The Things They Carried

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Note: This a re-post from Memorial Day in 2012:

For readers outside the United States, today is Memorial Day in the US.

While for many, the holiday is only a long weekend marking the beginning of summer, Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day because flowers were used to decorate gravesites, was established in 1868 to commemorate men and women who died while in military service.

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is a classic account of American soldiers fighting in the Vietnam War.

From  National Public Radio:

In war, there are no winners. That’s what readers take away from Tim O’Brien’s book about the Vietnam War, The Things They Carried, in the 20 years since its publication.

O’Brien wrote parts of The Things They Carried 20 years after his service in Vietnam. 40 years since the war, he still carries it with him. “I carry the memories of the ghosts of a place called Vietnam — the people of Vietnam, my fellow soldiers,” he tells host Neal Conan. “More importantly,” he continues, “I carry the weight of responsibility, and a sense of abiding guilt.”

But O’Brien carries joyful memories, too, “the friends I made, the conversations at foxholes where, for a moment or two, the war would seem to vanish into camaraderie and friendship.”

Still, the memories of near-death moments remain the most vivid. “There’s something about being amid the chaos and the horror of a war that makes you appreciate all you don’t have, and all you may lose forever.” Those things range, for O’Brien, from “the sublime, your parents, down to the petty — a Big Mac, and a cold Coke. When you’re really really thirsty and you’re drinking paddy water, the mind will lock on a can of cold Coke the way your mind might, you know, back in high school, have locked on a pretty girl.”

. . . .

From the book: Every third or fourth man carried a claymore antipersonnel mine, 3.5 pounds with its firing device. They all carried fragmentation grenades, 14 ounces each. They all carried at least one M-18 colored smoke grenade, 24 ounces. Some carried CS or tear gas grenades. Some carried white phosphorous grenades. They carried all they could bear and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried.

Link to the rest at NPR

13 thoughts on “The Things They Carried”

  1. And ever since that war, they’ve carried guilt … which is grossly unfair, because they didn’t start it. The politicians did. The soldiers who fought the battles and the jungle and the horrors were pawns in a political game of show and tell that began with Eisenhower. JFK inherited the game, and Johnson escalated it.

    The men and women who fought and served in Vietnam deserve our utmost respect. Yet they don’t always get it. The straggly-haired guys you see on the streets, begging scraps in New York and other cities, are often the detritus of that ill-advised war.

    And it’s happening again with Iraq and Afghanistan. The people who went over there, as ordered, and did their jobs, are being denied proper help when they get home, injured and damaged and unable to find jobs in the public sector.

    I’m a WW II buff. I love to read about this stuff. But WW II was a war that needed to be fought. The rest weren’t … and the regular soldiers, sailors, and airmen have paid for it.

    • That’s actually a fallacy about the homeless. A large percentage of them are NOT Vietnam vets.

      It is true, however, that a high percentage of returning vets are unemployed. My company is one that attempts to hire as many vets as possible. A good number of the people that work there are veterans.

      This Memorial Day weekend, our business leaders could promise to do their best to hire more veterans. That would take care of things nicely.

    • “And it’s happening again with Iraq and Afghanistan. The people who went over there, as ordered, and did their jobs, are being denied proper help when they get home, injured and damaged and unable to find jobs in the public sector.”

      Pardon my french, but that’s bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit.

      First of all, the vietnam veterans did not carry a burden of guilt. Maybe that was foisted upon them by a bunch of jackasses at home, but they surely never carried it themselves. BECAUSE THEY DIDN”T DO ANYTHING WRONG!!!!!

      Second of all, in NO FREAKING WAY do our guys come home and not get the support they need. IN NO FREAKING WAY! AT ALL!

      See, this is the sort of thing that pisses me off to no end. A vast majority of guys come back and do just fine, with no issues whatsoever. There is this meme out there (and you’re right, it’s gathering steam now just as it did…falsely…post Vietnam) that returning veterans are all screwed up in one way or another. Agent orange…PTSD..whatever. Balloney. Yes, some guys have issues, but they are a small minority. And there are tremendous resources brought to bear to help them out. Hell, there are tremendous resources used to help everyone out who comes back from the war zone, whether they need it or not.

      To sit their and assume that servicemen are somehow A) All screwed in the head and B) Just left out to dangle in the breeze is, A) a lie, B) insulting to our nation, and C) insulting to all of us who serve or have served.

      Grrrr……

    • You do not speak for us. Well, I mean, you do, but you shouldn’t. You should stop.

    • And ever since that war, they’ve carried guilt

      Says who? Generalizations about such a huge group don’t work.

