First Impressions: War

I did make an honest attempt at looking at every page in Retellings but ultimately failed when I reached the stories and poems about the Vietnam War. War stories are something very attractive to me. They are grounded in a reality that we face every day; that there are battles to be fought, obstacles to overcome and victories to achieve. The greater point of interest for me however is that any war story worth it's salt addresses the issues beyond those on the surface. The issues of why we fight, what fighting does to the individual, and the true cost of war. The Vietnam War lends itself extremely well to addressing these deeper human issues.

The Vietnam War was a product of the cold war and fears of the communist "red tide" expanding through Asia. That fear is what drove the war in southeast Asia and was something new for America. Before Vietnam the United States had become involved in wars out of vengance, allegence or freedom for it's own people but Vietnam was different. It was fear that drove the U.S. presence in Vietnam, and it was this shift in motivation that contributed to the change in how the war impacted the soliders fighting it and the global attitude towards it.

This shift in attitudes, along with the terrain and enemy, provided a wartime experience that had never been had before and a backdrop on which poignant and powerful stories, both fiction and non-fiction can be told. It is because of this that stories about Vietnam hold a special allure for me. The darker side of human nature is allowed to show itself on both sides of the battlefield, in American as well as Vietcong camps. This idea almost inconceivable in a story set during WWII when the noble allies, fighting for freedom and justice are cast in opposition of the epitome of evil that is the Third Reich.

This paradigm shift has affected every american war to follow and the very culture and politics of our nation and as a result the stories about it are especially powerful and interesting to me. I look forward to this section of the class a great deal.