The revulsions of war; the atrocity, the gore and the ghastly smoke resulting from the guns ricocheting off the towering masses of apocalyptic tanks, as well as the aftermath; the melancholy, the pain and the tears is something that I will only experience in my deepest, darkest nightmares. But as a young girl growing up in Dulwich Hill, my only impression of war is an annoyed one. The low grumbles of the decrepit veterans complaining about their time and those annoying one minute silences in school that gave me one minute to listen to the loud breathing of the person next to me. I doubt my impression will change when I move to Vietnam. “Just more oldies to deal with,” I scoffed to myself as I placed a heavy box into my mother’s car.
I returned
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I never realised how much this impacted civilians as well as soldiers. To take them out of their comfort zone like that and make them point guns at each other is disgusting. Thinking about Chien’s brother made me think of my own brother, who I care so much about. I can never imagine losing him, or anyone in my family. Chien was all alone there, he didn’t have his wife to comfort him and he hadn’t contacted his brother in such a long time! I stuck my hand in the box and pulled out another letter which was dated June 1968. The paper smelt foul and felt as if it would crumble in my hands. I could barely make out the …show more content…
It’s really crammed tight in here, and I can barely breathe. Writing to you is what keeps me going. My closest friend Phuong died the other day. I remember finding him on the ground. His eyes looked ethereal as his smile splayed across his face. He received a shot to his chest that dyed his uniform deep red. He pointed to his pocket and his final words were ‘God.’ So I now have a bible. I do try to read it and it’s the only thing I have left of Phuong. I have a question though, do I go to heaven for assisting the North, or do I go to hell for killing those in the South? I pray whenever I can, it’s another thing that keeps me sane. I pray for your happiness, I pray for my survival, and I also pray for the safety of our child. I hope they grow up in an environment that is safe and prosperous. I dreamt of dying. I dreamt about dying a lot. When will it be me? I hope I can be in your arms soon. I love you.
For centuries, war has broken families and caused scarring both physical and mental. Consequently, the futility of war has been universally accepted and Bruce Dawes powerful poems ‘Weapons Training’ and ‘Homecoming’ reveal this. Dawe creates an Australian insight to the training and consequences of the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War was a long conflict Beginning in 1954 and ending in 1975. More than 3 million people were killed in the tragic War. Dawes ‘Weapons Training’ demonstrates the guidance of an abusive Sergeant whilst ‘Homecoming’ illustrates the shocking consequences and impact of war. Bruce Dawes powerful war poems, paired together, showcase a journey. One filled with harsh and vulgar training whilst the other proves that even training
	The novel illuminates light on the situation not just during the Vietnam era, but also rather throughout all history and the future to come. Throughout mankind’s occupation of earth, we have been plagued by war and the sufferings caused by it. Nearly every generation of people to walk this earth have experienced a great war once in their lifetimes. For instance, Vietnam for my father’s generation, World War 2 for my grandfather’s, and World War 1 for my great-grandfather’s. War has become an unavoidable factor of life. Looking through history and toward the future, I grow concerned over the war that will plague my generation, for it might be the last war.
Soldier's Personal Narratives of the Vietnam War and The Vietnam War and the Tragedy of Containment
From sunrise to sunset, day after day, war demolishes men, cities, and hope. War has an effect on soldiers like nothing else, and sticks with them for life. The damage to a generation of men on both sides of the war was inestimable. Both the novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, and the poem “I Have a Rendezvous with Death,” by Alan Seeger, demonstrate the theme of a lost generation of men, mentally and physically, in war through diction, repetition, and personification.
Many individuals look at soldiers for hope and therefore, add load to them. Those that cannot rationally overcome these difficulties may create Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Tragically, some resort to suicide to get away from their insecurities. Troops, notwithstanding, are not by any means the only ones influenced by wars; relatives likewise encounter mental hardships when their friends and family are sent to war. Timothy Findley precisely depicts the critical impact wars have on people in his novel by showing how after-war characters are not what they were at the beginning.
