Coping+Mechanisms

Soldiers during any war deal with unfathomable psychological difficulties, as well as physical difficulties. In order to deal with these difficulties, soldiers usually develop coping mechanisms, or skills used to reduce stress. Some coping mechanisms are listed below.
 * 1) Diverting Pain Elsewhere
 * 2) Altruism
 * 3) Psychological Escape Techniques
 * 4) Joking
 * 5) Drinking/Drug Use
 * 6) Religion

1. When people in everyday life feel pain, sometimes they divert their pain elsewhere by bullying and putting other people down, so that they can feel better about themselves. During war, soldiers use the same technique on diverting pain elsewhere, however they sometimes use more extreme ways to divert the pain. In Tim O'Brien's //The Things They Carried//, Rat Kiley's best friend during the war, Curt Lemon, died by stepping on a booby-trapped 105 round. Rat wrote a letter to Curt's sister explaining what a wonderful, goofy brother she had, and how much he had grown to love him as a brother. Curt's sister never bothered to write back. A little while later, The Alpha Company came across a baby water buffalo, and Rat tortured the buffalo inch by unbearable inch so that the water buffalo would suffer more insurmountable pain than Rat was in himself. He wanted to make something else feel pain so that maybe he wouldn't feel so bad anymore, and in the process something else would be hurting even more. Soldiers cope in many different ways, and one way is to divert the pain away from themselves, so that other people hurt as well, and so that they can feel better about themselves.

2. Altruism is a word that means selflessness. Some soldiers lived the war so that they could take care of their war families. They needed something to live for and living for other people was the best thing for them to do. When individuals feel the need to take care of people that mean a lot to them, they tend to take better care of themselves, so that they can in turn take care of those other people. An example of altruism in war, specifically the Vietnam War, is also in the novel //The Things They Carried//. Leader of the Alpha Company, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross started off the war immersed in thoughts and love for this girl he knew back home, Martha. But after he lost a group member, Ted Lavender, he blamed himself and his thoughts for Martha as the cause of the death. Therefore, after Ted's death he focused on protecting his group members more than he did on anything else because Lieutenant Jimmy Cross wouldn't have been able to deal with any other deaths on his watch that happened while he was preoccupied with Martha. He made up his mind to concentrate on keeping his men safe the day directly following Ted's death, and he probably kept this promise to himself because he realized that he was at war, and he couldn't continue living in an alternate reality, he had to be where he was, and that was at war. Also, altruism at war is symbolized by the medals soldiers win for taking a bullet for somebody else, or diving in front of a bomb for friends; altruism happens all the time at war because it is a way soldiers cope and stay motivated.

3. Psychological escape techniques are ways that soldiers leave the places they currently are located to be in places they would rather be. Psychological escape techniques are basically daydreams, except in war, daydreams can get people killed. However, despite the risks, soldiers still daydream to cope with the stress of war. Jimmy Cross, from //The Things They Carried// used Psychological escape techniques when he thought of Martha because he thought of being with her on the beach, he thought of everything he should have done with her when he had the chance, he thought of getting to know her better, and he thought about how he imagined her to be. She was his coping mechanism until he realized that she didn't love him, never had, and never would. When he realized this, he concentrated on being the best Lieutenant he was capable of being. When people don't want to be where they are, they focus on where they would rather be. Soldiers focus on being anywhere but where they are all the time. Soldiers even dream about hurting themselves so that they can escape war and go to somewhere safe and warm. Also, soldiers use letters from home and photos of loved ones to help them escape from the horrors of war.

4. Soldiers also use joking to cope with the war. According to Jim Edwards, "The more discomfort a situation creates, the more joking there is." War is a situation that creates a lot of discomfort. In //The Things They Carried//, the soldiers of Alpha Company joked to cope with Ted Lavender, a fellow soldier's, death. Norman Bowker said, "Zapped while zipping." Lavender was shot while he was going to the bathroom. As the story goes on, the soldiers are talking about their problems and Norman Bowker says, "We all got problems." Kiowa then responds jokingly, "Not Lavender." Then after Kiowa dies, Azar uses joking to cope with the death. He says, "Like one of those old cowboy movies. One more redskin bites the dirt." He was reffering to Kiowa, who is a Native American. Joking is a very powerful coping mechanism during war and it also works well in other situations.

5. Soldiers in the Vietnam War used drugs and alcohol to cope with the horrors. Alcohol and drugs, especially marijuana, were widely available to the soldiers during the war. Soldiers drinking was not promoted, persay, but was it was acceptable as long as it didn't interfere with the soldier's duties. Nearly every soldier drank or used drugs, but not all of them admitted to it. Vietnam was one of the first wars where drugs and alcohol were in heavy use. Soldiers liquored up or got high before going into battle. It helped to relax and help prepare them for the upcoming event. The United States were the heavy users, France didn't use drugs much at all and the Vietnamese troops didn't use them as an escape much either. Edward S. Michaelskim, a Vietnam veteran, said, "Everybody did it" referring to drugs and alcohol. Apparently, alcohol and drugs were heavily prevalent in the war. In //The Things They Carried//, Ted Lavender, a soldier, used tranquilizers to cope with the terrible situations. The book says he was extremely scared and that was the reason he popped tranquilizers, but only he truly knows why. "Ted Lavender had a habit of popping four or five tranquilizers every morning. It was his way of coping, just dealing with the realities. and the drugs helped to ease him through the days." This mechanism worked for Lavender. It may not of been the most healthy way to cope, but it truly worked for him because as he liked to say, " We got ourselves a nice mellow war today." 6. Soldiers used religion as a way to cope with war because it was a way of believing in something that was beyond humanity, beyond and more important than what they were dealing with at the moment. Some soldiers used religion as a way of hope because it gave them reason to believe that even if they died, there would be something to look forward to after death. If there was something more to look forward to after death, then dying wouldn't seem quite as bad. If there was something beyond the mundane, then there was something to live for, and soldiers needed something to live for because every day was a struggle. Every day they lived with indescribable fears and emotions. Kiowa from //The Things They Carried// used religion to help him cope to the war. I believe he used religion because it was a way to feel close to his father, who happened to be a Sunday school teacher. Being a devout Baptist, even at war, created a link between himself and one of the closest people in his life. It probably gave him a sense of staying loyal to who he used to be as a person, and who his father was as a person. Religion is very important to many people in normal life, and if people go to war, it probably becomes more important to some of those people than ever before because religion is all that they have left of their normal lives, and having their normal lives back is probably what they wish for most.