Bloods Character Analysis

In Bloods, the accounts of these veterans’ experiences really bring out the inhumane aspects of this war and what they really thought of being there. The individual soldiers each had their own experiences during the war that shaped their opinions and changed their lives forever. Many of the soldiers had come from similar backgrounds back on the home front and were dealing with the same problems trying to gain social equality and partaking in the Civil Rights Movement. Once in the service, the African Americans encountered the same discrimination as back home. Many of the stories were the same in Vietnam of reoccurring combat but there was a particular veteran’s experience that stood out and what it turned him into. The words spoken by the veterans

Many of the soldiers came from poor families because their parents either had a hard time finding a job with great income of they had a large number of siblings. Specialist 4 Haywood came from a family where his parents had 11 kids so their income was spread thin (Terry, pg 90). Also Lieutenant Commander Norman was one of 5 children and only his father worked to support the family while his mother stayed home (Terry, pg 189). Private Edwards came form a poor family just being that his parents did not have the best paying jobs so he learned to appreciate what he had (Terry, pg 4). The low income families a lot of the veterans had come from were in the midst of the Civil rights movement wanting social equality and fair treatment for work. This unification carried over for the young Africa Americans in the war because they were fighting to keep communism from spreading and for the Vietnamese’s people freedom and liberty as the United States was doing back home, just in a less violent

The soldiers came together to fight this war which they originally thought had purpose although their opinions changed over the duration of it, calling in an investment for American economics. There were similarities that united these black veterans for the cause of war and civil rights, that originated from their social backgrounds. They fought this war with unparalleled patriotism that made them feared on the battle field. The oral accounts they gave are accurate to an extent where things may be exaggerated. The one thing that we know from these accounts and facts is the incredibly difficult time they had of racism and