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Mental Health Of Soldiers In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

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Mental Health Of Soldiers According to FHEHealth “between 2001 and 2014, the number of veterans committing suicide rose above 20 per day”. Veterans are suffering mentally to the point of suicide because of post-traumatic stress disorder from the trauma they experienced. As O’Brien writes about his stories he explains the effects war has on soldiers. War causes soldiers to become numb to death and the trauma from the war leaves them with PTSD, in The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien demonstrates that war ruins soldiers' mental health. War makes soldiers emotionless and numb to gruesome events and death. When approached with things they can't handle, soldiers do gruesome things. After the death of Curt Lemon Rat Kiley “stepped back and shot …show more content…

After experiencing massive amounts of trauma Soldiers break down and have flashbacks. After having to walk a few nights in pitch black Rat Kily “broke down in front of Mitchell Sanders. Not crying, but up against it. He said he was scared. And it wasn't normal scared. [...] Always policing up the parts, he said. Always plugging up holes. Sometimes he'd stare at guys who were still okay, the alive guys, and he'd start to picture how they'd look dead. Without arms or legs [...] he couldn't shut off the pictures”(O’Brien 211). Following the experience of extreme trauma people will be permanently affected by PTSD and the trauma will work its way into the daily life of the person through images and flashbacks. When people reach the limit of trauma they can handle they will break down and become permanently scarred. The horrors of war and the gruesome events they experienced haunt Soldiers for the rest of their life. When civilians felt like they missed out by not fighting in Vietnam O’Brien responded with “Well, you missed out on having your legs blown off and you missed out on having nightmares the rest of your life. You missed out on horror” (O’Brien “Civilians” 31). War causes soldiers to witness many horrors giving rise to nightmares when their brains try to process the trauma and horrific acts they witnessed. Veterans who returned with PTSD could never go back to their life before the war. After the Vietnam War ended “returning Vietnam war veterans struggled to readjust to normal life; many suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder”(USHistory.org). PTSD caused veterans to be haunted by their memories of the war making returning to the regular life of a civilian impossible. Veterans that struggled with PTSD were denied help from others and treated as outcasts causing their mental health to fall even more. PTSD caused by war permanently affected soldiers working into

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