Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

“United States Registered Nurse Workforce Report Card and Shortage Forecast.” American Journal of Medical Quality. January 2012

Not only was it just O’Brien that felt the guilt, his friend Norman Bowker also felt as much guilt as everyone else did. A Native American named Kiowa, another one of Tim’s best friends, carried around the New Testament because that is what helped him get through the hard days during war. Kiowa died when he was caught under heavy mortar, he was buried underneath the muck. “If it had been possible, which it wasn't, he would have explained how his friend Kiowa slipped away that night beneath the dark swampy field. He was folded in with the war; he was part of the waste” (p. 147). Norman Bowker did everything he could to keep Kiowa alive, unfortunately it did not work. Bowker was awarded seven medals during war but he thought that if he could have saved Kiowa he could have got the The Silver Star of Valor award. He was left with the responsibility of Kiowa’s death, he felt very guilty and ashamed. “There were many bodies, real bodies with real faces, but I was young then and I was afraid to look. And now, twenty years later, I'm left with faceless responsibility and faceless grief” (p.

The trauma that is attached to all of these sudden life changing injuries often lead back to substance abuse, alcohol abuse that is attached to a mental illness which takes a toll on a soldiers family as well. Ann Jones writes in her book, They were Soldiers: How Americas wounded come home the untold story, "Sooner or later almost every American soldier comes home on a stretcher, in a box, in an altered state of mind." As the wars in foreign countries ends, the war continues on in within our soldiers.

Over 2,400 Americans killed at Pearl Harbor with over 60 of them being civilians , the nation decided to declared war on Japan the very next day. According to one of the soldiers he stated that when he went into the hospitals that they were many men wounded .The soldier went to all of those injured soldiers and now matter how hurt they were, they wanted him to send a note to their parents telling them that they will be alright, even though most of them died that night .The hospitals were full of the injured and the soldiers was dying fast, no one knew what to do. Nurses were cut short.The Navy Nurses faced the terrifying things of war from its first day. The rest of the Navy medical workforce, they treated the incoming casualties with self-sacrificing devotion. Most of these nurses went without sleep or rest for several days. Since the nurses helped so much taking care of the injured, many lives were saved.Over 800 Navy Nurses were on duty serving in the Navy Nurse Corps at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. The inactive Reserve Corps numbered over 900

Grown up in an age of security, we shared a yearning for danger, for the experience of the extraordinary. We were enraptured by war…Surely the war had to supply us with what we wanted; the great, the overwhelming, the hallowed experience. We thought of it as manly, as action… ‘No finer death in all the world than…’Anything to participate and not have to stay at home!

The general argument made by Robert Muller in his article “Death Becomes Us: The Psychological Trauma of Killing” is that veterans who experience killing develop trauma based on their ability to humanize their victim. He explains how the “cost of war” is measured by damage in money amounts, such as the number of casualties.

It is a full-length study of the history of the Army Nurse Corps in World War II. She interviewed with many “World War II women veterans- Army nurses, WACs, Women Marines, SPARS, and WASPs” to get their stories and personal memories of their experience in the field. She used information from personal interviews, meetings with former army nurses, official army reports, and the memoirs of Theresa Archbard and Ruth Haskell. Throughout the book, the author made sure to “emphasize the experiences of the nurses themselves, quoting them directly whenever possible in an effort to let the women speak for themselves”, but she also includes how the “U.S. Army Nurse Corps mobilized, expanded, and adapted to the demands of a world war”.

The short story “The Things They Carried” written by Tim O’Brien is a short story that is about the struggles of the soldiers in the Vietnam War. The story shows and also explains what the soldiers had to go through each day in the war. The short story “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien suggest that the soldiers were not only affected in a physical way but also in a mental way. One of the mental ways that affected the soldiers was thinking about their loved ones. Another way that affected the soldiers was the respect and care the soldiers had for each other. Fear was also one of the biggest ways that the soldiers were affected mentally.

Many soldiers were very stressed during the post-war era. This was all because of them not knowing if they were going to make it out to their families ever again. After seeing how many soldiers were killed during World War Two, they weren’t sure if they were going to live. To

Women all over the United States came together to join the United States Army Nurse Corps, a group that was formally established in 1901.3 The Nurse Corps was a nursing service that provided a qualified nursing staff in support of the Department of Defense medical plans and was made up entirely of registered nurses. More than 59,000 American nurses served in the Army Nurse Corps during World War II.4 After the Army Medical Department established the "chain of evacuation", nurses served in field hospitals, evacuation hospitals, hospital trains and

One of the organizations that helped to save the lives of soldiers was the Army Nurse Corporation. All of the volunteers were women between twenty and forty years of age. Throughout this war only five Army nurses died. In addition to the Army Nurse Corporation there were many civilian nurses. The civilian nurses were associated with the USO, the Red Cross, the Army Special Services, the Peace Corp, and many different religious groups. These nurses treated both American and Viet Cong soldiers.

Pain is an inevitable factor of war and being apart of the military, which many soldiers try to ignore and get over. However this pain is extremely hard to overcome and eventually comes back to haunt there bodies and minds. Civilians in occupied countries are also devastated and manipulated by the fatality of war. The war offensives in these countries cause further mistrust and insecurity between different countries and cultures. The mistrust and lack of communication between the two different cultures lead to a misunderstanding.

In just over two hours the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii was attacked by the Japanese Navy on Dec 7 by a launched attack that took everyone by surprise. The Japanese, afraid that the news of Pearl Harbors attack would be heard, attacked the American naval and army bases, airfields, and ports in the Philippine Islands on December 8, 1941. Many in the Philippines were enjoying an afternoon lunch and oblivious to what was coming. Several thousand soldiers and sailors had been killed or badly wounded after the initial attacks on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines. Nurses’ on-duty and off-duty sprang into action. They found themselves almost overwhelmed by all the slaughter. Nurses were running around filling syringes with morphine, and administering injections to kill the pain and quiet the screams. Others were performing triages, making immediate decisions on who might live and who might die. These are things they would read about, never actually have to do in real life. Their tour in paradise as one nurse put it, was about to turn into an exercise in anxiety and distress. American and Filipino nurses were brought in from many different areas to help aid the wounded. Most women were under the impression that

It is ingrained in soldier’s minds that to die for ones country is a great and honourable sacrifice.

Hardships and sacrifices are sure to come from entering any war, circumstances and experiences for each soldier will be vary immensely as is such with war. Yet the way in which the soldiers approach their reason to make it through the war will be almost identical as shown by