The Soldiers Experience During Vietnam
Think for a minute about the most thrilling time of your life, that time when your life seemed so exciting, your body was filled with adrenaline, now imagine that moment being drawn out over 4 or more years. This is how a soldiers term overseas feels, they are always on their toes, waiting for the next ambush or ever waiting for their next attack. They never know what is next and soldiers often say they have never felt as alive as they feel in a firefight. Often when soldiers return from war they find their life boring and uneventful, they feel like no one is there for them like they were 4 years prior. They feel empty.
Everyone has their morning routine, wake up, get dressed, etc. But imagine in that routine adding in loading your gun, or checking your grenades. Then you go to work in your nice car with cushioned seats. What if your car all of a sudden turned into an armored humvee, your cushioned seats turn into uncomfortable bucket seats, and you know you are on your way to a place where people are going to be doing everything in their power to make sure you do not leave. This is a soldiers life, but a lot of them can’t say they miss it, “The blessed communism of the bomb that soldiers miss when they leave”(Brett, 13-14), that’s what makes them want to go back. Their body has adapted to the constant adrenaline and life seems so unimpressive without it.
When soldiers return from way they do not really know what do with themselves, many can not just back into working a typical 9-5 job behind a desk. 1 in 3 soldiers develop disorders, like PTSD, and need treatment before going back to regular life. But it is not just jobs that the soldiers struggle with, the things that interested the soldiers before the war seemed obsolete, or the towns that seemed so exciting and full of life seem dead, “The town seemed remote somehow. Sally was married, Max was drowned, and his father was watching baseball on national television.”(O’Brien, 139) The soldiers see that all
Everyone has their morning routine, wake up, get dressed, etc. But imagine in that routine adding in loading your gun, or checking your grenades. Then you go to work in your nice car with cushioned seats. What if your car all of a sudden turned into an armored humvee, your cushioned seats turn into uncomfortable bucket seats, and you know you are on your way to a place where people are going to be doing everything in their power to make sure you do not leave. This is a soldiers life, but a lot of them can’t say they miss it, “The blessed communism of the bomb that soldiers miss when they leave”(Brett, 13-14), that’s what makes them want to go back. Their body has adapted to the constant adrenaline and life seems so unimpressive without it.
When soldiers return from way they do not really know what do with themselves, many can not just back into working a typical 9-5 job behind a desk. 1 in 3 soldiers develop disorders, like PTSD, and need treatment before going back to regular life. But it is not just jobs that the soldiers struggle with, the things that interested the soldiers before the war seemed obsolete, or the towns that seemed so exciting and full of life seem dead, “The town seemed remote somehow. Sally was married, Max was drowned, and his father was watching baseball on national television.”(O’Brien, 139) The soldiers see that all