Dear America Themes

The Vietnam War that commenced on November 1, 1955, and ended on April 30, 1975, took the soldiers through a devastating experience. Many lost their lives while others maimed as the war unfolded into its full magnitude. The book Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam by Bernard Edelman presents a series of letters written by the soldiers to their loved ones and families narrating the ordeals and experiences in the Warfield. In the book, Edelman presents the narrations of over 200 letters reflecting the soldiers’ experiences on the battlefield. While the letters were written many decades ago, they hold great significance as they can mirror the periods and the contexts within which they were sent. This paper takes into account five letters from different timelines and analyzes them against the events that occurred in those periods vis a vis their significance. The conclusion will also have a personal opinion and observation regarding the book and its impacts.

Vietnam was an entirely new type of war for the United States. It still remains morally and historically problematic in today’s society. The Vietnam War had a tremendous impact on American society and culture, primarily because it was the first war to be televised. The American press played a significant

The Vietnam War is one of the most controversial wars the United States has ever been involved in. This is due to the lack of reason for the United States’ involvement in the conflict; it was not necessary to have Americans fighting in Vietnam (Cornish). Regardless of the lack of need for soldiers, young men from the United States were still drafted to fight and were shipped off to Vietnam, despite not knowing what they were fighting for. While there, most of them experienced horrific events that ended up following them after Vietnam, resulting in a condition called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which would weigh on the veterans’ shoulders for the rest of their lives. Tim O’Brien, author and Vietnam veteran, is not an exemption to

During the Vietnam War, countless young men were sent off to war to die. These young men had not much involvement in the conflict, but nonetheless, they were sent off to war by the government. Due to their lack of experience and the brutal methods of warfare used during the war, millions of young men tragically died. Tim O’ Brien – a veteran of this brutal war– wrote numerous stories regarding what he encountered in the war. In the Things They Carried, Tim wrote two stories about a man he killed during the war.

Edited by Bernard Edelman, “Dear America” is a collection of letters written by soldiers during the Vietnam War. Their letters are written to love ones back home such as parents, siblings, and spouses but they are a great depiction of the Vietnam War. The soldiers would write these letters to help keep hope alive and to keep sane. Throughout the book the letters are categorize into those who are barely arriving into the war to those who have been there a long time. The stress and anxiety grows more and more as the letters continue and the soldiers begin to contemplate their situation. I’ve learned a lot of factual things about the Vietnam War throughout my life such as how it began and what the outcome was but reading this book was the

Imagine one day you receive a mail from the government that you been draft to go a war at a different country. How would you feel if you know that purpose of this war is unreasonable in any senses? Angry, anxious or even confused. Vietnam War was “a personal failure on a national scale” (Hochgesang). There are many videos, documents and movies about the Vietnam War that show different angles of the Vietnam veterans’ experience and how the war really changes their life. In “The Things They Carried” written by Tim O’Brien, he argues about how the Vietnam War affect the soldiers in many ways, not only physically, but more important is the psychological effects before, during and after the war.

Vietnam, the heart and soul of teenage rebellion to the government for creating a draft that sent over the creative and intelligent youth, was a war that was deemed to get rid of the political idea, communism, which spread as quick as the napalm that blazed over the serene green landscapes. The narrator to the story, Tim O’Brien, repeatedly recounts memories of the war, each with an added detail or an object that carried a significant amount of weight that makes the story seem more factual than what it seems. The soldiers carried loneliness, uncertainty of the truth of war, and the heavy burden of physical and emotion weight; Tim O'Brien uses war related imagery to symbolize the vim of storytelling in his book “The Things They Carried”.

The Vietnam War was a long conflict lasting between 1955 to 1975 between the communist North and the democratic south with help from the United States. More than 3 million people, including 58,000 American troops were killed in the conflict. Tim O 'brien 's short story “The Things They Carried” follows a platoon named alpha company during the peak of the Vietnam war led by first lieutenant Jimmy Cross who is very charismatic but in his mind he is unsure how to lead his squad because his mind tends to wander to a thought of a girl back home. Throughout the story he has overcome with emotions and guilt because he believes he his the reason for some of his squadmates death. “The Things They Carried” Embodies the hardship, reality, and price/toll of war, ultimately Tim O’brien writes this masterpiece as not of a war story, but as a love story and how that love changed a man.

1. STATEMENT OF RESEARCH QUESTION Throughout the years, the Vietnam War has lived up its name as “one of the most obscure episodes and, at the same time, one of the most serious conflicts not only of the Cold war period but also of the whole modern history” (Hodboďová, 2008). It was apparently the most long-lasting conflict in American history and most disfavored war that broke out after World War II and ended in 1975. The peculiarity of this war lies not only in its prolonged duration but also in an overriding number of war casualties, or in other words, the death and destruction to the country’s people. Averagely in the struggle, more than one million Vietnamese soldiers and over 58,000 Americans were killed, not to mention the massacre

The Vietnam War was one of the most deadliest wars in America, many were killed and even more injured. The war began because of America’s efforts to stop the spread of communism. The Vietcong may of won the war but America showed that we will not let communism spread, the domino theory come into effect, and America’s faults in our war program and way to attack the Vietcong. The war was lost but from a overview of the war America learned from their lose.

Wars are a difficult place to be. “THE VIETNAM WAR transformed a generation” (Roberts 1). With all that happened during the war such as exposure to

One character is obviously the comic relief, another the beloved hero. The rest, valiant men fighting for their country, their lives, their freedom. The scene ends and the curtain rises, all of the pseudo soldiers take a bow and go home to their normal lives, far from the hands of death that grasp at the men forgotten in Vietnam, the real soldiers. They, who saw the hardships of war as more than just a script, beyond the glamorized versions that are seen by the American eyes. They saw the death and the tragedy, slowly becoming worn down into less of a human and more of a desensitized killing machine because that 's what war does. It permanently scars the soldiers, tearing away the feeling of loss and inappropriately replacing it with comedy, showing that war is destructive, stealing away an ounce of humanity with each bullet. As seen in The Things They Carried, written by Tim O 'Brien, the Vietnam War destroyed the minds of soldiers, causing them to lose their human emotions in an unglamorous setting, devaluing death as they lose their ability to appropriately handle situations.

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

This was important for me because this event overshadowed my life from an early age until my teenage years. America’s participation in the Vietnam War was an extension of the Cold War. Since America said we would fight against communism, we did. We lost approximately 60,000 service men; some are still missing in action. In the end, it served no purpose, South Vietnam lost and became a part of the communist north. Many soldiers came back with PTSD and at that time they did not have a name or real treatment, for this disorder. Many Vietnam veterans suffered many side effects from the war, angent organge and other effects of weaponary. Today, we have in comparaion massive amounts of positive propaganda for military, nevertheless, in this war, verterns were treated poorly ,especially by the public. The collateral consequences of this war effected many families. Today, I know many people and families ,who have not recovered completely from this war

It can be hard to fully comprehend the effects the Vietnam War had on not just the veterans, but the nation as a whole. The violent battles and acts of war became all too common during the long years of the conflict. The war warped the soldiers and civilians characters and desensitized their mentalities to the cruelty seen on the battlefield. Bao Ninh and Tim O’Brien, both veterans of the war, narrate their experiences of the war and use the loss of love as a metaphor for the detrimental effects of the years of fighting.