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Recommended: History of vietnam
Blood in the Hills: The Story of Khe Sahn, The Most Savage Fight of the Vietnam War, authored by Robert Maras and Charles W. Sasser, was published on April 1, 2017 and is currently priced at $18.32 on amazon.com. Based off the title alone, the reader is immediately aware of what to expect upon opening the publication. Blood in the Hills: The Story of Khe Sahn, the Most Savage Fight of the Vietnam War, written by Robert Maras with the assistance of Charles W. Sasser, tells the story of Maras, a Vietnam veteran, and his experiences during the war. From his combat landing on Red Beach, to his departure from the Demilitarized Zone, also known as the DMZ, Robert Maras describes in great detail the joys and sorrows of his time in Vietnam. The book …show more content…
In the preface, Maras, accompanied by his fellow veteran companions, Tony Leyba and Sargeant Crawford, stand before the Vietnam memorial in Washington D.C. Whilst standing, they reflect on their time at Khe Sahn and remember the fallen troops, forever engraved in the monument. After the brief introduction of characters, time flashes back to April 22, 1967, where Maras is about to land in Vietnam for the first time. From there on out, the actions become sequential in the narrative until his departure, save for several flashbacks and historical explanations. These include a range of aspects; from personal stories on how he came to enlist in the Marine Corps and the stages of bootcamp, to historical accounts on the causes of the Vietnam War and how its abrupt ending. At first, one might have thought authors Maras and Sasser failed to note the sources utilized to write these peppered reports in the reading every now and then. However, they are obscurely written in the author’s note, simple to overlook, as no separate page or clear section was included where the authors properly cited their sources. Incorporated within the acknowledged sources are a few historians, but the majority are as competent as Maras , who has only one book under his belt. Also, Robert did not employ one primary source during the entirety of the 266 page memoir. If he were to do so, he would be …show more content…
Sasser have contributed to this genre of history concerning the Vietnam War, discussing the role it played in many people’s lives. Nonetheless, considering all the books available on this particular subject, Blood in the Hills is hardly an original composition. Much like every other work of historical nonfiction, it is filled with straightforward information on his life in Vietnam, accompanied by small number of pictures in the middle of the book. Alas, Maras’ memoir fails to stand out amongst the thousands of books accessible to the public on Khe Shan and The Vietnam War. Even though the book itself wasn’t unique, Maras’ novel was victorious in fulfilling the purpose. Throughout its entirety, Blood in the Hills remains true to the courageous spirit and fight within each soldier. The reader is provided with sufficient evidence, informing them on the war, but also generating admiration for the Marine Corps and the bravery it took to launch into combat in a foreign land. By the resolution of the story, the author’s thesis is proven, the audience now educated on the horrible battles that transpired at Khe
As the war progresses, Caputo requests to go to a line company in the middle of November. This is a change from the “office” position he currently held where he was largely responsible for counting casualties. At this point, the romanticized visions Caputo had of war have been completely shattered and he goes into this transfer being fully aware of this. This change in viewpoint becomes even more clear when compared to the beginning of the novel where Caputo was intrigued by the romance and action of war. While readers would expect more action and typical war stories in this section of the book, Philip Caputo writes anything but. Caputo writes, “It went like that for the rest of the month. It was a time of little action and endless misery…Almost every hour of every night, the radio operators chanted, ‘All secure. Situation remains the same’ (1996: 240). Caputo repeats the phrase “All secure. Situation remains the same” five times throughout this single paragraph. Because of this, readers see the dull and mundane side of war that is often not talked about. In addition, Caputo continues to comment of the large amounts of waiting throughout the autobiography. When most think of the Vietnam War, they picture the “main events”. Similar to the numerous documentaries we watched in class, some of the main points of the war include: The first Indochina War, The Gulf of Tonkin, and the Tet Offensive. These documentaries all focused on these monumental events and because of this, the public perceives this war as the sum of these events. However, what many fail to consider the large gaps in time between these events. It is in these large gaps that little action occurred and most of the soldier’s time was spent waiting as Caputo depicted in this scene. In connection with
An interesting combination of recalled events and editorial commentary, the story is not set up like a traditional short story. One of the most interesting, and perhaps troubling, aspects of the construction of “How to Tell a True War Story” is O’Brien’s choice to create a fictional, first-person narrator who might just as well be the author himself. Because “How to Tell a True War Story” is told from a first-person perspective and O’Brien is an actual Vietnam veteran, a certain authenticity to this story is added. He, as the “expert” of war leads the reader through the story. Since O’Brien has experienced the actual war from a soldier’s point of view, he should be able to present the truth about war...
