What is Time?

 Time is a HUGE part of life and I'm sure many know the stress of not having enough time. Time is always one hand head, and people are constantly chasing after it. In The Things They Carried, time meant a lot of things: uncertainty, confusion, solitude, hopelessness and healing. Below I will explain the meaning of time to the soldiers in Vietnam.

Time is Infinite

 For Tim O'Brien, time is a type of uncertainty. The continuous ticking of passing time results in him questioning the choices he made that lead to his current life. Why was he a coward for going to war? Why didn't he chose a path he felt would do him justice? Why did he have to spend years of his youth in a war he didn't even believe in. This endless time brought uncertainty to many soldiers. They all wonder as to how long the suffering would have last; none of them  knowing when it would all end. Perhaps all of them will die before the war even ends. All the negative thoughts bring depression and great uncertainty. The many questions that the war soldiers ask that can't be answered lead to great chaos and disorder.

Time Warps

 For Norman Bowker, time means confusion and change. The long amounts of time spent in war change all men into someone that they would never imagine to be. An extreme case would be Marry Anne and her growing fondness towards Vietnam. But for those who have a mission to accomplish, it's quite a different story. Norman Bowker, a soldier who was strong minded, eventually changed to be a man who's a "coward." The man of great courage who thought that the medals soldiers earn was a horrible way of representing what a soldier truly experienced gradually turned into a man used these awards as an escape from insanity. For the soldiers lost without an route away from madness, it seems normal for them so be confused as to why insanity is wrong? Why would one try to be sane if they were meant to die in war anyways? The time can confuse a person into believing that they are incorrect is the time that is most destructive. For soldiers like Bowker who spent thousands of hours at war, time is a malicious weapon that could destroy a man unlike any other type of ammunition.

Time Heals

 Upon returning home, it is time that eventually help the soldiers return to a lifestyle outside of war. Though like all injuries, wounds don't heal completely. Time can only heal a man ever so slowly and through Tim O'Brien's perspective, readers can see that the soldiers are trying their best to recover from the horrendous experiences they all faced at war. An example of someone who seems to be recovering steadily would be Jimmy Cross. At a coffee meeting between the lieutenant and the author, conversations about the Vietnam war didn't seem to hard to engage in. It also seem that Lieutenant Cross was gradually finding himself by confessing his love to Martha.

Lost in Time

 When each soldier reflects back on the life they led, sometimes their memory is all jumbled up. There are times where they are unsure as to whether one thing happened before, after or even during the war. More commonly, the chronological order is all mixed up for the events that took place throughout the war. As a troop is constantly traumatized with atrocities from war, it is nearly impossible to organize thoughts in an orderly fashion. As time drags them further and further away from society, soldiers find themselves lost in time and hopelessness.

Time Controls

 Sometimes time consumes people and takes them into a place where they are all alone. Individuals are brought into a hole where they reflect on all sorts of events that have taken place in their life. It is very normal for a person to want a guide to lead them to a better place, perhaps a better lifestyle, a better "me." Time on the other hand is no guide. Time controls the way a person acts: whether the are calm because they have plenty of time, or whether they are rushed to catch up with it. Time is no bright light that illuminates your way our of the dark, maybe a better way to illustrate time would be like black shadow that consumes all the light. Although soldier don't have much time to consider how time had affected their lives, I'm sure each of them left more and more helpless as time passed by.