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Ptsd In The Things They Carried

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The Vietnam War was very different from the past wars. There were a lot more cases of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) among soldiers than any other wars http://historyofptsd.umwblogs.org/vietnam/ . In ‘The Things They Carried’, a book about the Vietnam War written by Tim O’Brien, using the psychological lense can help us understand how wars can change a person’s mental state dramatically. It can show us what soldiers had to carry during the war, including intangibles, like fear and guilt. These men had to fight a war that the U.S. did not have to be involved in and it changed their whole life. After the Vietnam War, soldier’s attitudes, emotions, and thinking had changed who they are and become.
The Things They Carried (1990), written …show more content…

Rat was a Medic for the team, comic books are his thing, and it keeps him calm during the war. He struggles with PTSD more than any of the characters. Rat and his best friend Curt Lemon were walking around one day and all of a sudden Curt steps on a landmine and blows up, just like that… There was nothing to do at this point, one moment of carelessness and his best friend was gone. There was nothing else he could do, seeing his best friend blow up and his body flying away just stops his brain from working. Also as a medic, he didn’t know what to do, and that leaves him with a lot of weight to carry. Rat seemed like he lost half of himself after Lemon’s death, like he couldn’t show emotion anymore. His feelings were fading as the war went on, he didn’t know who he was or what he was doing anymore. He was removed from the war by shooting his foot, that shows the limits of what a soldier can take to escape the war. Rat left the war with unfixed psychological issues. Seeing his best friend died in a blink of an eye when he thought there was no danger could change him dramatically. Rat didn’t just lose his teammates, he also lost his mind. As a Medic, knowing that you can’t rescue someone and them just dying makes you carry a lot of

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