Similar themes between Apocalypse Now, The Things They Carried and Komunyakaa's Poems

Apocalypse Now reveals that war effects everyone differently. Some soldiers become unfazed by the ongoings of war (i.e. Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore), become involved with drugs (i.e. Lance), go rogue/develop a god complex (i.e. Kurtz) or must be in the jungle or they are weakening (i.e. Willard).

The themes shared between The Things They Carried and Apocalypse Now are surrealism and the miscommunication between the soldiers and the higher-ups. In Apocalypse Now, Kurtz begins to develop a god-like complex after becoming one with the land and the people living there. Kurtz is similar to Rat’s story about Mary-Ann. As they both learned new things about the land and people, they begin to break more apart from themselves and everyone that they knew, until there was nothing left to break apart. They both then, went rogue. They become to the people left at the stations/cities where they last were, a myth/ghost/boogeyman of sorts.

All three items discuss how over time, soldiers blend into the environment. They become one and start to hear things that are not necessarily there. Another common theme among all three is the flashbacks. In Apocalypse Now, Willard wakes up after dreaming about being back in the jungle in a helicopter as the sky lights up with fire behind him. As Willard awakes, he realizes that he is no longer in the jungle but in Saigon. The Things They Carried is Tim O’Brien’s flashback of the entire war, from start to finish with flash-forwards as well (i.e. Kathleen asking him to write a different genre). In Komunyakaa’s “Facing It”, he flashbacks to a booby trap exploding after touching Andrew Johnson’s name on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The last occurring theme is that the stories are unbelievable to others who were not there. Komunyakaa’s poem titled “Camouflaging the Chimera” is title so, as a reference to their stories being unbelievable to others, mainly civilians. In addition, as the chimera is a mythical creature that would stand out naturally, so would the soldiers on ambush unless they camouflaged themselves.