the viet-innocent

A detailed Summary of the viet-innocent

Imagine yourself in a newly strange, unfamiliar tropical jungle environment. The catch is, your purpose is not to take eye-catching photographs for National Geographic magazine. Instead, you are assigned to kill people of a foreign land you have never seen before, because your government tells you it is the patriotic, honorable duty you owe your country. Everything is all right in the beginning. You arrive in Vietnam, familiarize yourself with your platoon, acquaintances and close friends alike. The worst things so far are the irritating, annoying insects that buzz around you in the midst of the tropical heat while wearing a hot, uncomfortable marine uniform, while carrying a heavy backpack and a semi-automatic weapon, and fatigue from hiking and digging numerous trenches. Until one night in the jungle, someone you are perhaps close with is blown to pieces before your eyes. Its possible the only thing left of them is sadly their lower half. It is the first time you have witnessed another human being violently, grotesquely mutilated to unexpected death in only a matter of a second. Emotions are raging through you: fear, anger, shock, frustration, paranoia, sadness, and maybe after seeing this numerous tim

Ferry, NY: Oceana, 1968. 211 pp.

During the draft, many young men were recruited to boot camps and military training in order to prepare them for the war. In many US military training camps, drill sergeants and other heads of command stressed to hate the Vietnamese at all costs, for they were the enemy and enemies deserve no mercy. According to Caputo, this led to counting civilians as Viet Cong. "If its dead and Vietnamese, its VC." As a result, some men acquired a contempt for human life and a predilection for taking it," (156).

In conclusion, many soldiers who committed unspeakable acts of brutality against the people of Vietnam are not responsible for their actions and were heavily influenced to do so against their conscience and will. All these factors contributed to the irrational mind sets of the soldiers who committed such hianeous and atrociously violent crimes against the civilians of Vietnam. However, we did not experience the same events, so therefore we may not relate or understand the lives of the veterans of the Vietnam War. But at least we have an idea of how Vietnam affected them. Who knows what Vietnam may have done to any of us?

When soldiers would travel through Vietnamese villages, some apparently regular civilians would attack the Americans with grenades or other explosives, sometimes killing themselves in the process. To some Vietnamese, self-sacrifice was essential in order to kill American soldiers. Some of these Vietnamese were women and children. A soldier might go up to a civilian to ask for directions, usually with a Vietnamese interpreter, and ask for directions, or buy cigarettes and even marijuana, and the civilian would hand the soldier a grenade and run. How did the American soldiers know whom to trust? They did not-especially when people trying to kill them were Vietnamese women and children. "I came across a young gook boy. I gave him a buck to buy a pack of smokes, then he handed me a grenade instead. I threw that fucker away, and thank Jesus, it didn't explode when it did. My life flashed before me," stated Keith Martin-a former Vietnam veteran interviewed in Joseph A. Amter's Vietnam Verdict: A Citizen's History (247).

5. O'Nan, Stewart, ed. The Vietnam Reader. New York: Doubleday. 1998.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1979
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History