Conflicts in 'The Things They Carried' Essay

“Once people are dead, you can’t make them undead” (O’Brien 39). In The Things They Carried written by Tim O’Brien, the author mainly depicts the American soldier’s life in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. In 1954, the U.S., under the Eisenhower Administration, became involved in the Vietnam Conflict. However, controversies about whether America should get involved in Vietnam began rising as the conflict intensified. Likewise, O’Brien describes the dispute that was going on within the country in the 1960s. “The very facts were shrouded in uncertainty...The only certainty that summer was moral confusion” (38). Despite this contention, the United States was not justified in getting involved in the Vietnam Conflict because the government misguided the public and the people opposed the intervention.

Vietnam is a Communist country located in Southeast Asia, but it was ruled by different types of governments in previous eras. Since the 19th century, the country had reigned under French rule until Japan took it over during World War II. Yet after the new host lost the war in 1945, Vietnam was returned to the French Empire. The North Vietnamese, who demanded the liberation of Vietnam, started a war with France afterward, and the latter was eventually defeated. This also gave rise to the South Vietnamese power. In addition, as a result of the war, The Geneva Accord of 1954 said that Vietnam was “partitioned into North and South” parts (Edidin 181). Then, conflicts between the two districts began generating.

The U.S. originally started getting involved in the conflict in 1954 when military advisors were sent by the government to help the South Vietnamese Army (Edidin 181). In 1956, the fierce conflict began as America acknowledged the independence of the South Vietnamese. Eight years later, the U.S. escalated the war because of the conflict in the Gulf of Tonkin (“Tonkin Gulf”). After years of ruthless battles, the Nixon Administration signed the peace agreement with the North Vietnamese on January 17, 1973, and all the American troops were withdrawn from Vietnam within 12 days, announcing America’s final stage in the conflict.

William Timothy “Tim” O'Brien had attended the “war” in person. He was born on October 1, 1946, in Austin, MN. During his younger age, O'Brien wasn’t good at playing sports, instead, he spent “a great deal of time in the Noble’s County Library” to satisfy himself (Mahini et al.). In 1968, before he received his draft to go to the war, he acquired his Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from Macalester College. Though he was strongly against this war at first, he eventually committed himself to the 23rd Infantry Division in Vietnam after giving up the idea of fleeing to Canada. He spent 14 months in Vietnam as a soldier and finally became a sergeant. After returning from the war, he devoted himself to political studies at Harvard University while taking “medication to combat his depression and the double trauma that made him contemplate suicide” (Mahini et al.). Not only did he once work as a reporter for the Washington Post, but he also became a fiction writer which brought him plenty of literary rewards. One of his famous works was The Things They Carried in which he highlighted the Vietnam Conflict. This also raises the question of whether America had a justified reason to join the “war” or not.

Nonetheless, the U.S. was not justified in getting herself involved. First and foremost, the government had misguided the American public. On August 2, 1964, the North Vietnamese attacked two American vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin located in international water. Some people believed that the U.S. should join the conflict because they had to protect their military (“Tonkin Gulf”). According to Walter Cronkite, a famous American reporter, the Tonkin Gulf Resolution drafted by Congress had granted President Lyndon B. Johnson the “authority to conduct the war as he saw fit” (110). However, this was a political scheme exerted by the government to figure out a justified reason for the country to join the “war”. The first flaw was the time difference between the two subjects: the resolution was drafted six months before the actual Tonkin Gulf Incident took place (“Tonkin Gulf”). In addition, the article also points out that it was America who provoked the North Vietnamese to open fire on U.S. vessels by assisting the South Vietnamese to secretly attack the North. Therefore, the argument that the U.S. should join the conflict because of the Tonkin Gulf Incident was invalid.

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In addition, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s leadership was mostly self-centered. During the 1964 presidential election, he had claimed to the public that he would get American troops out of Vietnam. However, he deceived his people because he still kept the armies fighting in Vietnam in the following years (“Tonkin Gulf”). Also, according to Richard Brownell, a history writer, Johnson made decisions mostly based on his thinking and hardly listened to counterviews (42). Even though Johnson told the Under Secretary of State, George Ball, to remain in the discussion group, the president simply wanted to pretend that he was willing to listen to opposite views while he was not (Brownell 47). Additionally, Cronkite believes that Johnson had taken the whole “war” personally because he kept thinking about taking all “his” armies and weapons into the battles in Vietnam(111). It was not the country’s military, but “his” own. Through many of his words and actions, Johnson’s self-oriented leadership had been incarnated.

