Apocalypse Now

From the very beginning of the film, Apocalypse Now, we see the protagonist, Captain Willard, having a psychotic melt down.  The sound and spinning of the fan in his room reminded him of the helicopters used for transport and combat in the Vietnam War. Captain Willard had already served a tour in Vietnam. He was asked to perform a special assignment, which was to capture General Kurtz. Captain Willard is given a group of men to help him perform the special assignment. When the men were traveling on a boat, Captain Willard describes the men as very young guys. Upon the first glance at his team, Captain Willard states that one would assume that they have never shot a gun before. Like Apocalypse Now, The Things They Carried explores the theme of being young in the war. O’Brien and the other soldiers were in the early twenties when they were drafted to Vietnam. Being young during the war affected their behavior during their free time and combat time. Apocalypse Now like The Things They Carried both explore the change in behavior of soldiers during and after war. In Apocalypse Now, a soldier exclaimed to one of his comrades to look down at what had just occurred (attacked a village). The other soldier responded, “This is very exciting.”  Soldiers during war almost lose their sense of morality. They get so consumed in the combat that they forget their objective. In The Things They Carried, we see this happen through the character of Mary Anne, who after only a few days in a combat zone, she gets consumed in the war mentality and forgets that she was there to visit her boyfriend. Mary Anne in a way also has a psychotic meltdown. Mary Anne became obsessed with the idea of war, which affected her mentally since she was not prepared to enter the real world.