VIetnam Assignment
By Kaylee Zukovich and Josh Merriman
Summary of Both Texts
Song of Napalm
This poem represents the traumatic sights young soldiers saw when in service. This one event describes a man who saw a woman being burned alive by napalm, and how he can’t get that image out of his head.
In the Field
This passage was about a units search for a missing comrade. They looked through waters thigh high filled with muck all while attempting to cope with their loss.
Important Exerpts
Songs of Napalm
"Still I close my eyes and see the girl"
This line is important to the poem as a whole because it highlights how he cant forget the traumatic event he was placed in.
In The Fields
"Eyes closed, he let himself go deeper into the waste just letting the field take him."
This line demonstrates how the lieutenant was letting the death of a soldier, Kiowa, who under his command mentally effected him.
Discussion Questions
What message are these authors are trying to convey to the readers about war? What is the impact war has on people?
The messages the authors are trying to convey is that in both texts that people will always remember the traumatic experiences of war. Some specific events can stay in a person's mind throughout the rest of their life. War can impact the person mentally and physically because a person was in a life threatening situation. For example the men in both texts were mentally scared due to knowing and seeing a person die. In the text "In the Field" both the Lieutenant and the young man placed blame on themselves for a situation they had no control over. This is shown when a line from "In the Field" states "In the field, though, the causes were immediate. A moment of carelessness or bad judgment or plain stupidity carried consequences that lasted forever" (O' Brien 177).