Soldiers Personal Narratives of the Vietnam War and The Vietnam War and the Tragedy of Containment :: Vietnam War Essays

Soldiers Personal Narratives of the Vietnam War and The Vietnam War and the Tragedy of Containment After reading the Soldiers Personal Narratives of the Vietnam War and The Vietnam War and the Tragedy of Containment, both information did not vary each other. What both information actually do is that they compliment each other. When reading The Vietnam War and the Tragedy of Containment, we are reading a historical abbreviation from a historians point of view. But not all of the analysis can really give the readers a sense of what the war is really like. So by reading the Soldiers Personal Narratives of the Vietnam War, we are reading what the soldiers of the Vietnam War actually goes through and what the soldiers are thinking. For instance, from The Vietnam War and the Tragedy of Containment, it describes The Army wanted proof of enemy casualties--high land ratios--to present to Washington. Philip Caputo recalled If its dead and its Vietnamese, its Viet Cong, was the rule of th umb in compiling casualty statistics. Similarly from The Vietnam War and the Tragedy of Containment, it writes In March of 1968 an American unit was patrolling the liquidation of My Lai in Central Vietnam. They had suffered recent losses, were frustrated by their inability to find the enemy and anxious for revenge. They rounded up unarmed women, children, and elderly civilians, raped the women, then(prenominal) opened fire. The killed over 300 Vietnamese civilians, mostly women and children. By reading these passages, it makes readers feel disgusted about the war and how the leaders approached their frustrations of who their enemies were. But reading these passages does not give a personal detail of how the soldiers felt or were thinking as these tragedies were occuring. For instance, from the Soldiers Personal Narratives of the Vietnam Wars The Commo Man, it describes a very powerful narrative of how a Vietnamese civilian was shot by a U.S. soldier I knew what the Sarge was going to do, but I didnt say anything. I just watched, as if in a dream, unconnected from the world around me, paralyzed, impotent. I could have stopped it. The Bummer and I were close. All I had to do was say Bummer, dont do it. Just four exact words, and the spell would have been broken. Instead, I said nothing, and watched as Sarge put his rifle to his shoulder, took aim and fired.