¶ … psychological consequences of war, of fighting in a war, of eating and sleeping in a "war zone," are not merely limited to the implications of witnessing and partaking in death; war deeply influences the mental attitudes of those involved because of the organizational framework of power and authority that soldiers are subject to. The common assumption is that soldiers' troubles coping with war are somehow linked to the extraordinary violence that conflict entails. However, significant trauma often stems from the apparently irrational framework soldiers are asked to operate under. The novel The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien reflects the fact that the lens through which soldiers view war -- as they are in it and afterwards -- is necessarily attuned to the way in which the military is structured; its seeming randomness and often nonsensical consequences are not overlooked by the individual soldier, and contribute to his fundamental troubles coping with combat. The military dogmas and norms express themselves in unique ways, contributing to the psychological maladies prevalent in ordinary soldiers. Fundamentally, this is what the symbolism within the novel aims to demonstrate: the intimate relationship between suffering and responsibility in war. Tim O'Brien presents his very real interpretations of the Vietnam War through fictional processes. In attempting to explain his methods O'Brien writes,

"For instance, I want to tell you this: twenty years ago I watched a man die on a trail near the village of My Khe. I did not kill him. But I was present, you see, and my presence was guilt...

I remember his face, which was not a pretty face, because his jaw was in his throat, and I remember feeling the burden of responsibility and grief. I blamed myself. And rightly so, because I was present. But listen. Even that story is made up." (O'Brien, 179).
O'Brien's point is this: these fictional tales somehow capture more of the truth because they more accurately depict the truth of emotion, which is fundamentally different from the physical truth of events. O'Brien's intention is to accurately depict the psychological phenomena of soldiers in modern warfare; how young boys from the cities, towns, and countryside of America can be wrenched from their ordinary social conditions and dropped in a setting where nothing makes sense -- not even their own actions. From this point-of-view, even the depiction of events must be presented in a symbolic manner; the mere recapitulation of actions, times, and events cannot accurately capture the truth of horror and accountability. The Things They Carried illustrates, often, the most mentally damaging effects of war are caused by being unable to see the reasoning behind death, particularly when death seen as an extension of a remotely operating organizational body -- military policy.

O'Brien is haunted both by the man he killed and the men around him who died. The guilt he feels for killing the man with a grenade is unavoidably centered upon his disagreement with the principles of the war. The ordering of his novel imitates the symptoms of an individual suffering from PTSD. Had he not been drafted, suited-up, shipped-off, trained, and…