Secondary Research- Brandon Brown

Throughout pretty much the entire book, titled The Things They Carried, coping strategies are apparent and show by most all characters. One strategy that was common was humor. Mainly used by Azar, but also used by other members of the platoon, they used humor to deal with the deaths of their fellow soldiers and to deal with other big events such as a first kill. The article, "Positive Reframing, Acceptance and Humor are the Most Effective Coping Strategies", found at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110704082700.htm, reveal that humor is indeed a postitive coping strategy. In the second paragraph, the article states that this strategy, as well as the two others mentioned in the article, is, "helping people to keep up their spirits and feel satisfied at the end of the day". This means that the troops used humor in odd situations in order to keep themselves from feeling down, which is very important during war. When feeling down, as seen by O'Brien himself in the chapter, "The Man I Killed", the soldiers will stall, and for the most part, not be very effective.