Divergence, the difference or conflicts in opinions, happens everywhere in our life. Mostly it is bilateral, which means both individuals or groups know they have different opinions, but occasionally it is not. In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien describes many distinctive scenes between the soldiers and the civilians to contradict the divergence between their values. Firstly, civilians normally don’t understand soldier’s true feelings toward the war; moreover, civilians tend to underestimate the predicament in the war, thus, they can not really feel the emotions soldiers have suffered; lastly, although normal civilians seem to appreciate what soldiers did, they can not really understand what war really means to a soldier.
O’Brien depicts many touching scene in this book reflecting the divergence between the civilians, and the very first thing they can not understand is how soldiers think about the war. Some soldiers feel honored to be able to serve for their country; however, only some of them. O’Brien lives in “a place where tradition counted” (O’Brien 43), they just believe that it’s honorable to fight for your country; however, O’Brien has his dream, he wants to learn more knowledge as a scholar instead of going to war and possible dies in the combat for no reason. He also anticipates that if he actually run away from the war, people will sit around a table with “coffee cups poisoned”, and “conversation slowly zeroing in on the young O’Brien kid” (O’Brien 43). O’Brien knows that these civilians will criticize and mock him as a deserter and probably defame his whole family, but he really wants to seek for his dream. That is probably why O’Brien was so touched and upset when he “killed” that young Vietnam scholar-like man. Because he believes this young Vietnam man is brave enough to run away from the army to achieve his dream, but he can not, and he nips the bud personally. His past memory pushes him to a dead silence. Everyone has their own pasts, every soldier experiences different things, and every one of them will sometimes get emotional triggered for certain circumstances.
That’s the second reason why people are really misunderstanding soldier’s feeling, without experiencing their unique pasts, they can not even empathize, to say nothing of sympathy. O’Brian shared a lot of his war memories with his daughter, Kathleen, but when he led her to his old combat where his best friend Kiowa died, Kathleen felt disguised: “What a mess, all that gunk on your skin, you look like… wait’ll I tell mommy, she will probably make you sleep in the garage” (O’Brien, 179). In contrary, O’Brien really began to recollect his memories about the war, and about Kiowa. He had a lot to tell Kiowa, but all he could do was “slap hands with water” (O’Brien 178). O’Brien tried his best to interact with his past, while he needs to overcome foreignness at the same time. The brotherhood to him is probably the most significant memory from the war, but even the closest daughter, Kathleen, can not empathize his emotion, how could those normal civilians understand soldiers like him. That is probably why people also tend to underestimate the predicament of the situation in the war, because they don’t understand how urgent the accident could be.
Spectators or criticizers always have numerous time to find countless kinds of excuses to blame on, to regret; however, this doesn’t apply to soldiers. As Tim O’Brien writes: “In the field, though, the causes were immediate. A moment of carelessness or bad judgement or plain stupidity carried consequences that lasted forever” (O’Brien 170). Soldiers will have no time to regret, to blame or to complain, because even if they are in a second of daze and react late, the cost might be devastating. Therefore, they have to decide the best solution in a very second and perform it. O’Brien contracts civilians’ thoughts from blaming “the river”, “the rain”, “who made the war” to “the God”, “who switched the channels at the mention of politics”, or even “an old man in Omaha who forgot to vote”(O’Brien 169). He believes civilians tend to blame other things and find reasonable and unreasonable excuses for themselves and try to lessen the impact from the war to themselves, but what they don’t understand is how huge the impact would be toward these soldiers; for instance, tons of soldiers developed PTSD after they returned from the combat that they can not work and live like a normal citizen anymore.
Tim O’Brien believes that soldiers and civilians have completely divergent values and opinions because civilians usually do not understand how soldiers think about the war and their true emotions under the war. Moreover, civilians have different core value from soldiers because they will find themselves excuses while soldiers have to face challenges in a very moment.
