How To Kill A Soldier In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried is a book written by Tim O’ Brien about the destruction of war and the effect on the soldiers. His decision to kill someone was one of the hardest decisions he has ever had to make in his life. To make a decision like this is not as simple as most people think it can be. Many factors play into this, to be able to kill someone is going against morality people face today especially by society. I honestly could not make the decision to kill a man unless my life is at stake. “I’d come to this war a quiet, thoughtful sort of person, a college grad, Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude, all the credentials, but after seven months in the bush I realized that those high, civilized trappings had somehow been crushed under the weight
They were used to simple rules followed by society, knowing that killing is bad, your not allowed to drink alcohol under 21, and simply how to stop at a stoplight. Your morality is twisted and turned by the effects of war as killing once may have been bad in society but when you're faced against the dilemma that it's either “kill or be killed” the soldiers thoughts and emotions change drastically in that moment and forever. In society it's a rare moment to even come close to dying on a daily basis, whereas these soldiers are faced with almost dying every day instantaneously, they change because the set of rules they may have been used to following have changed. Killing may have been bad but now they are forced to survive without even taking a second thought to as if what they are doing is bad. If they had the moment to think about it in their thoughts they would be thinking about how the people they are killing may have families, be somebody's son/daughter, somebody's brother, somebody's lover,etc. If they were not forced to do this their morality and emotions wouldn't let most of them be able to do