Exploration 4: Brittany Kuykendall

Within the last five chapters in The Things They Carried, I noticed that emphasis is put on the feelings of telling these war stories more than the truth that the stories hold. This theme is important to the book because O’Brien begins to establish that the technical facts surrounding any of the stories told are less important than how the war affected soldiers and thus, the feeling that is portrayed within the story overall. A good quote that explains this theme is in this dialogue between O’Brien and his daughter Kathleen “‘Daddy tell the truth,’ Kathleen can say, ‘did you ever kill anybody?’ And I can say honestly ‘Of course not.’ Or I can say, honestly, ‘Yes.’” (O’Brien 172). You can begin to see that how Tim talks to Kathleen resembles how he is writing to the reader. I think this is showing that his relationship with his daughter mirrors O'Brien's relationship with us as readers. We haven’t been through war and don’t know how all of the soldiers must be feeling we can only guess and try to imagine just like Kathleen. As I was reading, I can definitely remember times where I was thinking “Man, why are they doing that?” Similar to when Kathleen was confused why O’Brien was getting into the muck.

Ashes of a Vietnam veteran that were driven from Texas to be left at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington D.C. 

A research question I have looked into more was how many soldiers actually come back from war and kill themselves? This question somewhat led me into a hole that I wasn’t prepared for. I found an article on ABC News that went into detail about suicide in general across America. There was a section though that focused on Vietnam war veterans with a leading cause being untreated PTSD. The Vietnam war went from 1955 to 1975 but PTSD was not recognized as a legitimate disorder in soldiers until 1980 and later. This left many soldiers isolated when all they wanted to do was fit into the workforce and find a purpose. Soldiers from Vietnam where not seen as hero’s much like soldiers from World War II. We see an example of that in The Things They Carried with Norman Bowker trying to find a place in society. As for numbers, the article says that in 2012 “The greatest increases in suicide rates were among people aged 50 to 54 years (48 percent) and 55 to 59 years (49 percent)” which is the age range Vietnam vets are now.

Sources:
James, Susan Donaldson. “Suicide Rate Spikes in Vietnam Vets Who Won’t Seek Help.” ABC News, ABC News Network, 3 May 2012, abcnews.go.com/Health/vietnam-vets-highest-rates-suicide-alongside-baby-boomers/story?id=19100593.