Humor at War

Humor at War

During the Vietnam War, Soldiers in Vietnam go through different actions like being ambushed and attacking the enemy which may make them feel different emotionally. These men deal with everyday death and other horrific conditions of the war. The soldiers in the novel The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, have been put through emotional and physical situations in and out of the battle field. To keep themselves from breaking into post traumatic stress or any other kind of emotion, the men would make hard efforts to joke about death instead of letting it have an effect on them.

The Things They Carried focuses on the Vietnam War and how Ted lavender dies. As the soldiers keep walking, they keep talking about how Ted Lavender was shot, and how his cheekbone was gone, and how his body was dropped in the floor. They expressed themselves with hard expressions and vocabulary. Regardless how anyone died making jokes is one action to keep these men entertained. Instead of looking at the reality of death itself, slight comments were made by the soldiers to how it was caused.

Through out the novel, there are different scenarios where the soldiers make jokes about how the other soldiers died. For example, Kiowa made a comment how Ted Lavender died “he was zapped while zipping” (341). That is how the soldiers express the deaths of the other soldiers. “They use a hard vocabulary to contain the terrible softness” (343). Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, feels bad because he is so much in love of Martha that he was distracted thinking of her while Ted Lavender was shot. And he is not fully concentrated in the war. Ted Lavender was shot in the head on his way back from peeing.

Some of the days, they have complicated missions that are required to use special equipment. One of the missions is to search out and destroy the elaborate tunnel complexes in the Than Khe area south of Chu Lai. Lee Strunk is selected by a draw; and he is the one that has to inspect the tunnel. He goes down into the tunnel crawling, and a few moments later there is a collapse inside. There is two men buried inside, one of them is Lee Strunk. They were afraid of what happened. But, “A few moments later Lee Strunk crawled out of the tunnel. He came up grinning, filthy but alive.