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
Neilson, Jim. Warring Fictions: American Literary Culture and the Vietnam War Narrative. Jackson: Mississippi UP, 1998
	The novel illuminates light on the situation not just during the Vietnam era, but also rather throughout all history and the future to come. Throughout mankind’s occupation of earth, we have been plagued by war and the sufferings caused by it. Nearly every generation of people to walk this earth have experienced a great war once in their lifetimes. For instance, Vietnam for my father’s generation, World War 2 for my grandfather’s, and World War 1 for my great-grandfather’s. War has become an unavoidable factor of life. Looking through history and toward the future, I grow concerned over the war that will plague my generation, for it might be the last war.
The United States became frustrated with the death of wounded prisoners in Vietnam War. This is so deleterious John F Kennedy sends a warning to the west. Tim O’Brien Story about Vietnam could have been a biography because he played a role and it is based on a somewhat a true Story. O’Brien didn’t go through with this because of what he wrote is what he did see, what could have happened, and what he kept from being told. In the book simple themes guilt, shame, and innocence play a vital role in the soldier’s life.
It is generally recognized that Tim O’Brien’s Going After Cacciato (1978) is most likely the best novel of the Vietnam war, albeit an unusual one in that it innovatively combines the experiential realism of war with surrealism, primarily through the overactive imagination of the protagonist, Spec Four Paul Berlin. The first chapter of this novel is of more than usual importance. Designed to be a self-sufficient story (McCaffery 137) and often anthologized as one, this chapter is crucial to the novel in that it not only introduces us to the characters and the situation but also sets the tenor of the novel and reveals its author’s view of this war in relation to which all else in the novel must be judged.
“War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead,” (80). In the fiction novel The Things They Carried, the author Tim O’Brien reminisces fighting in the Vietnam War and the aftermath of the war with his platoon mates through short stories and memories. He goes in depth about the emotional trauma and physical battles they face, what they carry, and how Vietnam and war has changed them forever. O’Brien’s stories describe the harsh nature of the Vietnam War, and how it causes soldiers to lose their innocence, to become guilt-ridden and regretful, and to transform into a paranoid shell of who they were before the war.
In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, Times Books, New York, 1995: 72, 76, 218, 219, 220, 240.
The book, We Were Soldiers Once... And Young, begins at a pivotal point in American history. The year was 1965; the year America began to directly interfere with the Vietnam affairs and send our young men to defend the notion of "freedom." During this year, Vietnam interested and concerned only a few Americans. In fact, the controversy of American involvement in Vietnam had hardly begun. But this all changed in November 1965 at the Ia Drang Valley in distant Vietnam. The Battle at LZ X-Ray and LZ Albany was the first major battle of the Vietnam conflict; a conflict that lasted decade and caused American turmoil for many more years.
The reports in this novel are prefaced with a quote by Robert Shaplen, which sums up the feelings of those Americans involved in the Vietnam conflict. He states, "Vietnam, Vietnam . . .. There are no sure answers." In this novel, the author gives a detailed historical account of the happenings in Vietnam between 1950 and 1975. He successfully reports the confusing nature, proximity to the present and the emotions that still surround the conflict in Vietnam. In his journey through the years that America was involved in the Vietnam conflict, Herring "seeks to integrate military, diplomatic, and political factors in such a way as to clarify America's involvement and ultimate failure in Vietnam."
I've always been a fan of war books, and when it came to this project, I decided to stick with the books that interest me the most. When I heard that O'Brien wrote bestselling books from his experiences in Vietnam I deicide to do my project on him as the author. To be honest I wasn't even planning on reading If I Die in a Combat Zone at first, but as I read the first page, I see the detail and clarity of his writing, and I know it will be a great book. "Count themthat's ten times to day! Ever been shot at ten times in one day?"(2). When ever I read a line like this I am amazed, its just hard to grasp the fact that in one day his company got shot at ten plus times. Not to mention the mines they had to watch out for, and all of the VC booby-traps. I am doing my project on Tim O'Brien. So this book is a perfect fit because it is one of his great books about Vietnam. Not only is it a great fit for my project, it is also a very good book. I had no...
The author, Tim O'Brien, is writing about an experience of a tour in the Vietnam conflict. This short story deals with inner conflicts of some individual soldiers and how they chose to deal with the realities of the Vietnam conflict, each in their own individual way as men, as soldiers.
...Robert S with Brian VanDeMark. In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. Vintage Books Edition published by Vintage Books, New York, 1996. Original hardcover edition published by Times Books, New York, 1995.
The DMZ, which runs through Central Vietnam is a place where undisputed violence was unleashed for over a decade in the late sixties and early seventies. During the year that I worked in Vietnam, I often returned to this spot to watch the American Veterans, who would stand at the top of Marble Mountain, withered, with vacant stares out towards the stretch of beach known only to the Americans as China. It was mystifying to consider the sharp contrast that must have seemed all too apparent to them as the sounds of war loomed in their memories and the calm ocean stretched out before them now so serenely.