Tunnel Rats During The Vietnam War

Rat Kiley’s platoon essentially understand and accept his decision as they know where Kiley is coming from. Lieutenant Cross even vouches for Kiley’s injury. The squadron essentially understand Kiley battles with larger tensions and stress than other soldiers as he has been on the warfront longer than most men in his platoon. Kiley has endured many deaths, considering his role as a medic. Kiley has constantly battled with the fear of death, considering his outcries on how he imagines his guts and liver oozing out like that of the soldiers he has tended to.

President Lyndon B. Johnson began sending troops to Vietnam in 1964 to combat the Vietcong. Dedicated soldiers trudged through the dense jungles of Vietnam, they crawled through collapsing underground tunnels and braved burning villages. These are the circumstances under which Tim O‘Brien‘s narrative, The

RATS, yes even in the man-made trenches of which to protect the soldiers from the enemy also became a home to these disgusting, cat sized, evil, and naked faced rats, who fed off of the dead and or fallen troops of the war and they soldier 's bread making them be more cautious on where they put their bread because of the hideous rats. As if rats weren 't enough excluding the war, the storm-troops came in contact with harsh weapon machinery, it being so bad that if you were hit you 'd fly back and an arm shot off and leaving the victim hanging on barbed wire entanglement, and these were just some of the horrible things that happened. In conclusion, the rats and new machinery just caused more problem for the soldiers during the war, making it even more

Rat and his platoon are sitting at their camp where they see a baby water buffalo, he proceeds to abuse and torture this innocent animal. “He shot it twice in the flanks. It wasn’t to kill; it was to hurt…but for now it was a question of pain. He shot off the tail.” (O’Brien 22).

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien uses many rhetorical devices and specific narrative elements to enhance the overall themes by using point of view, imagery, and metaphors. Tim O’Brien uses his friend’s point of view to elaborate on the war experiences and the feelings of his fellow friends. On Page 62, O’Brien states, “Rat almost bawls writing it. He gets all teary telling about good times they had together and how her brother made the war almost fun.” This shows the emotions and feeling Rat was experiencing during the war.

On 18 January 1967, the tunnel rats had discovered a tunnel complex that had over half a million enemy documents. When the operation was complete, there were 750 confirmed enemy kills, as opposed to 72 American casualties. The U.S. Army destroyed over 525 tunnels and knocked out all of the Viet Cong’s medical facilities. (Mangold, 1985) These Soldiers earned the respect of the Viet

After Rat loses his best friend, Curt Lemon, the troops are exploring and making advancements they encounter a baby animal, “It wasn’t to kill; it was to hurt. He put the rifle muzzle up against the mouth and shot the mouth away. Nobody said much. The whole platoon stood there watching, feeling all kinds of things, but there wasn’t a great deal of pity for the baby water buffalo” (75). Rat Kiley lost himself after he lost his best friend.

Such as violent fights against their enemies, within their own group and mentally within their own minds. In order to survive through these hardships, the soldiers each develop coping mechanisms, specific to their own experiences. Depending on what the men went through some of them use multiple strategies as others do not help them. During

The Things They Carried vividly portrays the physical and emotional toll of war on the soldiers. In the story "Night Life," the soldiers experience the horrors of war, including the death of a comrade and the destruction of a village. The story emphasizes the psychological trauma that soldiers experience during and after the war. During the story we learn of the platoon's medic, Rat Kiley, and how his personality and mentality changes as his platoon works what's called the “night life”. Which is when you sleep, or try to sleep, during the day and patrol at night.

Although he learned that he had to learn to cope with every single physical, emotional and mental stress factor that came his way. He learned with every guy in his platoon, they all stuck together. This novel was a very well written book. Each story was different, and gave a different aspect on war every time. The emotions were real, and very descriptive.

The rats were one of the main reasons for an unhealthy factory. Rats carried germs and diseases, however workers had to deal with that. They were exposed to being contaminated. “There was no place for men to wash their hands before they ate their dinner, and so they

Combat is one of those incidents, where the best and the worst of people will be shown. The effects from combat could last minutes to a lifetime and will define people for the rest of their lives. To overcome the effects, people must have coping mechanisms. In the book, The Things They Carried, a platoon of soldiers is followed in their quest to survive the Vietnam War. The soldiers developed coping mechanisms to deal with stress so they can function normally and survive the war.

In the case of Ted Lavender, once he was pronounced dead the men stripped him of his things while waiting for the chopper to pick up his body, and sat “smoking the dead man 's dope (436).” Furthermore, when they drew numbers to determine who scouted out the tunnels, they “always felt the luck of the draw” when they escaped the duty (438). This is because they feared death, but were always embarrassed to admit it. For the soldiers, dishonor was worse than anything else they faced. “They crawled into tunnels and… advanced under fire,” and refused to give up and simply “fall to the ground” all to save their own pride (443).

Even when Americans were victorious they had to be careful. In the victory people are tempted to rip down flags and steal the remaining useful supplies, but the Vietnamese wouldn’t let them get valuables that easily. They added explosives to flag poles, and supplies, even ballpoint pens could be rigged. The soldiers always had to be focused and ready for any kind of situations. These traps could be anywhere so the people first in line, or leading the group, always had to be extremely observant and gained a huge symptom of paranoia.

The Viet Minh led the fight for independence against the Chinese and French led by Ho Chi Minh. After the fight for independence the Viet Minh started to disappear and lose power prominently because of their failure to unify the South. To replace them the Viet Cong had emerged from the North which would benefit North Vietnam in their fight against South Vietnam and the United States. The Viet Cong eventually lost power and disappeared as well after the war when both the South and North unified. The United States had joined the fight because of the Containment Policy, Domino effect theory, and the attacks against the US by North Vietnam.