The Vietnam War Soldier's Poetry

The poetry written about the Vietnam War displayed conflicts felt by the soldiers who lived through the experience. For example, this line from "Saigon Cemetery" by D.C. Berry, a medical officer who served in Cam Ranh Bay:  “Something to make a tongue tough enough to taste the full flavor of beauty and grief” oozes conflict as the words “beauty” and “grief” are at odds with each other within the same line. However, the poetry in general appears to try to convey to the American public the realities of the war, revealing that the American public was generally oblivious to the internal conflicts experienced by our soldiers. The analogy that “war is hell” has been used before, but the poem, “A Bummer” actually states that hell would be a better place to be than on a rice farm in Vietnam: “If you have a farm in Vietnam And a house in hell Sell the farm And go home.”  Furthermore, in the poem “Imagine,” we can clearly see the author attempting to relate the experiences of the war to the American public. Although they asked the questions, “what had it been like,” the author struggles with relating that information effectively.  In reality, the gap between those who lived through the experience and those who did not cannot be completely bridged. The poetry is an attempt for those to understand, but, again, the conflict appears in this gap.

Although in a war, the obvious conflict is between the two ideologies and/or nations fighting within it, but the Vietnam War also brought new and unforeseen problems that had never been faced before. The fact that the American public was either oblivious to the war or completely against the United States’ participation in the war was a new concept. Soldiers who were drafted and served in Vietnam were faced with their own inner conflict regarding the morality of the war which was compounded by the fact that much of the public who cared at all believed the United States did not belong in Vietnam. In addition, the veterans who had served in World War II and even in the Korean conflict were struggling with a new style of warfare which was not only frustrating but often-thought of as immoral. These conflicts brought about much psychological challenges for these soldiers, which can be best understood through their literature. However, the difficulties these soldiers faced can never be completely understood by someone who did not live through it, but the literature can provide some psychological insight into the problematic issues faced by those involved in the Vietnam War  if the audience is conscious enough to look for these clues.