carried on even after they fought in Vietnam. The memories of the war stick with them everyday, like a dark shadow following them everywhere as they move. This is shown in The Things They Carried with a character named Norman Bowker in the chapter of “Speaking of Courage”, who fought in the war and suffered from lots of guilt and trauma post-war. He exemplifies the guilt soldiers carried even until after the war because when his friend Kiowa sunk in mud, he felt like he could’ve done more in order to help his friend, such as trying to get his friend out and ignoring the smell that caused him to refuse to help. After the war, he carries constantly carries the guilt and always thinks about how he could have managed to help his friend and saved him from death. He stated, “It’s almost like I got killed over in Nam… Hard to describe. That night when Kiowa got wasted, I sort of sank down into the sewage with him… Feels like I’m still in deep shit” (O’Brien, The Things They Carried 150). Bowker expresses in this quote

In The Things They Carried the chapter of Norman Bowker mentions how upon returning home from fighting in the war, no one talked about the war, leaving him feeling like he was alone for the memories of the war to eat away at him. He stated, “The town could not talk, and would not listen. ‘How’d you like to hear about the war?’ he might have asked, but the place could only blink and shrug. It had no memory, therefore no guilt” (O’Brien 137) Bowker represents the truth of an experience many soldiers may have felt upon their arrival back from the battlefield. Many of them departed in order to fight for their home country, just to feel a sense of loneliness and ignorance from everyone else when they arrived back. Soldiers sacrificed their lives for their country, just to come back to a place they call home to disregard and ignore them. In John Kerry’s excerpt, we read about his criticisms of the war as he sheds light on the betrayal and loneliness soldiers felt after sacrificing their lives. He stated, “And a young man comes out of high school and says, ‘That is fine. I am going to serve my country’ and he goes to Vietnam and he shoots and he kills and he does his job or maybe he doesn’t kill, maybe he just goes and he comes back, and when he