Young Vietnamese Love War example essay topic

A New View of the War When we think of the Vietnam War, we think of all the hell and torture that American soldiers went through with little regard to the Vietnamese and the hardships they endured. Reading the Sorrow of War gave me a clear understanding of the Vietnamese people and the suffering that the war caused them. The Sorrow of War is unique and powerful in the sense that it is written by a Vietnam army veteran and gives the perspective of the war from a Vietnamese soldier. It is one of the few novels that has given the Vietnamese people a voice. In this beautiful novel, Bao Ninh manages to put a face on the other side of the conflict and humanize a people who until now have been viewed as faceless "gooks". When it comes to the Vietnam War, we only consider how much pain our country went through and the loss American lives, but forget about how much more the Vietnamese people have suffered and lost.

From a global perspective, many readers and movie viewers worldwide know only about how American's have suffered and the amount of pain our war veterans have endured as a result of the war. American films such as Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, Thin Red Line, and We Were Soldiers to name a few, are all Vietnam War movies that portray the loss and suffering of American life. The traditional American made movie or novel about Vietnam fails to show the human side of the struggles that the Vietnamese people both from the north and the south went through. The Americans lost only sixty thousand men in that war and their social institutions and infrastructure remained relatively intact throughout the war. However, the Vietnamese lost two million men, and their culture, society, landscape, and way of life were torn apart by the war.

The fact remains that the Vietnamese people lost more lives and went through more hell than the Americans yet their side of the story has hardly been told. The Sorrow of War is a powerful novel in the sense that it is one of the few novels written by a Vietnamese soldier that manages to portray the Vietnamese soldier as an actual person and not just a faceless image in the background "Worse still, they have always been portrayed as faceless "gooks", "Charlie", or "VC". For many years it appeared as if the Vietnamese participants in the conflict had no identity" (Ha). The Sorrow of War is one of the few novels that successfully paints a picture of the other side of the conflict and gives light to the Vietnamese culture. The characters in the story are real or become real by the end of the story.

"In most American made movies and novels the Vietnamese soldier is faceless and without depth. They are seen as just pawns of a communist machine" (Be tke). Bao Ninh does an incredible job of giving us a new view of the war through his semi-autobiographical novel that reflects his own experience of the Vietnam War. It seems that Bao Ninh's purpose in writing this story was not only to represent the pain and struggles of war but the makeup and morality of a culture and a society gone wrong. "What makes this book really sad is that all the loss and suffering endured at all levels of Vietnamese life- from the loss of youth, family, life, tradition, and love- is all in vain" (Ha). The fact that the Vietnamese lost many more lives than the Americans is proof enough why we should hear their side of the story.

The many years the Vietnamese spent fighting the war destroyed the value system of the Vietnam culture. The war devastated the country, villages, and families. Many innocent Vietnamese woman and children were killed. 'It wasn't true that young Vietnamese love war. Not true at all. If war came they would fight, and fight courageously But that did not mean they love fighting...

The recent years of war had brought enough suffering and pain to last them a thousand years' (73). Following the war, the Vietnamese began reconstructing their way of life. This story of both the war and post war experience of Vietnam reveals that its experience was similar to, if not worse than, that of America. The story is unique in that it is one of the few stories written from the viewpoint of a Vietnamese soldier. The character of Kien, whose experiences of the war bear a striking similarity to those of the author, Bao Ninh, shows the plight of the Vietnamese before, during, and after the Vietnam War.

"Kien had perhaps watched more killings and seen more corpses than any other contemporary writer. He had seen rows of youthful American soldiers, their bodies unscathed, leaning shoulder to shoulder in trenches and dugouts, sleeping an everlasting sleep because artillery barrages had blocked their exit, sucking life from them" (Ninh, 89). The war changed Kien and as a result, he was forever scarred by the war. "Losses can be made good, damage can be repaired, and wounds will heal in time. But the psychological scars of the war will remain forever" (Ninh, 193). Bao Ninh gives an honest look at how the Vietnam War forever changed his life, country, and the people who live there.

Reading the Sorrow of War gave me a whole new perspective of the Vietnam War. It opened my eyes to the devastating impact it had on the Vietnamese and their country. The Sorrow of war describes the Vietnamese as a beautiful people whose lives were forever changed by this tragic war. Bao Ninh uses beautiful and descriptive language to captivate the reader and make him feel as if he were part of the story.

Before reading this book I viewed the Vietnamese soldier as a faceless enemy. After reading the book I was given a whole new view of the war and was able to sympathize for the Vietnamese and the many innocent lives that were lost.