Media and the Vietnam War

This weekend while visiting Cleveland, my parents and I decided to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. A large portion of the museum was dedicated to the forming of Rock and Roll. With the approval of the Vietnam War at an all time low, many artists were writing music as a form of protest. Media played a large role in the disapproval of the war. While the white house was relaying one story, the media was telling another. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien in some ways can be viewed as a commentary on this manipulation of a story. While O’Brien’s use of manipulation in The Things They Carried can be viewed as having a positive effect, one must look at the morality of spinning a story. While O’Brien labels his work as fiction, he tries his absolute hardest for it to come across as real. Does writing a story that you desperately want to sound real about things that didn’t happen during such a controversial war take away from the experience of those that maybe experienced a situation similar to O’Brien’s or does it validate their war experience by capturing it in a book that will be read many years beyond the end of the war? I think it all boils down to a specific person’s experience and the emotions that followed. No book is able to please everyone, and O’Brien’s stories provide a much needed warning to younger generations about war by providing an intimate view into the horrors soldiers must face and not just abstract facts and figures. However, one must ask him or herself, if it is okay to take other’s stories and make them your own? Is rewriting history going to foster peace or cause more issues? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. 

Tim O'Brien's Intentions

What is true and what is not in Tim Obrien’s The Things They Carried? Readers will most likely never be able to answer this question. Writing the story was a way for O’Brien to process the war. Well, we think that it was a way for him to process the war. Throughout the book, readers are constantly questioning the reality of the events that are occurring. So while the narrator named O’Brien remarks the writing made his transition back into mainstream society at Harvard University easier, readers are never sure if it is actually the author O’Brien’s opinion and experience, or if it is the experience and opinion of the fictional O’Brien. Truth or lie, O’Brien has achieved his goal in writing The Things They Carried. Civilians are better able to understand a soldier’s experience during Vietnam (although those who never experienced it first hand will ever be able to fully understand). In an interview with PBS’s Jeffrey Brown, O’Brien explains that he wanted to readers to actively participate in the story of the Vietnam war more than if they just watched a newscast or read a news article. He wanted readers to feel the story in their hearts, stomachs, and throats, not just be able to regurgitate facts. Personally, I think he achieved his goal. O’Brien even admits that he uses his name as the name of one of his characters to make the story feel more real. He wants readers to understand the horrors of the Vietnam war because even though a story may not have been true to O’Brien personally, it can be true to every soldier in the Vietnam war. It captures the emotions they felt and allows readers some insight in the emotional toil of the war. While The Things They Carried was originally intended for an audience of 25 years and older, O’Brien now thinks it really is for the younger generation. It serves as a warning for us: violence doesn’t solve everything. So The Things They Carried isn’t just a book written to give readers a headache trying to discern between fiction and reality, it is a book that is trying to capture every soldier’s Vietnam experience in order for those who never experienced it to understand the suffering of those who did.  

Link to article: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics-jan-june10-obrien_04-28/

Mental Health Today and in The Things They Carried

Tim O’Brien addresses suicide and depression of veterans in his short story “Notes.”  Over 20 years after the story was published, and the US military is still struggling with mental health issues. According to a study in 2013 conducted by the United States Department of Defense, in 2012, the number of suicides of military personnel exceeded that of those killed in battle. While the Millenium Cohort Study, based off data from 2001 to 2008, found that being deployed for longer than a year was associated with lower risk of suicide, it also found that military personnel who committed suicide were more likely to have been deployed prior to 2001 as well as after and to be combat specialists. Many who committed suicide also had pre-existing conditions such as struggling with alcoholism or depression. In 2014, the house finally passed a bill that would require mental health screenings for recruits. The strain of war on the mental health of the characters in The Things They Carried is clear. Many resort to their own coping mechanisms to survive.  Many veterans become depressed after war. In Norman Bowker’s case, that depression became to heavy to live with. A common feeling that runs trough all the characters in The Things They Carry is guilt. They feel guilt over many things: not wanting to go to the war in the first place, killing innocent people, and mostly just all their actions in the war. Bowker even feels guilty for “complaining” too much about the effects of the war on him. This is where I believe a large problem lies. Our society is so focused on appearing strong that we feel bad for being depressed. Depression is depicted as a weakness of character rather than the actual illness it is. In his letter to Tim O’Brien, Bowker says, “I’m no basket case – not even any bad dreams,” (150). Maybe it’s partly generational. Today, we are better about not buying into the idea of necessary hyper-masculinity as much, but it is still there. It is crucial that our society learns to acknowledge that mental health disorders are not weaknesses, but rather actual illnesses that are not patients’ fault and allow it to be okay to ask for help.

The Death of Kiowa

Throughout Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, O’Brien explores the concept of the death of innocence and morality during war. “In the Field” tells the story of Jimmy Cross’s platoon searching for the body of their fellow dead solider Kiowa.  Kiowa is depicted as a kind and moral man, starkly contrasting the evil and immorality of his surroundings. The death of Kiowa marks a turning point in his fellow soldier Azar. Before, Azar was rude and crass. He frequently harassed the local innocent Vietnamese people and animals. After the death of Kiowa, he apologizes for his actions. The change in Azar marks a loss of innocence. Many of the men fighting in the war were still children and did not know how to handle the atrocities they were forced to witness. Azar had used his anger as a defense mechanism. By letting his walls down, he shows his new maturity. While many view vulnerability as a weakness, it also marks great wisdom and strength. Kiowa’s death mirrors the death of morality in war. Kiowa was a devout Christian and always carried the Bible with him. He was one of the few soldiers in the platoon who seemed to have a conscience.  His death symbolizes that in war, one must turnoff his humanity and morality in order to survive, both physically and mentally.

Repetition in "The Things They Carried"

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is a collection of short stories centered around the Vietnam War. The first short story shares a title with the book. “The Things They Carried” presents readers with the tragedy of the Vietnam War and its affects on the young men who fought in it. O’Brien illustrates the burdens, both physical and mental, the young soldiers were forced to carry. Throughout the story, O’Brien frequently uses repetition to emphasize the pain of the men.  “They carried…” is repeated over and over again illuminating the hardships of the soldiers. They carried their fear, pain, shame, and guilt on top of the pounds and pounds of their equipment – usually the intangible weighing more than the tangible. The story focuses mostly on Jimmy Cross, a First Lieutenant who is in love with a girl named Martha back home. O’Brien repeats the line, “… Martha had never mentioned the war, except to say, Jimmy, take care of yourself,” (2 and 23). This emphasizes the disconnect between many of the citizens of United States and those fighting the war. Martha, a college student, most likely protested the war and that is why she rarely talked about it in her letters.  The repetition of Martha in Cross’s thoughts represents the hope of love. Cross thinks of his beloved to pass the time and make his life somewhat bearable in Vietnam. The break in repetition of Martha towards the end of the story marks Cross’s loss of innocence. When one of his men, Ted Lavender, is shot while Cross is day dreaming about Martha, his feelings dramatically shift from love to hate. O’Brien again uses the repletion of prefacing any sentence about Lavender with “Until he was shot…” to emphasize the effect of the death on cross. The idea of love versus hate runs throughout the story. By burning his pictures of Martha and her letters, Cross’s love loses to the war, to hate, as he becomes jaded and hardened.