The Mental Consequences Of Drafting Soldiers

We have all seen or read about the political and social upheavals caused by war. Some may have even experienced it first-hand. Throughout history war has had negative psychological implications on those effected. However, there is no greater negative impact of war than the psychological and emotional turmoil that it causes individual soldiers.

When men go off to fight a war, they often carry more emotional baggage than actual, physical baggage. “They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing - these were the intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight.” (page 20) The war messes with their heads, causes them to become paranoid, scared, and anxious all hours of the day and night. Ted Lavender, who was terrified of his own shadow in Vietnam,

"You just don 't know," she said. "You hide in this little fortress, behind wire and sandbags, and you don 't know what it 's all about. Sometimes I want to eat this place. Vietnam. I want to swallow the whole country—the dirt, the death—I just want to eat it and have it there inside me. That 's how I feel. It 's like . . . this appetite. I get scared sometimes—lots of times—but it 's not bad. You know? I feel close to myself. When I 'm out there at night, I feel close to my own body, I can feel my blood moving, my skin and my fingernails, everything, it 's like I 'm full of electricity and I 'm glowing in the dark—I 'm on fire almost—I 'm burning away into nothing—but it doesn 't matter because I know exactly who I am. You can 't feel like that anywhere else."” (O’ Brien 80-81). Tim O’ Brien shows how being in contact with the war can change a person so pure and innocent to a person who isn’t in connection with themselves and is forever trapped inside their own mind. Also it shows how the people who can’t handle the rough environment of war can have a terrible reaction and loose themselves. He also shows how the war changes you mentally making it hard for you to tell if the is the real you or just a persona you took when you couldn’t handle it anymore and needed to mask your broken soul.

Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” is based on what soldiers went through facing war, and what they carried physically as well as emotionally. All of this pressure from war can cause and has caused post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the soldiers. “PTSD is the development of a set of symptoms in the aftermath of psychologically distressing event—an event “outside the range of normal human experience.”” (Roberts 3). PTSD is a disorder that can happen to anyone, but many see it diagnosed in war veterans, from the effects of war. This disorder can ranges from outburst to solitude and can affect each person in a different way. Some symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder are re-experiencing or flashbacks,

During the war, many soldiers get injured, incapacitated, and/or killed; thus physical wounds are something that every soldier accepts both mentally and physically. Tim O’Brien is shot twice during the war. The first time he is shot, the medic Rat risks his life to help Tim, but when he was shot the second time the new medic Jorgenson is too afraid to move, and Tim nearly dies from shock. This injury has a big impact on Tim, and he is not only physically wounded but also psychologically as he was traumatized from the incident. Tim suffers a lot from his wound. For example, he says that “a couple of weeks later my ass started to rot away. You could actually peel off chunks of skin with your fingernail” (190) but the worst part for him is the shame. Tim O’Brien explains that “Pride isn't the right word. I don't know the right word. All I know is, you shouldn't feel embarrassed. Humiliation shouldn't be part of it” (191) and this is why he wants to take revenge of Jorgenson. Although Tim overcomes the physical wound, he can’t let go of the emotional wounds

For the seventeen Soldiers portrayed in “The Things We Carried” by Tim O’Brien, the physical pain was very minimal weight to carry compared to the emotional scars that they will carry throughout their entire life. This story does an amazing job portraying full human emotion that anyone put into a situation would feel, such as heavy guilt, sadness, anger, lack of motivation, perseverance, horror, and false security. All of these are notorious feelings that every soldier back in history, and now still feel when they are on a mission. “The Things They carried” shows a deep vulnerability of everyday human’s thought process during times of great stress, that before, wasn’t considered by the general public and media when speaking about what it

. . . Like I was losing myself, everything spilling out” (O’Brien 202). Provided with only laconic, expository definitions, an audience cannot truly feel the pains of war. O’Brien utilizes descriptions which evoke all the senses and submerge the audience in the unique and powerful sensations of war. Witnessing war’s pains through the familiar tactile crunch of an ornament or the splash of liquid spilling, the audience can immediately understand the inconceivable pressure placed on the soldier’s injured body. O’Brien continues, “All I could do was scream. . . . I tightened up and squeezed. . . . then I slipped under for a while” (203). His abrupt syntax and terse diction conveys a quickness to these events. Not bothering with extraneous adornment, his raw images transport the audience to the urgency of the moment and the severity of the pain. Now supplied with an eyewitness’s perspective of war’s injuries, the audience can begin to recognize the significance of the suffering. O’Brien tells his audience, “Tinny sounds get heightened and distorted. . . . There was rifle fire somewhere off to my right, and people yelling, except none of it seemed real anymore. I smelled myself dying” (203). In the same frame, O’Brien paints the rumbling chaos of the big war juxtaposed with the slow death of the small individual. His description emphasizes the purposeless discord and confusion of war and seeks to condemn its disorder. He argues that war’s lack of

