In the first chapter of Tim O'Brien's memoir, The Things They Carried, O’Brian’s complex character clashes with his moral beliefs, and in turn he struggles with making his decisions. During the Vietnam War, O’Brien and thousands of other young, American men were drafted to serve in the brutal conflict. When introducing himself, O’Brien describes the irony between his identity and his situation. O’Brien argues he would not make a fit soldier, he states: “I was no soldier...The sight of blood made me queasy” (41). However, O’Brien contradicts himself, “[his summer job] specialized in pork products, and for eight hours a day I stood on a quarter-mile assembly line—more properly, a disassembly line— removing blood clots from the necks of dead pigs” (42). O’Brien position on war is also conflicted; he starts by announcing, “...back in college I had taken a modest stand against the war...ringing a few doorbells for Gene McCarthy, composing...editorials for the campus newspaper” (41). Yet the author also admits, “I could not claim to be opposed to war as a matter of general…show more content… However, O’Brien’s draft notice was not welcomed, he did not want to go to war. Because of late 1960s social standards and O’Brien’s morals, he feels torn between going to war and boycotting by escaping to Canada. He panics about not going to fight “I feared losing the respect of my parents, I feared the law. I feared ridicule and censure” (45). He panics about going to fight “I couldn’t tolerate authority, and I didn’t know a rifle from a slingshot” (41). Although O’Brien felt one way, he did not allow his beliefs to influence his decisions. Nonetheless, O’Brien recognizes this quality of himself, “the only certainty that summer was moral confusion” (40). O’Brien’s mental turmoil throughout The Things They Carried, illustrates the difficulty of acting upon one’s
