Of the roughly 1.5 million soldiers who experienced combat in Vietnam, 810,000 returned from the war with PTSD, never to be the same. “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien is a fictional story of a platoon’s journey in Vietnam. The story is centered around the physical burdens they must carry as part of their duty, but also the emotional weight of traumatic events they must shoulder. The story takes place at an unspecified time in Vietnam. It travels between Lieutenant Cross’s infatuation with a girl at home, the death of Ted Lavender, and lists of what the men carried at war; they include weapons, war supplies, provisions, and emotional burdens. In “The Things They Carried”, Tim O’Brien illustrates the psychological impact of what soldiers …show more content…
The death of a friend or platoon mate should be a sad thing, should be a cause for grief, but it is evident that under the enormous pressures of war, the young men become numb to such events. Kiowa ¨wished he could find some great sadness, or even anger, but the emotion wasn’t there and he couldn’t make it happen. Mostly he felt pleased to be alive¨ (O’Brien 10). The constant threat of death looming over their heads, and the often sight of death or action of killing completely desensitizes the soldiers. Most of them still kids in the grand scheme of life, and yet they become numb to death, making jokes about it almost immediately after. Traumatic events have become business, not real cause for concern. In the article “The Things They Carried”, Richard Ford explains that “the possibility of death without warning strips the innocence from even the most idealistic and romantic of the men” (Ford 2). Ford backs up the evidence in the story, the young soldiers who still retain their childish imagination and dreams become exposed to the most harsh realities of war. They can’t cope and retain their innocence, instead becoming shells of their old selves. The soldier's loss of innocence and compassion is best shown through Ted Lavender’s