An Analysis of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in the Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

American troops evacuated Saigon, South Vietnam on March 25, 1973. Three million veterans survived a tour of duty in Southeast Asia. 58,000 died there. For thousands who returned, the war was not over. Some estimates are that another 50,000 veterans have died due to psychological disorders related to experienced events of the war. This disorder is called

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The qualifications of PTSD can be found in Tim O'Brien's short story, "The Things They Carried".

Men in earlier wars have also shown symptoms of PTSD. It was called by various names: cowardice, lack of military discipline, "shell shock", "war neurosis", stress reaction, battle fatigue, accident neurosis. We now know that PTSD affects hundreds of thousands of people who have been exposed to and survived disasters such as airplane crashes, violent assault, rape, sexual abuse, and war. Psychiatrists estimate that up to 10 percent of the population have been affected by PTSD.

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The following cluster of symptoms characterizes PTSD: 1. The person experienced, witnessed an event that involved actual or threatened death.

The person's response involved intense fear, helplessness or horror.

Symptoms (abbreviated list) include: the traumatic event is persistently reexperienced by recollections, recurrent dreams, feeling as if the event were recurring, distress at exposure to cues that resemble the traumatic event, avoidance of stimuli and numbing of general responsiveness and persistent symptoms of increased arousal such as exaggerated startle response, hyper vigilance, difficulty concentrating, difficulty with sleep, and irritability or outbursts of anger. (DSM-IV, 427) Since the story. "The Things They Carried" (O'Brien, 1-25) does not include follow-up on the men involved, I will be focusing on what I consider to be the events and emotional stress which could have introduced these soldiers to PTSD. The soldiers responses to these events and the emotions brought out by them are apparent throughout the book and especially evident in certain quotes.

The events that take place during war are often uncontrollable but the guilt always falls on oneself.

"...Lieutenant Cross felt the pain. He blamed himself....smoking the dead man's dope... Ted Lavender was dead because he loved her (his girlfriend Martha) so much and could not stop thinking about her... Afterward they burned Than Khe." (O'Brien pg.8) By daylight they took sniper fire, at night they were mortared....it was just the endless march, village to village, without purpose, nothing won or lost...the war was entirely a matter of posture and carriage, the hump was everything, a kind of inertia, a kind of emptiness, a dullness of desire and intellect and conscience and hope and human sensibility. Their principles were in their feet. (pg.15)... The pressures were enormous....Lieutenant Jimmy Cross led his men into the village of Than Khe. They burned everything. They shot chickens and dogs, they trashed the village well, they called in artillery and watched the wreckage....while Kiowa explained how Lavender died, Lieutenant Cross found himself trembling.

It can be argued that these extreme reactions were brought about due to the stress of war and overbearing emotions of helplessness.

Many of the soldiers turned to drugs to try and cope and or escape from haunting memories of combat. This was easier than dealing with such a harsh reality. Physical and mental side effects of drug abuse are preferred to the distress of war.

... Ted Lavender popped a tranquilizer... He was twenty-two years old. (referring to Lt. Cross) (O'Brien 12) ...Kiowa sighed.... The Lieutenants in some deep hurt....the man cares... He wished he could find some great sadness, or even anger, but the emotion wasn't there and he couldn't make it happen. Mostly he felt pleased to be alive... He enjoyed not being dead....he wanted to care as Jimmy Cross cared...all he could think of was Boom-down. (O'Brien 17-18) It is very apparent that we see evidence of recurring trauma, feelings of helplessness, and terror. We see intrusive symptoms of recollecting Lavender's death, "deep hurt", insomnia; grieving and impacted grief (Kiowa wishing he could grieve). The numbing and dissociating process was vigorously pursued with tranquilizers and marijuana. We also see the Lieutenant taking personal responsibility and making himself emotionally "harder".

Perhaps at this point in the lives of the soldiers, they were still experiencing the traumatic situations of the war, one can assign the diagnosis of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Given the trauma of the war and the ensuing trauma of returning to a society which did not acknowledge their sacrifice and indeed were not supportive of the war, left those who survived to deal with there traumatic events on there own.

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