Talking about their heroic or gruesome adventures at war is a sensitive subject to most war veterans. Although some soldiers come home struggling to talk about their traumatic experience overseas, some are more open about the subject because they are grateful to have survived the war. I am thankful to have a war veteran in my life who does not struggle to talk about their experience and who came back to the states as a proud veteran. I had the wonderful opportunity to interview my grandfather who is a proud survivor of the Vietnam war.
Before going into the interviewed with my grandfather I didn't have any expectations. I just had to prepare my ears so I would be able to listen to horrifying stories about death. Surprisingly, his stories weren't
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He stated that it wasn't because he was forced to it was because he had no other choice. In the time period that the vietnam war was taken placed blacks was not able to work just anywhere. They either had the choice to work at a factory, live on the streets, or join the military. He said in order for him to have a better future in the small city of Anniston, Alabama he had no choice but to join the military. Living in this social circumstance his brothers also joined the military and one brother served the vietnam war just like him. My grandfather explains to me that back then, there was a law stating that two family members could not serve at the same time. One of his oldest brothers was at vietnam, dying of an illness. He had no choice, in order to save his brother’s life is to go and take his spot, so his brother would be able to come …show more content…
My grandfather described vietnam as a pretty country but yet poor and his living conditions were horrible. O’Brien described the stink field that killed Kiowa just like my grandfather described it to me, “ The rain made quick dents in the water, like tiny mouths, and the stink was everywhere” (O’Brien 158). My grandfather had to stay the night in a similar stinky location like that. He said that sometimes that they would have to sleep standing up in the stinking water. He states that honestly no one really could sleep because of the smell and the darkness. O’Brien describes the serene of the night as “ Always a heavy cloud cover. No moon and no stars. It was the purest black you could imagine” (O’Brien 209). While my grandfather was telling me this story he repeatedly kept saying “it was so dark, it was dark Aviaon, just dark as black”. I imagine it to be exactly like O’Brien had described it. My grandfather overall hated the weather because it would always rain then it would be extremely hot. As they traveled across vietnam he tells me that the people in the villages were so poor that they would eat of their trash cans or steal their leftover scraps just to survive. While telling me this he repeatedly shakes his head because probably us discussing this subject brought up more horrible
i. Difficulties faced by soldiers due to the nature of fighting in the Vietnam War - Personnel had difficulties with transportation supplied with adapted vehicles back seat faced rear to provide additional fire power (Source A) – It appears as if the government didn't worry enough to supply men with safe and capable equipment - Threat of traps led to fear as vehicles had to be parked on street at night (Source A) o Check for traps each morning became a daily ritual particularly in fuel tanks (Source A) o A request for a locking fuel cap was denied because weren’t entitled to one” (Source A) • What circumstances would have needed to arise for them to be entitled to one? The Offensive full guard was set up (24hrs a day), personnel got no sleep and were constantly on alert (Source A) – How significant would this have been in the personnel’s mental frame of mind?
In If I Die in a Combat Zone by Tim O’Brien, the author argued that the Vietnam War was horrible as a whole through his depictions of the steady mistreatment by commanding officers, the soldiers experiences of innocent deaths which caused emotional damage, and the demanding physical work they went through on a daily basis.
It has been known that the Vietnam War affected many American soldiers who were involved in the war physically and psychologically. The Vietnam War was one of the most memorable wars in history. Many Americans’ lives lost for no objective at all. Chapter 10 informed us about how the Vietnam War started and what really happened during that time. It also gave us background information about Vietnam Veterans and nurses who were involved in the war and what they went through during the war. I had the opportunity to interview a Vietnam Veteran also.
...ust deal with similar pains. Through the authors of these stories, we gain a better sense of what soldiers go through and the connection war has on the psyche of these men. While it is true, and known, that the Vietnam War was bloody and many soldiers died in vain, it is often forgotten what occurred to those who returned home. We overlook what became of those men and of the pain they, and their families, were left coping with. Some were left with physical scars, a constant reminder of a horrible time in their lives, while some were left with emotional, and mental, scarring. The universal fact found in all soldiers is the dramatic transformation they all undergo. No longer do any of these men have a chance to create their own identity, or continue with the aspirations they once held as young men. They become, and will forever be, soldiers of the Vietnam War.
They use medication and alcohol for sleeping because they obsess that enemies are coming, they need more consciousness to fight back.