Actions tested there ethical and moral values. After this point these soldiers have to cope with the cause and effect from their actions. Coping can cause mental illnesses, and addiction but also you can cope with these some things plus more things such as love, and mortality. This is the most important struggle that had to take care of for their survival. But why is this still relevant to today's society? Tim o’brien used many methods while writing this book to help the reader to understand the soldiers experiences and feelings throughout the war. These methods include imagery, repetition, hyperbole, metaphors, allusions, and many

Most authors who write about war stories write vividly; this is the same with Tim O’Brien as he describes the lives of the soldiers by using his own experiences as knowledge. In his short story “The Things They Carried” he skillfully reveals realistic scenes that portray psychological, physical and mental burdens carried by every soldier. He illustrates these burdens by discussing the weights that the soldiers carry, their psychological stress and the mental stress they have to undergo as each of them endure the harshness and ambiguity of the Vietnam War. One question we have to ask ourselves is if the three kinds of burdens carried by the soldier’s are equal in size? “As if in slow motion, frame by frame, the world would take on the old

In this book, Tim O’brien reveals all his experiences in detail about the war; as well as stories about his fellow soldiers, and makes a true, but over the top about them. He explains how he feels through stories that are difficult to clearly identify as “true.” This book has a lot of themes, death and violence is one of the major themes.

Leaving soldiers as a shell of a human being, the torment of war is everlasting. Despite being off the battlefield, soldiers suffer from mental and physical distress long after the war is over. Soldiers have to relearn how to participate in society, and for some the impact of war destroys the concept of normal life altogether. The pain and sorrow of soldiers can be put into words through rhetorical devices. These devices, through the use of specific language, describe in detail the ways in which war physically and mentally changed soldiers. Further stressing this change, rhetorical devices reveal that once a soldier is deployed the concept of normalcy is destroyed. The Things They Carried, written by Tim O’Brien perfectly demonstrates through

War has fascinated since the beginning of time for what they reveal about the human condition in its worst squalor as in its greatness. “Maybe Vietnam is best seen through a shattered helicopter windshield. “Chickenhawk” is one bloody, painfully honest, and courageous book”, recognizes Martin Cruz Smith. “Chickenhawk” is Robert Mason’s narrative of personal experience which deals chronologically with his training in Vietnam. Through this description of war, Mason distinguishes the physical part of war and the psychological phase. He also demonstrates that the expressive aspect controls the physical. Consequently, this indication has remained intact. Tim O’Brien in his fictional story "The Things They Carried," voices the idea that the psychological burdens overshadow the physical pain that the soldiers must carry: "They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing--these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight" (O’Brien 926). O’Brien claims that horror, longing, responsibility, and uncertainty that the soldiers experience outweigh the physical agony that they must resist to survive, loads that are lightened only a little by the willing to return home.

For the character Tim O' Brien there is one physical "thing" he carried and two emotional "things". The one physical "thing" that Tim carried were the three standard weapons. Tim the writer never wanted to go to war in fact he was too embarrassed but when Tim the soldier went to war he learned quickly he needed protection. Tim the writer states " In addition to the three standard weapons -- the M-60,M-16 and M-79-- they carried whatever presented itself, or whatever seemed appropriate as a means of killing or staying alive. " (O'Brien 7).

Struggles of the Soldier War takes a toll on the mind, body, and soul. Throughout history, the soldier has struggled to push through the barriers war provides. There are records of the soldier’s insanity and suffering dating back to World War I, shown in All Quiet on the Western Front. His comrades are the only ones that understand what he is dealing with, and the soldier feels isolated when surrounded by civilians. It is difficult to survive mentally because of the horrific things the soldier deals with, which often cause the soldier to develop mental disorders.

Military Pathway (2013) concluded “Military life, especially the stress of deployments or mobilizations, can present challenges to service members and their families that are both unique and difficult”. Hence, it is not surprising that soldiers returning from a stressful war environment often suffer from a psychological condition called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. This paper provides a historical perspective of PTSD affecting soldiers, and how this illness has often been ignored. In addition, the this paper examines the cause and diagnosis of the illness, the changes of functional strengths and limitations, the overall effects this disease may have on soldiers and their families, with a conclusion of