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Impact of the Vietnam War
Vietnam war effect on us
Impact of the Vietnam War
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Recommended: Impact of the Vietnam War
In the short story, “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong,” by Tim O’Brien, the author shows that no matter what the circumstances were, the people that were exposed to the Vietnam War were affected greatly. A very young girl named Mary Anne Bell was brought by a boyfriend to the war in Vietnam. When she arrived she was a bubbly young girl, and after a few weeks, she was transformed into a hard, mean killer. Mark Fossie decided he was going to sneak his girlfriend onto his base in Vietnam. When she arrived, Rat Kiley described her like this, “A tall big-boned blonde. At best, Rat said, she was seventeen years old, fresh out of Cleveland Heights Senior High. She had long white legs and blue eyes and a complexion like strawberry ice cream. Very Friendly, too.” The first couple of weeks, they were always together. They would hold hands and laugh. It was obvious they were in love. She started changing shortly after she began asking questions about everything. She wanted to go into town one day but it was very dangerous because the VC owned the placed. But she kept asking Mark and finally he agreed. She walked right through the whole town without one single hint of fear. As if she wasn’t aware that she was in great danger. Then she began helping with the wounded victims. She wasn’t afraid to get blood on her hands at all. Even the really gross wounds didn’t seem to bother her. Rat Kiley explains, “In times of action her face took on a sudden new compos...
Tim O’Brien begins his journey as a young “politically naive” man and has recently graduated out of Macalester College in the United States of America. O’Brien’s plan for the future is steady, but this quickly changes as a call to an adventure ruins his expected path in life. In June of 1968, he receives a draft notice, sharing details about his eventual service in the Vietnam War. He is not against war, but this certain war seemed immoral and insignificant to Tim O’Brien. The “very facts were shrouded in uncertainty”, which indicates that the basis of the war isn’t well known and perceived
Rat Kiely continues to tell a story about how Mary Anne had an affect on everyone. One day as Mary Anne searches the unknown of Vietnam, she goes missing. Her boyfriend, Mark Fossie is desperate and stunned and decides to go look for her. Suddenly, Mary Anne would show up at base and go missing again. When Mark Fossie goes looking for his girlfriend once again, he sees her. Rat Kiley explains, “‘But the story did not end there. If you believes the greenies, Rat said, Mary Anne was still out there in the dark… Not quite, but almost. She had crossed to the other side. She was part of the land. She was wearing her culottes her pink sweater, and a necklace of human tongues. She was dangerous. She was ready for the kill’” (page 110). Here, Rat Kiely tells the readers that everyone had to adapt to the environment to survive, and Mary Anne has done just that. In the beginning of the chapter, Kiely talks about how Mary Anne portrayed the perfect girlfriend, sweet and innocent. But the quote displays the change that occurred to Mary Anne. It is implied early on that Mary Anne represents a common soldier which would mean that every soldier had gone through a drastic change to make them who they are. Through the dynamic character of Mary Anne, “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong”, demonstrated to
Rat states "She'd hopped a C-130 up to Chu Lai and stayed overnight at the USO and the next morning hooked a ride west with the resupply chopper"(90). It is irrational for this to happen and in war, a high school girl cannot climb on to a plane without notice. Even though this event appears to be fake, Rat succeeds on what he is doing to readers--showing how desperate and lonely soldiers are in war. A Vietnam soldier will go to crazy lengths for a woman or something that allow them to get away from war and forget
Exposing the Truth in Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong "Dear Mom and Dad: The war that has taken my life, and many thousands of others before me, is immoral, unlawful, and an atrocity," (letter of anonymous soldier qtd. In Fussell (653). Tim O'Brien, a Vietnam War vet, had similar experiences as the soldier above. Even though O'Brien didn't die, the war still took away his life because a part of him will never be the same.
In this chapter, O’Brien contrasts the lost innocence of a young Vietnamese girl who dances in grief for her slaughtered family with that of scarred, traumatized soldiers, using unique rhetorical devices
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.
Tim O’Brien served in the Vietnam War, and his short story “The Things They Carried” presents the effects of the war on its young soldiers. The treatment of veterans after their return also affects them. The Vietnam War was different from other wars, because too many in the U.S. the soldiers did not return as heroes but as cruel, wicked, and drug addicted men. The public directs its distaste towards the war at the soldiers, as if they are to blame. The also Veterans had little support from the government who pulled them away from their families to fight through the draft. Some men were not able to receive the help they needed because the symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) did not show until a year
The Vietnam War was not a “pretty” war. Soldiers were forced to fight guerilla troops, were in combat during horrible weather, had to live in dangerous jungles, and, worst of all, lost sight of who they were. Many soldiers may have entered with a sense of pride, but returned home desensitized. The protagonist in Louise Erdrich’s “The Red Convertible,” is testament to this. In the story, the protagonist is a young man full of life prior to the war, and is a mere shell of his former self after the war. The protagonists in Tim O’Brien’s “If I Die in a Combat Zone,” and Irene Zabytko’s “Home Soil,” are also gravely affected by war. The three characters must undergo traumatic experiences. Only those who fought in the Vietnam War understand what these men, both fictional and in real life, were subjected to. After the war, the protagonists of these stories must learn to deal with a war that was not fought with to win, rather to ensure the United States remained politically correct in handling the conflict. This in turn caused much more anguish and turmoil for the soldiers. While these three stories may have fictionalized events, they connect with factual events, even more so with the ramifications of war, whether psychological, morally emotional, or cultural. “The Red Convertible,” and “Home Soil,” give readers a glimpse into the life of soldiers once home after the war, and how they never fully return, while “If I Die in a Combat Zone,” is a protest letter before joining the war. All three protagonists must live with the aftermath of the Vietnam War: the loss of their identity.
