There are very few topics that I enjoy discussing more in history than wars, and Vietnam is one that I truly appreciate. I realize I wasn't alive during this time, but sometimes I kind of wish that I could have experienced the emotions that America experienced during this war.
This entire poem is chock full of IRONY...which come on, who doesn't love a good ironic poem and/or story?
The soldier who is in the "far country" is writing letters to his parents, namely his mother, and telling them random tidbits of information like how it rains often and how beautiful the sunsets are. The mother, being as all mothers are, senses that there is something more to his superficial answers than what he is letting on. She claims to want to know the truth and for her son to not "hold back." Finally, in the 7th stanza, he does not hold back and says:
So the next time he worte, the young man said,
"Today I killed a man. Yesterday, I helped drop napalm
on women and children."
Talk about hitting his parents with some truth! When he sends this letter, his DAD writes back and tells him not to say such horrible things because it upset his mother. Well, mother of son fighting for his country, do not ask questions you do not want to know the answers to!
The poem is ironic because the whole time he is shielding his family from what he is actually experiencing even though they claim to want to know what is actually going on. When he finally opens up and tells them the horrors he is experiencing, they are afraid and scold him! People really should not ask questions unless they are prepared to know the answers, no matter how gruesome or macabre.
This definitely represents America well during the time period. Americans did not know what the war was about...heck...soldiers didn't even know what the war was about!! They were merely doing their duties. The irony helps to emphasize how America was so oblivious to what was going on, and yet when they asked questions, they were upset to find out the answers.
This entire poem is chock full of IRONY...which come on, who doesn't love a good ironic poem and/or story?
The soldier who is in the "far country" is writing letters to his parents, namely his mother, and telling them random tidbits of information like how it rains often and how beautiful the sunsets are. The mother, being as all mothers are, senses that there is something more to his superficial answers than what he is letting on. She claims to want to know the truth and for her son to not "hold back." Finally, in the 7th stanza, he does not hold back and says:
So the next time he worte, the young man said,
"Today I killed a man. Yesterday, I helped drop napalm
on women and children."
Talk about hitting his parents with some truth! When he sends this letter, his DAD writes back and tells him not to say such horrible things because it upset his mother. Well, mother of son fighting for his country, do not ask questions you do not want to know the answers to!
The poem is ironic because the whole time he is shielding his family from what he is actually experiencing even though they claim to want to know what is actually going on. When he finally opens up and tells them the horrors he is experiencing, they are afraid and scold him! People really should not ask questions unless they are prepared to know the answers, no matter how gruesome or macabre.
This definitely represents America well during the time period. Americans did not know what the war was about...heck...soldiers didn't even know what the war was about!! They were merely doing their duties. The irony helps to emphasize how America was so oblivious to what was going on, and yet when they asked questions, they were upset to find out the answers.
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