Effects of WarThe effects of war on any human being who participated in it can be devastating to the soldier's well-being for the rest of their life. For author Tim O'Brien, the war is something that will stay with him for the rest of his life and he will never forget it. Before Tim O'Brien was drafted into the military, he lived a fairly normal life that many people would consider an all-American childhood. He attended Macalester College and thought about becoming a writer, inspired in part by his father's two personal accounts of World War II. Shortly after graduating from college, in 1968, O'Brien received his draft notice into the United States Army. He served as an infantryman in the Vietnam War between 1969 and 1970. O'Brien was later sent home when he was hit by shrapnel during a grenade attack. When he returned home, he received a Purple Heart because he had been wounded in combat. Since then, he has written numerous novels related to the conflict, notably in his work “The Things They Carried” published in 1990, several years after his tour in Vietnam. Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" uses point of view, metaphor, and characters to demonstrate how his service in Vietnam influenced his life from that point on. Through fluctuating points of view in "The Things They Carried," O'Brien allows readers to witness the physical, emotional, and spiritual experiences and burdens of war from different perspectives. Looking at the bigger picture, all men in the Vietnam War basically suffered from the same series of events and faced many casualties. While this is true, each man participating in the war experienced all these events and losses on an exceptionally different level, which is described... in the middle of the document...... a clear understanding of the impact of war on his soul. This, coupled with the emotions he shared, made his work a true example of the human experience through literature. Works Cited Halloran, Lauren. “Point of view and narrative distance in the things they carried.” Masons' Road. Np, and Web. May 9, 2014. "Interview: Tim O'Brien, author of The Big Read, on 'The Things They Carried' and the search for truth in fiction." Port city daily. Np, and Web. May 9, 2014. Krinke, Amanda. "Metaphor in 'The Things They Carried'." short stories1online /. Np, and Web. May 11, 2014. O'Brien, Tim. “The things they carried.” The things they carried. New York: New York: Penguin, 1990. 1-31. Print “The Big Read”. The things they carried. Np, and Web. May 9, 2014. "Writing Vietnam - Tim O'Brien Lecture Transcript" Center for Digital Scholarship. Np, and Web. May 12 2014.