Guerrilla warfare

formed helped them to survive, and helped the men of Alpha Company to cope with the war after they returned to the United States. "The bond that men form with each other in the heat of battle is incomprehensible to those who have not experienced warfare for themselves...You make close friends. You become part of a tribe and you share the same blood - you give it together, you take it together." (O'Brien, 192) This bond of friendship helps the men of Alpha Company survive on a day to day…

United State's account of the events at El Mozote start by accounting the massacre "Although it is not possible to prove or disprove excesses of violence against the civilians population of El Mozote by Government troops, it is certain that the guerrilla forces did nothing to remove them from the path of battle" (Donner 111). This at least recognizes that they do not know the exact details of the massacre, but they do realize that one occurred. Subsequent interviews by United States Ambassador…

The Vietnam War was considerably much more than American soldiers going out in combat to fight the enemy, but rather a mental warfare fighting themselves. Tim O’Brien’s short story “The Things They Carried” is an American classic that conveys the physical things the soldiers were carrying while also expressing the mental burdens they carry during the Vietnam War. First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, like many other soldiers, long for the love from the ones they left back home. Cross yearns for one girl…

The book “If I die in a Combat Zone” written by Vietnam veteran Tim O’Brien walks the reader through the main stages that a normal individual has to go through from the day he is drafted until the day he comes home from the war. The author, who is also the protagonist of the story, explains how hard it was to be a soldier in the Vietnam war. He also focuses on the fact that some soldiers thought the war was wrong. In this memoir O’Brien gives the audience an overview of his thoughts during…

America from the 1950’s to the 1970’s was in complete turmoil. The Vietnam War had taken over and fear was instilled into the lives of Americans everywhere. There was the fear of being drafted, the fear of loved ones leaving, the fear of loved ones dying, and the fear of war itself. Although society wanted to believe the war was notable and heroic, many did not think that way. Men who were sent over to Vietnam during the war were stripped of their lives and forced to adapt to life under attack.…

The Harsh Realities of War War is an unchanging human interaction that has been present in history for as long as humans have. Although every war has its own mitigating factors that started them and are fought by different people, the abstract concept of war has yet to change since humans fought each other with sticks and stones. Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried provides specific insight into the effects War had on the soldiers of the American Alpha Company in the Vietnam War and…

Wilhelm likens her village to the My Lai massacre in order to essentially bring the war back home to America by comparing what happened to the Vietnamese citizens in real life to that of the American civilians in the village. “The Village”, being written in 1969, is during the Vietnam War in which American citizens are protesting against being involved with a war related to Vietnamese independence. For example, Wilhelm uses Mildred Carry as a writing strategy to show that Americans soldiers are…

A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo retells a piece of American history from the point of view of a marine. In Vietnam, Lieutenant Philip J. Caputo aged decades in a matter of years. He witnesses many deaths. Some were caused by the Viet Cong, but others by marines. This book “does not pretend to be history” (xiii) because it does not have to. It is not an adventure book written so the good guy always wins. History is told by the people who were involved in the event and Philip Caputo was a marine…

In Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel Ceremony Tayo suffers from PTSD after he serves in a American War. Tayo only decides to sign up for the army because his brother Rocky decides to join, Rocky is later killed in the war right in front of Tayo. Tayo later goes through many different ceremonies and finally comes up with his own in hopes to cure his culture and the world. Tayo rebels with white culture many times when he does these ceremonies after he gets out of the hospital, the white people think…

Catfish and Mandala is about the author Andre X. Pham’s journey through Japan and Vietnam on bicycle. It is more than a physical journey it is also a psychological journey and discovery for the author. He was trying to find his place in the world, come to grips with his transgender brother’s suicide, and figure out what might have been if his family had stayed in Vietnam after the Vietnam War. Andrew also known as An, his Vietnamese name. Oftentimes not American enough to be American and not…