When O’Brien first arrives to Vietnam, the men of the platoon show him how the grief of war can be covered up by humor. As the men were patrolling near a village off the South China Sea they suddenly started to encounter sniper fire. The firefight only lasted a few minutes but Lt. Cross decided to order an airstrike on the village anyways. After the strike was over, the platoon proceeded to the smoldering village to find nothing but “…an old man who lay face up near a pigpen at the center of the village. His right arm was gone. At his face there were already many flies and gnats.”(). To many, this image of a destroyed village and the mutilated old man would cause horror and plight. Instead of that normal reaction, “Dave Jensen went over and shook the old man’s hand. “How-dee-doo,” he said.”(). The other men of the platoon also went up to the dead man’s body and shook his hand while adding a comment. This disturbing response the men have to the dead old man isn’t one of disrespect, it is their coping mechanism for realizing what they just did. Because O’Brien was new to Vietnam he had yet to understand why the men were all doing this. He was awestruck by the actions...
While in Nam, Mark came up with a master plan to fly Mary Anne over to Vietnam to be with him. As men joked one evening about how easy it could be to sneak someone over Mark heard and took this as no joke. He was going to try it! He spent almost all of his money to get her over but it paid off,they were reunited. The picture of a happy couple they spent most of their time together adn for a while things seemed very normal to them.
Mark Fossie arranges a way to get his girlfriend down to Nam and a big change happens. Fossies girlfriend, Mary Anne Bell, was straight out of high school only seventeen years old. Once she gets there Fossie is the happiest man on earth. Just watching her dance and goof around making him get a grin on her face. She starts to hang around all the men and having a good time. Mary Anne begins to act a little more like the troops by not being afraid to get dirty and become a stronger fearless woman. She goes out with them into the woods, learns how to disassemble and shoot an M16, and to feed/hunt on her own. Then she starts acting less and less like the girl Fossie met on the first day Mary Anne came to visit. In the novel O’Brien says “her body seemed foreign somehow- too stiff in places, too firm where the softness used to be. The bubbliness was gone. The nervous giggling, too. When she laughed now, which was rare, it was only when something struck her as truly funny.” (O’Brien 94-95) which is showing how much the atmosphere there has changed her. War has changed her. The hot days, dirty jobs, and around all the dangerous forest area that could hold the enemies. She is becoming distant of Fossie and a whole new different person. O’Brien also says “In the evenings, while the men played cards, she would sometimes fall into long elastic silence, her eyes fixed on the dark, her arms folded, her foot tapping out a code message against the floor.” Which also shows she had changed. More distant and almost gives off a lost feeling in her eyes. She begins to come back really late at night and sometimes not coming back at all. In the end Mark Fossie approaches her after listening to her beautiful singing and tries to figure out why she has change or why she almost seems to have no interest in him anymore. She
Mary Anne is initially introduced to the audience, narrated by Rat Kiley, as an innocent and naïve young woman present in Vietnam solely to visit her boyfriend, Mark Fossie. She arrives in “white culottes” and a “sexy pink sweater” (86), and is deemed by the other soldiers as no more than a happy distraction for her man. As Mary Anne settles in though, her abundant curiosity of Vietnam and the war heighten, and she soon enough possesses as much interest in the war as many of the men. Forward, Mary Anne’s transformation into a soldier begins as she leaves her sweet femininity behind. No longer caring for her vanity, she falls “into the habits of the bush. No cosmetics, no fingernail filing. She stopped wearing jewelry, [and] cut her hair short” (94). Mary Anne’s lost femininity is also evident when she handles powerful rifles like the M-16. Not only does the weapon literally scream out masculi...
“And then one morning, all alone, Mary Anne walked off into the mountains and did not come back” (110). Tim O’Brien’s short story “The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” presents an all-American girl who has been held back by social and behavioral norms – grasping for an identity she has been deprived the ability to develop. The water of the Song Tra Bong removes Mary Anne’s former notion of being as she, “stopped for a swim” (92). With her roles being erased Mary Anne becomes obsessed with the land and mystery of Vietnam and is allowed to discover herself. Through the lenses of Mark Fossie and the men in the Alpha Company, Mary Anne becomes an animal and is completely unrecognizable by the end of the story. Mary Anne, however, states she is happy and self-aware. The men of the Alpha Company argue for virtue in that Mary Anne was “gone” (107) and that what she was becoming “was dangerous… ready for the kill” (112). They did not want to accept a woman becoming something different from what women always were. In “How Tell to a True War Story” we are told that a true war story “does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior” (65). Mary Anne did not truly become ‘dark’, because to her this is not a story about war; this is a story about a woman attempting to overcome gender roles and the inability of men to accept it.
In an article by Word Press they agree that, “The [Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong] challenges every idea of gender roles that have been cemented in these hyper-masculine soldiers, and in doing so challenges their idea that there is an essential different feminine identity” (Word Press, paragraph 9). In both stories the main female character is an innocent women who is almost desperately in love with their boyfriends. They are so in love that they allow their boyfriends to bring them into this new environment. In The Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong story Mary Anne, the main character, is visiting her boyfriend, Mark Fossie during the middle of the Vietnam War. While in The Yellow Wallpaper the main character, who is never named, has been sent to what we assume is a plantation where she is told to stay in bed and rest to get better by her husband,
As we got further and further into the Vietnam War, few lives were untouched by grief, anger and fear. The Vietnamese suffered the worst hardship; children lay dead in the street, villages remained nothing but charred ashes, and bombs destroyed thousands of innocent civilians. Soldiers were scarred emotionally as well as physically, as