Norman Bowker In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

181 Words1 Pages
According to the most recent report published by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs in 2016, within the years 1979 to 2014, 55 million veterans’ died by suicide, which averages out to at least 20 suicides per day. The character of Norman Bowker in the novel The Things They Carried is a grim reminder that the statistics are more than just numbers they are human lives. The Things They Carried is a novel, consisting of a series of short stories that follows a platoon of American soldiers during the Vietnam War. They endure hardships and learn lessons about morality and humanity. The hardest lesson however was the one about Norman Bowker. Norman Bowker was a solder that suffered from severe survivor’s guilt from his time during the