What is the narrator's conflict in "On the Rainy River" from The Things They Carried?

"On the Rainy River" is a short story from Tim O'Brien's novel The Things They Carried, about his experiences in the Vietnam War. Although the story is fictionalized for emotional and dramatic reasons, O'Brien had many of the same doubts and reservations that he expresses in the work.

Young Tim O'Brien is drafted to fight in the Vietnam War. Like many people his age, he feels no connection to the war or the motives behind it; he doesn't understand the history or why the U.S. is involved. After deciding to dodge the draft by fleeing to Canada, O'Brien is overcome with shame and guilt and eventually returns after an epiphany on the Rainy River.

O'Brien's conflict is between himself and his country, and to a lesser extent between himself and his own pride. O'Brien's guilt comes from his fear of serving crossed with the shame of fleeing the country; he worries that his parents will be humiliated by him, and that he will be caught. O'Brien also is concerned with his role in the war, and feels both unworthy of and not responsible for the war itself; he has no personal connection to it, and so doesn't understand why he has been drafted. O'Brien resolves his conflict with an internal decision to serve, against his principles, but allowing him to alleviate some of his guilt.

How does the setting in "On the Rainy River" from The Things They Carried impact the story and conflict?

This short story, which is part of O'Brien's larger collection of short stories entited The Things They Carried, concerns the author's own intial reaction to being drafted and how he ventured north in order to escape the draft and go into Canada. This was something that a minority of young American males did who were unwilling to fight in the Vietnam war for a cause that was at best dubious. O'Brien himself describes how he crucially is taken on a boat to the rainy river of the story's title, with Canada in front of him and the US behind him:

I remember staring at the old man, then at my hands, then at Canada. The shoreline was dense with brush and timber. I could see a squirrel up in one of the birch tees, a big crow looking at me from a boulder along the river. That close--twenty yards-and I could see the delicate latticework of the leaves, the texture of the soil, the browned needles beneath the pines, the configurations of geology and human history. Twenty yards. I could've done it.

The setting is so important because it enacts the very important decision the speaker has to make. He has to choose between going to Canada and escaping the draft, but letting down his nation, and going to fight in a war that he is deeply ambiguous about. He stands, at this particular point in the short story, straddled between two nations, between two options, and between two very different futures. The setting highlights this aspect of the story.