The War at Home and Abroad in Tim O’Brien’s "The Things They Carried"

In Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, the Vietnam War is shown to be a war fought both in the jungles of South Pacific Asia and at home, by the families of soldiers and anti-war activists. The Vietnam War was a conflict that started in 1954 and ended in 1975 between the communist North Vietnamese and the Capitalist South Vietnamese, aided by the United States. While the war in Vietnam raged on, there was also turmoil brewing on home soil. In O’Brien’s novel, the war scenes are extremely vivid, and echo other war stories told by Vietnam Veterans. Along with the realistic war stories, O’Brien’s tales of the United States shed light on anti-war sentiments that would take hold of the nation’s youth.

The Vietnam War was fought in Southeast Asia that lasted from 1954 to 1975. The two opposing sides were the communist North Vietnam (Vietkong) and the capitalist South Vietnam, who was being aided by the United States. The communist North attempted to take over the capitalist South, lead by Diem. Their tactics included an invasion from the North and guerrilla warfare techniques. The war was escalated by Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy who sent increasing numbers of American troops to South Vietnam in the late 1950’s and 1960’s. Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson increased the military presence even further until there were 500,000 US soldiers were in Vietnam. The American’s objectives ended up being very hard to achieve, and the soldiers came across many setbacks, both every day challenges and large issues such as the TET offensive. The TET offensive was a plan devised by the Vietcong, they would attack US soldiers on a holiday. This plan used the element of surprise to cause many casualties to both si...

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