Vietnam War Themes in Books Wandering Souls and The Sorrow of War

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Recommended: The emotional and physical effects of soldiers at war

Themes of a Soldier’s War
The Vietnam War was hard for the country to handle, let alone a single soldier. Many soldiers dealt with different personal and physiological effects of this war. This war in Vietnam was different than any of the other wars. This war was unconventional, when we first entered it was more about the fight against the spread of communism then slowly changed over the years. Going into Vietnam was different in all senses from battle conditions, weather, and heavy jungle environment. During the war some soldiers were willing to go and fight and others were not and opposed the war. The majority of the United States public did not oppose this war until it seemed like a battle that could never be won in the long run time frame. In both books the main characters describe how the war seemed like it would never end. The guerrilla warfare was unlike anything our soldiers have ever seen before. The soldiers were in combat with enemies that hide right under their nose on a daily basis. These books unveiled the deep truth of the soldiers personal experiences and showed us that the war affected the soldiers no matter what side of the battlefield they were fighting for and the ideals each of them personally had.
The Vietnam War impacted soldiers in many different ways. Most soldiers witnessed gruesome violence and lost friends to the horrors of war on both sides during battles. In the book The Sorrow of War enlightened us into the thoughts and effects of the war, as well opened the view point on the North Vietnam side. Many soldiers that fought in Vietnam carried emotional and physical injuries and these would be with them for the rest of their lives. Many of these emotional and physical scars existed their bodie...

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...t. The Vietnam War was hard for the country to handle, let alone a single soldier. Many soldiers dealt with different personal and physiological effects of this war. This war in Vietnam was different than any of the other wars are changed soldier as these books described.

Work Cited

Ninh, Bảo, and Frank Palmos. The Sorrow of War: A Novel of North Vietnam. New York: Riverhead, 1996. Print.
Karlin, Wayne. Wandering Souls: Journeys with the Dead and the Living in Viet Nam. New York: Nation, 2009. Print.
"The Visible and Invisible Effects of War." The National Interest. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2014.
"New American Nation." American Veterans. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2014. .

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