Vietnam Veterans
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder seems far more prevalent in Vietnam War veterans than in those of other wars: fifteen out of one hundred Vietnam Veterans have combat-related PTSD as compared to one out of twenty World War II veterans, a ten percent difference (“How Common is PTSD”). Although it is nearly impossible to pinpoint the root cause for the rise in PTSD in this generation of veterans, there are many factors that could have contributed to this rising issue. Many used to believe that these veterans were simply young, immature boys dragged into the war by the draft and were unable to cope with the pressures of combat: the average age for a soldier in Vietnam was nineteen and in World War II it was twenty-six (Roark 838). However, every
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The Vietnam War was the first conflict that the United States was involved in which the enemy used complex networks of booby traps. Of course, even World War II had landmines and other hazards, but in Vietnam it was different. The traps used by the Vietcong were made using simple items, not easy to track or spot. Examples of such traps were a hole covered with leaves and sticks, but once stepped upon, one would fall to the bottom where long, sharpened bamboo rods had been buried and trip wires, which looked like nothing more than vines, that would set off land mines or bamboo spears that would swing down from a tree and into the group of soldiers; these were scattered all across the terrain of Vietnam. In this war there was no frontline, no visible enemy; friends were alive one minute and dead the next, but there was nothing anyone could do about it. In “The Things They Carried,” in order to cope with this environment or, more accurately, not cope with it, the soldiers “squealed or wanted to squeal but couldn’t, when they twitched and made moaning sounds and covered their heads and said Dear Jesus and flopped around the earth and fired their weapons blindly and cringed and sobbed and wished for the noise to stop” (O’Brien 1308). No one can last long in that situation without all the pent up grief eventually erupting (Dennis). The soldiers in “The Things They Carried,” after Ted Lavender died, went to a village called Than Khe and burned buildings, killed animals, and completely demolished everything (1307). This, of course, did not win many hearts of people in the United States and is the main reason for the anti-war movement, saying that the soldiers were over there to cause mayhem and not to solve the problem. However, these problems still afflicted many veterans even years after the war was over; as Yusef Komunyakaa writes in his poem “Facing It,” about a man staring at
The Vietnam War was the first conflict that the United States was involved in which the enemy used complex networks of booby traps. Of course, even World War II had landmines and other hazards, but in Vietnam it was different. The traps used by the Vietcong were made using simple items, not easy to track or spot. Examples of such traps were a hole covered with leaves and sticks, but once stepped upon, one would fall to the bottom where long, sharpened bamboo rods had been buried and trip wires, which looked like nothing more than vines, that would set off land mines or bamboo spears that would swing down from a tree and into the group of soldiers; these were scattered all across the terrain of Vietnam. In this war there was no frontline, no visible enemy; friends were alive one minute and dead the next, but there was nothing anyone could do about it. In “The Things They Carried,” in order to cope with this environment or, more accurately, not cope with it, the soldiers “squealed or wanted to squeal but couldn’t, when they twitched and made moaning sounds and covered their heads and said Dear Jesus and flopped around the earth and fired their weapons blindly and cringed and sobbed and wished for the noise to stop” (O’Brien 1308). No one can last long in that situation without all the pent up grief eventually erupting (Dennis). The soldiers in “The Things They Carried,” after Ted Lavender died, went to a village called Than Khe and burned buildings, killed animals, and completely demolished everything (1307). This, of course, did not win many hearts of people in the United States and is the main reason for the anti-war movement, saying that the soldiers were over there to cause mayhem and not to solve the problem. However, these problems still afflicted many veterans even years after the war was over; as Yusef Komunyakaa writes in his poem “Facing It,” about a man staring at