John Kerry’s testimony to the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, talked about how these soldiers really did not understand how there carelessness caused so much harm towards the Vietnamese, particularly the civilians. These civilians did not understand the war and only wanted to work on the rice paddies and not have to worry about being bombed or have napalm burning their village. This testimony also talked about how we as Americans could somehow forget the pain and suffering they caused and endured while fighting in the war, so that when they are walking down the streets and a child asked him about the war, his conscious could forgive him. The scene in “ The Things They Carried”, when Rat Kiley went out and randomly shot at water buffalo, because he was mourning a death of his friend, shows that these soldiers would take there anger and suffering out with violence and carelessness. Whether these soldiers were shooting at buffalo or civilians, the soldiers left their mark in Vietnam for years to come.
http://www.grunt.com/scuttlebutt/corps-stories/vietnam/unspeakable.asp, talks about how many of these criminal acts conducted in Vietname.
3 comments:
this post correlates to mine, that war got into the minds of these soldiers and never left. it changed them into being somehow obsessed with killing to fight their own individual pain. Killing to them was the same kind of high they got from doing all those drugs. they didnt know how to manage pain and they took drastic measures in avoiding that pain even if for only a little while.
I think that you have brought up something very important, as far as the soldiers leaving their mark on Vietnam. There were terrible things done while this war was going on. But also I believe that Vietnam also made its mark on these soldiers as well. Many of these soldiers had to go through conditions that were unreal. I think that this war was just a prime case of both sides taking significant mental and physical tolls on the other, resulting in many people who were hurt.
Kyle, this was a great post that kicked off a great discussion for your group. It would have been nice to acknowledge the similarities between your analysis here and what Megan had published earlier, though.
I have no doubt that you read her post, so am not suggesting that you're ignoring her ;) but it is important to build a dialogue among group members by referencing one another's ideas, since a blog is meant to be a dialogue rather than a series of monologues...
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