High Anxiety With Mixed Emotions

The aftermath of the Vietnam War was not what many soldiers expected and this greatly impacted the lives of all involved. Their service wasn’t acknowledged like other war veterans and instead, they were viewed with distrust and anger and used as scapegoats for the travesties of the war they were forced to fight in. Despite the returned soldiers efforts to return back to civilian life, they found no support from the government, or elsewhere. This caused soldiers to develop many mental illnesses that continued to affect and impact their lives. They also experienced symptoms of Agent Orange, causing fatalities and health defects.

The Vietnam War was a nightmare for many soldiers. It re-defined the meaning of war to an entire generation. As the conflict grew it became known around the world that this was a war that could not be won. After this was realized by America the main focus became to "get out" instead of "getting a victory". In the 2002 film We Were Soldiers, directed by Randall Wallace, a true account of the first major battle in Vietnam is given. At the beginning of the film he introduces to us many of the soldiers and their families. This is a very smart technique, because it ensures that the audience not only will care about each one, but also tell them apart. Wallace exemplifies

The public was on board the war train for the first few years of the war, until they found out what it was actually like in Vietnam. Public view of the war immediately changed negatively. When the news reached the soldiers in Vietnam, reactions were mixed. While they could understand why the people didn't like the prospect of war, they were still killing-even when they didn't want to-for their country. Some soldiers didn't know how to respond. One solder wrote to his mother and told her that for one second he felt as if he was on vacation because it was so beautiful in Vietnam. Another one told his mom “not to worry, there is nothing I can't handle”. While the soldiers could handle the physical horrors happening to them, it was the mental stuff that was breaking them down.

Problem that the Vietnamese war veterans faced was the psychological effects which was very common for Vietnam veterans to have. The main cause of this is because it was different compared to other wars in the past like the condition that the soldiers were in. Studies has shown that a World War II soldiers experienced up to a total of 60 days under combat like conditions. A Vietnam infantryman endured on a comparable basis 300+ days therefore Vietnam veterans have more likely to develop psychological problems than a World War II veteran. (POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER (PTSD), 2001)

The final theme I notice between Tim O’Brien and the Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam videos is the blame or guilt every soldier felt between things going wrong on missions or losing their friends. In “The Things They Carried”, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross takes the blame for the death of his soldier Ted Levander. In the story it states “He felt shame. He hated himself. He had loved Martha more than his men, and as consequence Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war”. Lt. Jimmy Cross often caught himself dreaming about a girl he loved to escape the war. He possibly thought about her too much which is why he took the blame. But in all reality, Lavender was shot while using the bathroom and that’s that. The only blame for that would be the war itself. In the video 60 Minutes: “My Lai Massacre”, a report on a very brutal attack on a Vietnamese village by U.S Soldiers, Hugh Thomson is a hero for saving many Vietnamese civilians from an awful fate. More than 150 women and children were marched

The root of the questions regarding Vietnam War is why did so many soldiers come home from this war so drastically transformed? Coleman addresses, in the early years of the war, volunteers filled most of the ranks. As the war continued and the public became more aware of the inhumanity the government implemented a draft (Coleman 66). Statics show the poor led this war and very few wealthy were recruited (Coleman 67). Coleman claims, the average age of the soldiers who died were seventeen and twenty-one (68). She writes this certainly contributed to the psychological wounds (68).

The soldiers that were in Vietnam were subject to horrors that they should not have because it was useless and their time in Vietnam turned to communism anyway. In the book Fallen Angels the soldiers in it had to

The Vietnam War is probably the worst war that the men in America have ever had to fight. These men not only had many struggles and extreme stress brought on by the war, but when they came back home, the people of America treated them like dirt and they were not thanked for the service they did for their country. Dr. Andrew Wiest’s novel The Boys of ’67 Charlie Company’s War in Vietnam gives a first hand account on what it was actually like to be in the Vietnam War. Many men in the Charlie Company are mentioned throughout the book, which tells each of their stories that they experienced throughout the war. Each and every one of these men