Furthermore, the government had also attempted to ignore some official documents. Knowing that if a vote about whether the U.S. should declare war on Vietnam was carried out, the country would be scattered up, the government simply chose to eschew the vote, and this circumvention was a violation of the American Constitution (Getting Out). Also, Jerome Slater, a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, states that the U.S. government decided to cut Vietnam into two independent countries while The Geneva Accord only said that Vietnam was divided up “temporarily into two zones” instead of two separate nations (297). America had, therefore, neglected two crucial documents to interfere in the conflict in Vietnam, and these were unrighteous movements.

In addition to the government’s narrow leadership, the U.S. public’s opposition to the conflict was another evidence of why the country should not join the “war”. Some people believed that the country needed to stop Communism earlier, which was the motif of the Domino Theory before it became unstoppable because they had learned from the experience of Adolf Hitler’s insatiable requirements for lands in the previous World War (Frankel 294). The theory was inaccurate, however, because the Vietnam Conflict began as an indigenous movement until America started “international aggression” (Slater 296). The real intention of America, stated by Slater, was to “keep in power anti-communist military dictatorships” (298). Most importantly, the fact that instead of the whole of Southeast Asia, only two countries in the region--Laos and Cambodia--were ruled under Communism after Vietnam’s falling demonstrated America’s overestimation of the theory. Hence, the Domino Theory should not be the justified reason why the public hoped their country to fight in an indigenous war in Vietnam.

Moreover, the people of America were shocked by the colossal damages and casualties that occurred during the war. O’Brien wrote: “They burned everything. They shot chicken and dogs, they trashed the village well, they called in artillery and watched the wreckage” (15). Villages were destroyed by armies from both sides, but this was not the only ravage. Noncombatants were killed indiscriminately as well due to the use of massive artillery (Slater 299). Mahini and other researchers deemed that even though O’Brien never specifically mentioned that killing innocent civilians was illegal, this behavior was actually against the U.S. Law of War. Vietnam, as a whole, was grievously devastated as a result of the conflict. Jerome Slater claims that Vietnam was “a country that—regrettably—had to be destroyed to be saved” (299). In other words, the brutal armies and the crude battles had left prodigious impressions on Americans. Gradually, people’s rage boosted within the country, and the Tet Offensive played a significant role in the burst of resentment among Americans (Brownell 51). On January 30, 1968, the South Vietnamese and American troops were surprisingly under attack from the North Vietnamese Army. However, the southern allied power was able to fight back within eight weeks after their initial losses. Eventually, the South Vietnamese won the battle. Nevertheless, the victory proved almost nothing to the people in America. On the contrary, the public’s discontent grew dramatically because they saw no hope in the battles (Fonda A50). They were shocked that the North Vietnamese could still launch such a bulky attack after nearly a decade of fighting (Edidin 183). Therefore, it seemed like this “war” would be endless, and anti-Vietnam War protests had grown dramatically, attempting to get their country out of Vietnam. Above all, these boycotts served as another embodiment of the public’s indignation against the “war”.

Even though the Vietnam War has ended for decades already, it still has a profound influence on U.S. society. For instance, in 2004, President George W. Bush, under pressure from the public, had to give speeches about America’s involvement in the Iraq War because, according to Peter Edidin, an editor of the New York Times and a culture writer, they were worried that Iraq would become “another Vietnam” (180). Also, he claimed that the harm and deaths caused by the “war” would never be cured for the soldiers (180). One Army Major, Colin Powell, wrote that the “U.S. should fight a war only with decisive force and vital interests at stake” while this was not the case in the particular war in Vietnam (Fonda A50). Therefore, to avoid further tragedies, the countries should learn from history and prevent any war in the future.

Admittedly, America’s intervention in Vietnam has been controversial since the 1960s. Some believed that the country was justified in getting involved because of the “Red Scare” and the right to protect their armies after being attacked by foreign powers. However, this was not righteous because the government had ignored the public’s opposition and views. Accompanied by the exertion of political gimmicks, the presidents and the Congress made their own, one-sided decisions while telling lies to the public. This generated people’s resentment and rages. As the conflict intensified, more and more Americans realized its brutality and then protested. Unfortunately, they were shot down by the government. This war had incurred great damages and traumas to the lands and human beings, and here come the questions: How could a decision that had overlooked the public’s opinion be justified for the entire country, and how should the nations learn to prevent wars like this henceforth?