Relationships Between Vietnam Soldiers and Their Families

(160) It is heartbreaking for Bäumer to see his family because he has learned to disconnect his emotions in the war. Once soldiers train themselves to be so disconnected, it is different to reverse the effect. The emotional disconnection has destroyed Bäumer's sense of humanity and makes it difficult for him to be around not just his family, but all people who are not soldiers like him. He enjoys the scenery of his homeland but does not like being around all of the people. "It is pleasant to sit quietly somewhere...

The war was not popular at home so the soldiers were rejected when they got home( Effect on the Vietnam War). They were also rejected by the government and their towns people. They hated that the soldiers fought for their country they thought that it was for selfish reasons. The people did not want any of the veterans near them and also did not care for their welfare. The rejection from their own town and government made it hard for the veterans to make a new life with their family.

The reality was that they put their lives on the line every day to fight for their country. It may have been heroic but definitely not glamorous to kill another human. In some cases, soldiers who were in wars had severe mental problems when they would return home from war because of the brutality they saw. When Joe finally became conscience of his surroundings he realized what had happened to him. Due to his injuries Joe was isolated from the rest of the world.

He wasn’t really looked at as a hero; he was more of a survivor. After fighting in the war, his life was damaged. Septimus is very guilty and despises himself for letting the war make him numb. He removed himself from the real world, and that’s when his doctor ordered his wife to make him notice the things outside of himself rather than what’s going on inside. He let himself live in an internal he sees and hears things that isn’t really there.

He was basically living in a world of fantasy because they lived in two separate worlds. Being unable to wake up from this dream made him potentially weak because his mind was always wandering elsewhere, never in the current situation. This made him an easy target for his enemies because if this had gone on, then he would start to fear death, fear fighting, and fear the war. He would become a coward because he would wish for the day when he could be with Martha again after the war. This would greatly weaken him and his army both, and they would most likely lose to the enemy.

“My father would never hit my mother” (Walters 212). This also symbolizes that his father is not behaving normally and that he is a different person because of PTSD. War has had an impact on the love in his relationship and has lead to a damaged relationship with his life partner. Another party being affected is the children of soldiers. Billy Pilgrim’s daughter name Barbara “thought that her father was senile…because of damage to his brain”(Vonnegut 28).

I struggled with the desire to know why He took her away from her family, away from her husband, and most selfishly, away from me. I never found the answer to my question, but I wasn’t really looking for it either. Instead of remaining faithful, I became hateful. Next, I became resentful towards my own family. I hated the way that my father was too busy providing for us physically that he never had time to provide for us emotionally.

Too many young men were dying for a war that was pointless in people’s minds. The effect much of the government, Johnson did not run for reelection because of the anti-war

However, this experience is not caused from something attributed to his time on the battlefield. Krebs struggles to stay true to himself and maintain his integrity, while trying to fit in again amongst the townspeople, as well as foster any type of romantic relationship. I believe war changed Krebs by showing him a new world beyond his small mid-western home town. Upon his return home, Krebs finds that the townspeople are not interested in hearing his stories about the war, but instead, “Krebs found that to be listened to at all he had to lie” (1). For Krebs, lying led him to start rejecting his experience in war as being meaningful.

7 P.141). The fact that he does not wish to speak with his parents shows Baumer’s movement away from the traditional institution of the family. His mother finally speaks to him and asks, “ was it very bad out there, Paul?” (Ch.7 P. 143) However, Baumer cannot respond to his mother’s question: he understands that the experiences he has had are so overwhelming that “ civilian language”, or any language at all, would be ineffective in describing them. Trying to replicate the experience and horrors of the war via words is impossible, Baumer realizes this and so he lies, and is able to restore his family’s faith in him. Any attempt at telling the truth would, in fact, trivialize its reality.