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The topic is how did these people change during war.

People in war are profoundly changed. They things they did and experienced scar them forever. The death and the killing make them feel ashamed and guilty. In the Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, the characters are permanently changed by their war experiences. Sometimes, they do not know how to deal with the problems and have no one to relate to.

Tim O'Brien lived an average American life, but when he was drafted and went to war, he was permanently affected. He was in great turmoil because he could not decide whether to flee to Canada or fight in a war he did not believe in. He chose to go to war and this caused him to feel shame and guilt that lasts his entire life. He was ashamed that he could not listen to his own judgment but instead did not want to shame his family and his community. He was ashamed that he was so afraid of being called a coward that he would rather kill and be killed. The guilt from killing haunted him. He saw so many dead bodies and he was too afraid to look at them individually and now "he is left with faceless responsibility and faceless guilt."(180) In order to move on with his life and face his guilt, he gives a face and makes up a story to one young man he killed. In his detailed story, the Vietnamese boy was thin and frail, and the author imagined that the boy wanted to someday be a teacher of mathematics. In doing so, he makes the enemy human like he is and faces his guilt in taking another human being's life. He never fully forgave himself for going to the war and memories of the killing still haunt him.

After returning to his hometown, Norman Bowker was left with the emotional burdens of the war and thought that he had no purpose in life. He had seen the tragedies of war and had many of his friends die. He had watched his friend Kiowa go under the mud in a field of human waste and felt guilty that he could not save Kiowa. After he came back to his hometown, he found that no one cared about his problems and no one could relate to him. It was impossible to explain the pain he felt watching Kiowa go under the mud. He realized that his life was pointless. There was nothing to live for because nothing was as "real" as war. "The course work, he said, seemed too abstract, too distant, with nothing real or tangible at stake, certainly not the stakes of war." Even the people who were closest to him could not relate to him like his comrades in war could. Driving around and around the lake symbolized his life, which was going nowhere. He was so depressed that he later hung himself.

Lieutenant Cross changed a lot because of the great responsibility for the men's lives and the blame he placed on himself for their deaths. He spent the beginning of his leadership daydreaming about letters from a woman he liked named Martha and not being focused on the war. This caused an accident that killed one of his men, Ted Lavender. He placed the blame on himself. As a result of Ted Lavender's death, Lieutenant Cross and became more serious. He faced the harsh reality of his guilt, stopped daydreaming, and burned Martha's letters. Later, he lost another man, Kiowa, in a field of waste. He blamed himself for camping in the field. He faced his guilt at having lost not just a solider, but a human being. After meeting with Tim O' Brien many years after the war, he still has not forgiven himself. He still cannot face his deeds as shown when he mentions to Tim O'Brien, the author not to mention the death and make him out to be a hero.

War changes people because of loss, guilt, and isolation. All of the characters in this novel were unprepared for what would happen to them in war. The experiences they had in war changed them from their initial innocence. They had to face the death, and the despair, and the meaninglessness of their lives.