  2. Thanks, PG, for the post.

    I never saw so many people try to do the right thing in a tough situation as I saw in Vietnam.

    I am sure that is true for all who served both before and after my generation.

  3. In National Public Radio’s (NPR) interview with author Tim O’Brien about his “The Things They Carried,” O’Brien mentions the guilt and sense of responsibility he still carries due to his military service in Vietnam. His writings can help those who are in or have survived the deployments of the last 10 years.

    I concur with O’Brien’s mention of carrying a responsibility and a sense of guilt as a result of his military service. Many of us do. One commenter claims there is no such guilt. He asserts that a government program will save veterans if they need help. This individual is hopefully well-meaning, but remains factually wrong.

    Many soldiers do carry a sense of guilt and shame. Whether we are in a “Good War” or a “Bad War,” we will deal with a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) aftermath.

    Guilt can come from many types of traumatic actions, including those we feel justified committing and result in saving lives. One example: If you kill a kid because he is wired to explode, you still carry some guilt even though shooting him or her saved your life and the lives of your buddies. Some soldiers feel guilt for killing enemy soldiers who were trying to kill them.

    PTSD can result not only from combat, but also from other forms of trauma (sexual assault, clergy abuse, etc.). It has a physical component and a spiritual component. Yet, not everyone will react to a given trauma in the same way. Why not? Because we are individuals and not machines.

    Even survivors of the famed “Band of Brothers” dealt with PTSD both while on active duty and in the decades after the war. Audie Murphy, the most highly decorated American combat soldier, also suffered from PTSD and tried to help others heal.

    PTSD remains an often “invisible wound” as we usually don’t bleed from it until we slash our wrists, shoot ourselves, or die as a single vehicle fatality.

    Many of the military veterans, active duty troops, their spouses and children are endeavoring to cope with the effects of PTSD. Due to trauma’s alienating affects, PTSD disrupts families and can lead to various addictions (drugs, alcohol, porn), enhanced anger, reckless behavior, and promiscuity.

    The Veterans Administration (VA), while vastly superior as compared to only 4-6 years ago, remains a hit or miss organization according to the vets I have spoken with and in my own personal experience. The “tremendous resources” that one commenter claims are employed to help vets often fail to trickle down to helping the women and men who need them. More than one veteran has gone home and killed himself after being spurned by the VA.

    Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” remains a classic, his other fiction is also first-rate. Writing is one of the ways a PTSD-survivor remains a survivor and not become a PTSD-induced suicide victim.

    Part of what makes the legacy of “The Things They Carried” so vital is that it spurs the conversation about not only how do we help veterans cope with PTSD, but also how we can help any trauma survivor cope with the physical and soul wounds that make up PTSD.

    Thank you to Tim O’Brien for mustering the courage (and the talent) to write “The Things they Carried,” to NPR for their interview, and to the Passive Guy for providing the forum for this conversation.

    If you suffer from PTSD, know there is hope. The painful existence that PTSD can impose on us does not have to be a life sentence. There is a degree of healing we can experience. Remember, your life always has value.

    Semper Pax, Dr. Z

    • Most of the veterans of the Vietnam war who I know have no apparent residual emotional problems related to their service. However, a few continue to have ongoing issues 40 years after the war ended.

      I do agree with Michael that the stereotype held by some that all/most Vietnam vets came back from the war crazy is both wrong and unfair.

      • Just so. Any stereotype will remain unfortunate. The Vietnam generation has had to carry a lot of that baggage which they themselves did not earn. “Crazy” allows people to write the trauma survivor off (many rape victims are likewise marginalized when some suggest they deserved it, etc.). Trauma-induced PTSD, when viewed as a wound with physical and spiritual dimensions, allows for better care and compassion.
        I am grateful that you have provided this forum both in terms of writing and also for “The Things They Carried.” In the last couple of months since I found your site I have learned an immense amount about writing and publishing.
        Thank You & Semper Pax, Dr. Z

      • What many forget is that training men and women (there have been nurses serving under fire since the Civil War era, even before women moved into the military services) for combat is basically getting them to act in concert in ways that are against their natures. I am the daughter of a WWII veteran; a man who was a Regular Army officer who chose to enter the profession and served over 30 years. If even he had difficulties describing his experiences in his war (Pacific Theater 1942-1946), how much harder for those who weren’t professionals but just went and did what was asked of them (drafted or not).

        Those of us who have never served in the field, can never fully comprehend what combat is like. All we can do is try to sympathize and support as best we can. To all Veterans of all of our wars, great and small, thank you for defending the rest of us so that, perhaps, we won’t have to endure such terror ourselves.

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