The impact of the Vietnam War upon the soldiers who fought there was huge. The experience forever changed how they would think and act for the rest of their lives. One of the main reasons for this was there was little to no understanding by the soldiers as to why they were fighting this war. They felt they were killing innocent people, farmers, poor hard working people, women, and children were among their victims. Many of the returning soldiers could not fall back in to their old life styles. First they felt guilt for surviving many of their brothers in arms. Second they were haunted by the atrocities of war. Some soldiers could not go back to the mental state of peacetime. Then there were soldiers Tim O’Brien meant while in the war that he wrote the book “The Things They Carried,” that showed how important the role of story telling was to soldiers. The role of stories was important because it gave them an outlet and that outlet was needed both inside and outside the war in order to keep their metal state in check.
A war that still comes to mind and appears in people’s conversation today is the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War started November 1, 1955 and ended April 1, 1975. This war involved the United States, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, New Zealand, and Thailand. The people who didn’t experience the war might wonder what it was like, what were the soldiers duties, how did the soldiers act, or even how did the soldiers survive the war. Tim O’Brien who wrote a short story that is called “The Things They Carried”, is a story that involves soldiers who are in Vietnam. In his story he writes about a Lieutenant named Jimmy Cross and his passion about a woman named Martha and how he becomes a better lieutenant for his men during the war.
The speech that I chose to analyze and critique is from John Forbes Kerry “Vietnam Veterans Against the War” to the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. In this speech he did not represent himself, he represented the group of 1000 veterans that feels the same way he does about the war.
In this interview my interviewee was my grandfather Roy Gene Lakin. In the interview I asked him multiple questions over what he did during his time in the war. We talked about his rank and about what life was like in Vietnam and where he has been during that time. This interview will give you information about what people did during the war. My grandpa told me things about what he did and about what his job was as a U.S. Marine.
The number one thing that comes to mind when I think of a war story is American Sniper. It would be the perfect example of what someone would think of. It shows the things that Chris Kyle went through while he was fighting in the war and the adjustment that he had when he returned home from the war. Even before the movie came out when I heard of someone returning home from being away at war the thing that came to mind was them dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Not everyone that come home from serving in the war does not deal with PTSD, but media makes you think that it affects everyone. According to Tim O’Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story” the things that our minds go to are not even true war stories. He says that when you hear
...e effects the psychological trauma had on many. History books do not discuss the human being, the individual’s fears, or tests of faith they have to endure. What a history book tells readers is the facts, figures, dates, winners and losers. History books are impersonal and the research is based on documents and the accounts of others as well as their biases. O’Brien has biases too; however, that does not dismiss his firsthand account of the war or the retelling of what he saw years ago. His book is worthy of being considered a historical account of the Vietnam War because he was there, he witnessed the atrocities, he witnessed the loss of life, he witnessed soldiers inability to continue fighting the war and the psychological effect it had on some of them. So regardless of the method of retelling his experience, O’Brien’s account of the war is truly historical.
War stories are hard to tell. Vietnam ones, particularly so. Veterans sometimes find it hard to convey their experiences. They are such traumatic and deeply influencing memories that a person might not find the words to describe it. However, other times, the problem lies on the receiving end. In his fictional work The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien argues that people tend to not listen and to not care for the truth. He also argues that war stories are sometimes not fully about the war, either.
Suffering the horrors of war skews a veteran’s world view. Society undercuts the ordeal that soldiers go through and “…trauma exposure can have varying effects on religious and spiritual aspects of peoples’ lives…” (Perera 27). Civilians are ignorant to the experiences of soldiers. They think of
The Fall of Saigon took place from April 27, 1975 to April 30, 1975. This happened in the capital of South Vietnam, which is Saigon, also known as Ho Chi Minh City. The Fall of Saigon happened here because the city was being captured by the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. This capital is also called Ho Chi Minh City because North Vietnam had a big victory over South Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh was the leader of the North for several years. The Fall of Saigon was the capture of Saigon, where the Presidential Palace was destroyed. (Trueman 7) The capital was captured by the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces. The Fall of Saigon happened because the U.S pulled their troops out of the Vietnam war with the signing or agreement of the Paris Peace Accords. (The Learning Network 3) This agreement created some controversy between the North and South Vietnam.
This paper will discuss how the veterans felt and the issues they faced, what the people home did or felt, and what the veterans did about it. The first thing that will be discussed in this paper is how veterans felt when they came home. According to History.com a video about the Vietnam War called Coming Home, soldiers were as ready to come home as the