Summary Of Dear Americ Letters Home From Vietnam By Tim O Brien

Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam is a collection of letters from American soldiers who fought in the Vietnam War that chronicles their experiences and thoughts. These letters come from those who fought on the front lines in the jungles and from those who fought in the rear. Likewise, their opinions surrounding the war vary, and, when coupled together, many different perspectives of the war are given. If I Die in a Combat Zone: Box Me Up and Ship Me Home gives an inside look of the Vietnam War as well, albeit of one man, the author Tim O’Brien. Consequently, it delves deeper into the idea of whether the war was right or wrong.
One of the most engaging aspects of Dear America is that many diverse outlooks of the Vietnam War are given.

Many seemed to push the horrors of war down deep inside by resulting to the argument that they have to kill to survive, that if they don’t kill, they will be killed. This claim is certainly understandable, but there are those that deviated from this. Although a few soldiers believed killing in any manner was wrong, there appeared to be just as many that thought nothing was wrong with killing the Vietnamese. One alarming letter home compared killing a human being to killing a deer. Furthermore, he stated that those who would find killing a human difficult or wrong are the same who would find killing a deer difficult or wrong. However, the deaths of fellow soldiers also weigh on the psyche of the writers. Even though some speak of the death of a friend rather nonchalantly, there are many that appeared to have been greatly affected by their friend’s death and dedicate a large piece of their letter to the death. On the whole, the letters offer a wide-ranging view into the soldier’s minds and how the war affected them as individuals.
If I Die in a Combat Zone takes a far more personal look into the war, being the experiences and thoughts of one man after all. One concept it explores in depth is whether the Vietnam War was right or wrong. Of the two sides, Tim O’Brien believes that the war is not only wrong, but evil. Part of this conclusion seems to be due

In one chapter, he describes a small fishing village aside a lagoon, and they were sent to protect them. As such, guns were set up around the village to defend against any threat that might attack. Unfortunately, during a firing drill, the firing data was off and the village was fired upon. Although this was an accident, thirteen were killed and thirty-three were wounded. Another and rather shameful incident involved his Alpha Company’s first sergeant. The only way, Tim O’Brien said, to get a job in the rear and escape the jungles was to kiss up to your officers. With most officers being white and this being the sixties, most of these rear jobs went to white soldiers. Obviously, the black soldiers did not like this. Due to the loss of four men one day, the first sergeant came out to join them in the field, and this is when some of the black soldiers tried to scare him or teach him a lesson. Disastrously, the M-79 round off of a grenade launcher that was only supposed to spook him blew out his legs. To the same tune but resulting in no casualties is the fake ambushes they conducted. Tim O’Brien states that sometimes when ordered by higher-ups to perform a night ambush on a Viet Cong village, they would simply fake it. In other words, they would call in the ambush coordinates to headquarters and then forget about it. To sum up, If I Die in a Combat Zone has some ugly scenes in it, but they are