Causes Of The Vietnam War

The Vietnam war was an absolutely brutal time in American history. The war lasted for the majority of the 1960s and left many young men dead. The short story “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien and the film Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam give us just a glance into the war by giving using the three themes of fear, pressures, and blame/guilt to embody the concept of war and how it absolutely changes a person. War not only destroys countries, but it destroys people.

The Vietnam War was a long conflict lasting between 1955 to 1975 between the communist North and the democratic south with help from the United States. More than 3 million people, including 58,000 American troops were killed in the conflict. Tim O 'brien 's short story “The Things They Carried” follows a platoon named alpha company during the peak of the Vietnam war led by first lieutenant Jimmy Cross who is very charismatic but in his mind he is unsure how to lead his squad because his mind tends to wander to a thought of a girl back home. Throughout the story he has overcome with emotions and guilt because he believes he his the reason for some of his squadmates death. “The Things They Carried” Embodies the hardship, reality, and price/toll of war, ultimately Tim O’brien writes this masterpiece as not of a war story, but as a love story and how that love changed a man.

Imagine one day you receive a mail from the government that you been draft to go a war at a different country. How would you feel if you know that purpose of this war is unreasonable in any senses? Angry, anxious or even confused. Vietnam War was “a personal failure on a national scale” (Hochgesang). There are many videos, documents and movies about the Vietnam War that show different angles of the Vietnam veterans’ experience and how the war really changes their life. In “The Things They Carried” written by Tim O’Brien, he argues about how the Vietnam War affect the soldiers in many ways, not only physically, but more important is the psychological effects before, during and after the war.

In the story “The Things They Carried” the author Tim O’Brien uses powerful imagery, figurative language and repetition to spread his message. O’Brien’s reason behind telling the story was to show the way the Vietnam war was, and to remind society of those forgotten soldiers that gave their lives for their country. The Vietnam war was a pointless war for the U.S to be involved in, and many young men were sent to Vietnam, regardless of any feelings of negativity they may have had about the war. Many of the participants of the war was under the impression that it was wrong to be sent to war as it was basically a death sentence. Unfortunately, no one realized that the young

The Vietnam War was sparked by the United States wanting to contain communism after World War II. The author Tim O’Brien writes in his short story “The Things They Carried,” using personal experiences from his time serving in the Vietnam War. Jimmy Cross, the main character who did not believe in the war, was drafted in June 1968. Being commissioned to a foreign territory to fight for your life and the freedoms of others is a life changing experience. Soldiers often bring items from home that give them hope of motivation to survive in order to return home. The short story “The Things They Carried” gives an insight on what soldiers carry with them throughout the war. Each man the story carries different items, including comic books, a

Consequently the veterans of the Vietnam war had experienced things that one can not imagine, such as losing a close friend, seeing millions of men dying right before their eyes; men who were their age maybe even younger. These memories did not vanish when they finally returned home, they are carrying the war with

No war is easy for the soldiers who put their lives on the line to fight for what they believe in. The soldiers on both sides of the Vietnam War faced challenges that changed their lives forever and left a lasting effect on their physical and mental health. The hardships faced in the Vietnam War as depicted in The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien are an accurate representation of the struggle faced by not only the soldiers fighting the war but also those who were involved in nonviolent positions.

Vietnam, the heart and soul of teenage rebellion to the government for creating a draft that sent over the creative and intelligent youth, was a war that was deemed to get rid of the political idea, communism, which spread as quick as the napalm that blazed over the serene green landscapes. The narrator to the story, Tim O’Brien, repeatedly recounts memories of the war, each with an added detail or an object that carried a significant amount of weight that makes the story seem more factual than what it seems. The soldiers carried loneliness, uncertainty of the truth of war, and the heavy burden of physical and emotion weight; Tim O'Brien uses war related imagery to symbolize the vim of storytelling in his book “The Things They Carried”.

The Vietnam War. A war that many Americans believed unfair and unnecessary. “Why am I being sent off to fight in a war I don’t know anything about? Will I ever return again?” Many draftees asked themselves these questions hoping to find comfort in the answers. But there was little to no hope, and they knew it. They were being drafted and they could do absolutely nothing about it, only hope that at the end they would be returning to the enlightened faces of their loved ones, something that not many Vietnam soldiers expected to ever see again. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, portrays his experience in the war along with his fellow squad members, in their fight for survival against the Vietcong. In The Things They Carried, each

In “The Things They Carried” he shares his stories that happened in Vietnam, and the book paints one of the most realistic pictures of the Vietnam War. “The Things They Carried” shows us what the soldiers experience in the war, and it also reflects how the war can have a profound impact on human life. Therefore, the dominant theme Tim O’ Brien reveals in “The

Tim O’Brien’s book, The Things They Carried, portrays stories of the Vietnam War. Though not one hundred percent accurate, the stories portray important historical events. The Things They Carried recovers Vietnam War history and portrays situations the American soldiers faced. The United States government represents a political power effect during the Vietnam War. The U. S. enters the war to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam. The U.S. government felt if communism spreads to South Vietnam, then it will spread elsewhere. Many Americans disapproved of their country’s involvement. Men traveled across the border to avoid the draft. The powerful United States government made the decision to enter the war, despite many

economy. The Vietnam War was an important factor in the declining American economy from the 1960s to the economic crises of the 1970s. According to history central, “the requirements of the war effort strained the nation’s production capacities, leading to the industrial sector.” The war put strain on American businesses. Many factories that normally produced consumer goods, had to begin making items for the military.

The Vietnam War was the largest, most prolonged military conflict for the United States of America in world history, besides the recent war in Afghanistan. Many Vietnam veterans have written books and novels about their experiences, however, Tim O’Brien, an American who was drafted into the Vietnam war and an American writer, has written numerous books about his war experiences. In particular, Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things They Carried, tells all his experiences in detail about the war, what it was like, and his friends he made because of the war. He reflects his feelings through war stories that are difficult to grasp as “true”. The Things They Carried depicts that the young soldiers had a bigger burden besides the heavy weight of their required SOP, or Standard Operating Procedure of luggage. O’Brien’s novel shows us his friends and his own personal experiences of love, hurt, friendship, and war and how they affect them emotionally and psychologically today, through the use storytelling and recalling flashbacks in their journey as soldiers in Vietnam at the time of war.

Tim O 'Brien 's novel The Things They Carried is meant to display the effects of Vietnam on both American soldiers as well as the boys they once were. Vietnam is a society where human decency is left behind, and death is embraced as either a joke or an escape--where the horrors of reality are turned comical and exaggerated in order to keep going. Tim O 'Brien shows how Vietnam turns him from a boy unknowing of death, to a young man unwilling to face it, to a soldier laughing in the face of it, to a veteran unwilling to leave it behind, and finally, to an author left to make sense of it all.

The Vietnam War was a tragic part of the United States’ history that to this day holds a great deal of mystery and a lack of information. It was an unpopular war, taking place from 1955 to 1975, with surmountable losses on each side. Forty years later, the consequences of the Vietnam War are still prevalent in the side effects of Agent Orange, post-traumatic stress disorder of soldiers, and the national debt. Though those are significant problems, the biggest influence of the Vietnam War that impacted Americans was the staggering number of soldiers killed in action, missing in action, or taken as prisoners of war. Vietnam was a danger zone where no life was guaranteed, bodies were hard to recover dead