Personal Narrative: My First Vietnam War

In Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried”, O’Brien created several allusions that each character endured during the Vietnam War. Throughout the story were vast representations of the things the soldiers carried both mentally and physically. The things they carried symbolized their individual roles internally and externally. In addition to the symbolism, imagination was a focal theme that stood out amongst the characters. This particular theme played a role as the silent killer amongst Lt. Cross and the platoon both individually and collectively as a group. The theme of imagination created an in depth look of how the war was perceived through each character which helped emphasize their thoughts from an emotional standpoint of being young men out at war.

The Vietcong or Vietnamese Communists used a utilized a fighting strategy called Guerrilla Warfare. Instead of fighting head to head with the Americans they would hit and run. The Americans were walking into a war they were sure to lose. In The Things They Carried O’Brien talks about being scared, “I was afraid of him—afraid of something—and as he passed me on the trail I threw a grenade that exploded at his feet and killed him”.(Bloom) O’Brien is a kid walking through a haunted house, terrified of anything that might pop out. In the military they tell you to never keep your finger on the trigger, O’Brien is a scared kid walking through an unknown land with his finger on the trigger, or in this case a finger on the pin. Vietnam has some of the most rugged jungle terrain in the world.

The Vietnamese believed that, “ Americans were evil and the Vietnamese simply were fighting merely defensively”. For several decades the Vietnamese fought boldly to win their freedom from the French. Many rebellious groups formed to win the freedom for Southern Vietnam. American troops could not identify were exactly the enemies were located in Vietnam. The United States used several tactics to gather information from sources and intelligences. In the film, Vietnamese peasants spoke intensely about the injustice surrounding the war. The local inhabitants of the villages spoke about the deadly tactics employed to kill innocent farmers and families. They spoke about how eight to nine hundred children were killed by the many toxics elements distributed by the planes and the several hundred tons of bombs dropped on a daily basis; to exterminate the Vietnam population. The villagers spoke about how their loved ones were killed right before their eyes and there was nothing they could do. The documentary shows soldiers entering villages, burning homes down, and killing civilians. They show the torture being inflicted by the soldiers.

Tim O’Brien’s book “The Things They Carried” epitomizes the degradation of morals that war produces. This interpretation is personified in the characters who gradually blur the line dividing right and wrong as the motives for war itself become unclear. The morality of soldiers and the purpose of war are tied also to the truth the soldiers must tell themselves in order to participate in the gruesome and random killing which is falsely justified by the U.S government. The lack of purpose in the Vietnam War permanently altered the soldier’s perspective of how to react to situations and in most cases they turned to violence to express their frustration.

Initially, the first reports stated that over 100 Vietcong were killed along with 22 civilian casualties caught in the crossfire during the fierce firefight. The operation was seen as a military victory and a strategic success. General William C. Westmoreland even congratulated involved forces for doing an “outstanding job.” However, letters of distraught and remorse from servicemen and soldiers that were previously engaged in the My Lai operation revealed the true nature

     Through meeting Li Van Hgoc the reader learns the “true enemy” in the novel. According to Li Van Hgoc, “The land is your true enemy.” He mentions that the soldier is the representative of the land and the land is also fighting a battle. Through listening to Li Van Hgoc at the “tea party” the platoon realizes the land actually is the enemy and notices the natural defenses: the tunnels, dangerous trails, the land mines, the hedges and paddies, and the jungle itself. The platoon thought that their enemy were the Vietcong, but they began to come to the realization that the Vietcong used the land; what they were protecting, why they were fighting, how they were fighting, to destroy foreign troops sent there. Li Van Hgoc telling the platoon of “Xa,” meaning community, soil, home, that “a man’s spirit is in the land, where his ancestors rest and where the rice grows,” helped show that the land was the “true enemy.”

While the Vietnam War was a complex political pursuit that lasted only a few years, the impact of the war on millions of soldiers and civilians extended for many years beyond its termination. Soldiers killed or were killed; those who survived suffered from physical wounds or were plagued by PTSD from being wounded, watching their platoon mates die violently or dealing with the moral implications of their own violence on enemy fighters. Inspired by his experiences in the war, Tim O’Brien, a former soldier, wrote The Things They Carried, a collection of fictional and true war stories that embody the

They realized they had a problem since no other units were up to the line with them; they had to wait this out. They were ordered to lie down in the tall grass. The fighting started to break out in front of them at a small skirmish line. Many of the men had never seen battle, so some of the men stood up to watch what was going on. Maj. John D. Musser of the 143rd wrote: "… a few shells came booming over our heads, making many of the uninitiated dodge muchly and now and then a wounded skirmisher was brought in from the skirmish line and taken to the rear, all of which had a tendency to make us nervous and uneasy…" (Tomasak,

The Vietnam War was largely considered a failure, a waste of resources, time and precious lives. It was simply a war that did not need to be fought. But in order to combat the ever prevailing communist forces; the capitalists and in particular, America, decided that Vietnam would be the land where these differences would be disputed. Men were sent in to fight in this war and they came back with very different experiences. As seen in both perspectives held in “A Rumor of War” by Philip Caputo and in “We were soldiers once... and young” by Hal Moore and Joseph Galloway; they explore the varying perspectives and experienced seen and learnt within war. Whereas in “A Rumor of War”, it tackles the consequences of being sent into such harsh warfare, only because Philip Caputo saw the harsh reality firsthand as he was a soldier in the war. The former, “We were soldiers once... and young” tackles the glorification of war because it’s not solely a soldier’s account. A journalist was in company of these men and as such details get skewed for the public’s perception. Regardless, both these books share a telling tale of the war in Vietnam through their radically different views.

plenty of forests to hid in. As Rosenberg wrote “Since Viet Cong hid in the dense brush, U.S.

“There is ample evidence to show that with the support of the North Vietnamese regime and other Communist powers, the Vietcong has been preparing on a more substantial scale than hitherto insurgency action designed to destroy South Vietnamese Government control, and to disrupt by violence the life of the local

“Frequently over this tumult could be heard the grim jokes of the critical veterans: but the retreating men apparently were not even conscious of the presence of an audience.”

The ethical wilderness introduces the rules of engagement in many respects. Nobody wants to die in combat, especially when loss of life can be prevented. To Americans, it is nearly impossible to differentiate between Vietcong soldiers and civilians. In many instances, the two are interchangeable. A natural response is to engage anyone who is not an American or not where movement is expected. However, rules of engagement are created to prevent the slaying of noncombatants to include civilians and medical personnel in the like. These rules are not concrete, but in fact, they are very fluid so as to prevent ambiguity in changing circumstances. Marines with nervous trigger fingers make following such rules very difficult.

machine guns and artillery bring upon the GIs. He jolts back to reality by desperate pleas for

It can be hard to fully comprehend the effects the Vietnam War had on not just the veterans, but the nation as a whole. The violent battles and acts of war became all too common during the long years of the conflict. The war warped the soldiers and civilians characters and desensitized their mentalities to the cruelty seen on the battlefield. Bao Ninh and Tim O’Brien, both veterans of the war, narrate their experiences of the war and use the loss of love as a metaphor for the detrimental effects of the years of fighting.