The Effects of the Vietnam War Through Tim O, Briens Novel: the Things They Carried

The Vietnam War was a place of death, destruction, and confusion. Not only was the war a failure, but many soldiers were forced to fight. This lead to many negative effects that I must bring to your attention in this paper. The negative effects on soldiers during and after the war were depression, regret, desensitization, insanity, and the loss of friends. One of the major and most common effects of the war was depression. It can lead to many things. Most of the time it leads to an unhappy lifestyle. For example, in the book the Things They Carried, Norman Bowker was very depressed after the war. He drove around all day on the 4th of July, just looking to tell his story. All he wanted was someone to listen to what he had to say and listen to his stories. He couldn’t believe that no one was even able to listen. Tim O’Brien also suffered from depression after the war. The causes of his depression were he went through the war, saw many people die, and saw the true brutality of the war. Many others lived a life of regret after the war. The most common reasons are seeing people die or killing people. Although, for Norman it was different. His regret was for the fact that he didn’t win the Silver Star. He just wanted to prove himself to his father. For example, Tim O’Brien also had some regrets. He saw many people die and even killed someone. He said it happened so fast he didn’t even realize it. It was just an automatic response. Then his daughter asked him if he had ever killed someone. He wanted to tell her, but he knew she was just too young. He regretted not telling her because he didn’t want her to think he was a coward, and now he hopes she will ask again someday when she is older. A lot of soldiers were also desensitized. For example, Norman carried a boy’s thumb. Azar even blew up Lavender’s puppy with a claymore. He had no regret and he thought it was even funny. Tim saw many people and friends die,