War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, written by the talented author Chris Hedges, gives us provoking thoughts that are somewhat painful to read but at the same time are quite personal confessions. Chris Hedges, a talented journalist to say the least, brings nearly 15 years of being a foreign correspondent to this book and subjectively concludes how all of his world experiences tie together. Throughout his book, he unifies themes present in all wars he experienced first hand. The most important themes I was able to draw from this book were, war skews reality, dominates culture, seduces society with its heroic attributes, distorts memory, and supports a cause, and allures us by a constant battle between death and love.
Fighting the Vietnam War dramatically changed the lives of everyone even remotely involved, especially the brave individuals actually fighting amidst the terror. One of the first things concerned when reading these war stories was the detail given in each case. Quotes and other specific pieces of information are given in each occurrence yet these stories were collected in 1981, over ten years following the brutal war. This definitely shows the magnitude of the war’s impact on these servicemen. These men, along with every other individual involved, went through a dramatic experience that will forever haunt their lives. Their minds are filled with scenes of exploding buildings, rape, cold-blooded killing, and bodies that resemble Swiss cheese.
It was the evening of Christmas, 1776. The voice of an army sergeant shouted, “Everybody, up this instant! We’ve got a battle to win!” George Washington’s order awoke us soldiers, and we prepared for a rough night, as General Washington knew it would be more than strenuous to get the Continental Army, made up of 2,400 men, across the Delaware River especially in such harsh weather conditions. The plan was to attack in the morning since the Hessians would be celebrating Christmas tonight, they will hopefully be too tired to put up a fight tomorrow morning. The cold, brisk air intruded into the tent, as the rest of the soldiers arose from their slumber, not knowing what the day would bring them, or should I say, night.
As I stood there exhausted holding a blank stare with my arms to my sides and the sound of mumbling in the background, I only heard three words of the entire training brief my supervisor gave us, “time for chow!” I immediately snapped back to it and walked in the same direction as my teammates. As I walked, I looked ahead of the group for the best place to get out of the 103-degree hot Texas sun. I seen a tree and a stump that would be great to rest my back on and it had plenty of shade. When I arrived at the stump, I set my rifle down and quickly took off my training gear that felt like an extra body hanging on my shoulders. At the same moment that I felt like I could take a break from the training day and let my guard down, I heard one of
Tina Chen’s critical essay provides information on how returning soldiers aren’t able to connect to society and the theme of alienation and displacement that O’Brien discussed in his stories. To explain, soldiers returning from war feel alienated because they cannot come to terms with what they saw and what they did in battle. Next, Chen discusses how O’Brien talks about soldiers reminiscing about home instead of focusing in the field and how, when something bad happens, it is because they weren’t focused on the field. Finally, when soldiers returned home they felt alienated from the country and
Bracken, Patrick and Celia Petty (editors). Rethinking the Trauma of War. New York, NY: Save the Children Fund, Free Association Books, Ltd, 1998.
The three narratives “Home Soil” by Irene Zabytko, “Song of Napalm” by Bruce Weigl, and “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen all have the same feelings of war and memory, although not everyone experiences the same war. Zabytko, Weigl, and Owen used shifting beats, dramatic descriptions, and intense, painful images, to convince us that the horror of war far outweighs the devoted awareness of those who fantasize war and the memories that support it.
War has always been something to be dreaded by people since nothing good comes from it. War affects people of all ages, cultures, races and religion. It brings change, destruction and death and these affect people to great extents. “Every day as a result of war and conflict thousands of civilians are killed, and more than half of these victims are children” (Graca & Salgado, 81). War is hard on each and every affected person, but the most affected are the children.
When I was seventeen I nervously traveled about 350 miles from my sleepy little home town of Freedom, Wyoming to the relatively enormous city of Boise, Idaho to go to the Military Entrance Processing Station. This wasn 't the first time I had been this far from home by myself, but it was the first time I was making adult decisions without my parents involvement. When it came time for me to choose my job in the army the counselors presented me with a long list that I qualified for. I got tired of scrolling and reading so I chose the first job that I actually understood. I returned home and excitedly told my parents that I would be an infantry soldier. My dad 's response to this might be considered a little less than heart warming “You dumb ass. Why didn 't you choose
As we got further and further into the Vietnam War, few lives were untouched by grief, anger and fear. The Vietnamese suffered the worst hardship; children lay dead in the street, villages remained nothing but charred ashes, and bombs destroyed thousands of innocent civilians. Soldiers were scarred emotionally as well as physically, as