The impact of the Vietnam War upon the soldiers who fought there was huge. The experience forever changed how they would think and act for the rest of their lives. One of the main reasons for this was there was little to no understanding by the soldiers as to why they were fighting this war. They felt they were killing innocent people, farmers, poor hard working people, women, and children were among their victims. Many of the returning soldiers could not fall back in to their old life styles. First they felt guilt for surviving many of their brothers in arms. Second they were haunted by the atrocities of war. Some soldiers could not go back to the mental state of peacetime. Then there were soldiers Tim O’Brien meant while in

This steady buildup of psychological degradation first began as soon as Philip Caputo and his fellow marines landed at the Danang Air Base on March 8th, 1968. The arrival at Vietnam was a surprise for many of them because they spent their first days packing and piling sandbags and digging foxholes. Philip Caputo and his platoon thought they were going to war and were disappointed with the manual labor they were faced with when they go there. After a few weeks of building sandbags and foxholes, the soldier 's attitudes started to change about the concept of war. War was nothing like they had expected, they were ready for fighting and death to the Vietcong, but had experience none so far. For over a month the men continued the same old routine of digging foxholes and filling and piling sandbag. The men started to become ill with a variety of ailments from diarrhea, malaria, and dysentery the men begin to find themselves filled with depression. This was only the beginning of the marine 's struggles that would soon lead them to hate everything about Vietnam and turn their focus away from the war and more on hatred itself. Thus making them unfocused on the goals of the war and making America 's efforts to win the war more complicated.

There were over 16 million Americans in the armed forces, who served in the war. The infantry represented 14% of the troops overseas. Training could not have prepared them for these hardships that they faced. The shoes were in terrible conditions, the clothes were in bad shape too. The families at home were also worried about the soldiers in the army, because most of the families feared getting the news that their soldier had died in war. The soldiers were also asked to do physical work, on top of them already having to worry about fighting in war. Most of the soldiers had no education, they only hoped that the war would be over soon. The soldiers in the war had to carry everything, so they really didn´t have anything with them. The soldiers

This angered him and the other men, how come they couldn't be sent  useful things like jungle boots, and fresh water for showers? The work wasn’t much better, everyone back home envisioned gallant victories. Coalson’s reality found him under the burning hot sun, drowning in the humidity of the vietnamese air building runways and helicopter pads. “We couldn’t get away from those damn things” he stated, “Seemed like everywhere I went, that was my task”. As the war progressed so did the danger level of his duties, beginning with perimeter watch and then onto much more dangerous missions. The first time he was sent to the front lines, he was nearby when a medivac chopper landed. He was given one side of a stretcher holding a dead man, right has this occurred Coalson heard a thump hit the ground. He bent down and picked up the dead man's leg, placed it back on the stretcher with the rest of the mans gruesome body and went on. “I went out back behind a tent and threw up everything I had in my stomach, then after I threw up, nothing ever bothered me again, I got hard, hard in my heart”. Coalson's new position was a helicopter door gunner which paid him an extra fifty-five dollars on

During the Vietnam War, American men and women soldiers, the majority of whom had volunteered, were sent to a place where nothing was accommodating. Not even the soldier’s issued equipment was adequate or accommodating. They were not emotionally, psychologically, or materially equipped for what they would encounter in Vietnam, or upon their return to a place where they should have been safe; home. The Vietnam environment was nasty, brutish, and dehumanizing on the soldiers. Young men and women, mostly in their late teens and early twenties were sent into a living hell where most of them either would not or could not return. In addition, upon their return home, they were not welcomed as returning victors who had sacrificed their lives for

Matterhorn is a war novel published last March 2010. This book is about a commander in a Marine rifle platoon in Vietnam named Marlantes. It presented a glimpse at the suffering tolerated by the marines who pursued the war for the Americans. It distressed the exploits of Waino Mellas who is their second lieutenant and also a recent college graduate together with his compatriots in Bravo Company, which mostly comprised of teenagers. The title "Matterhorn" is a code for a fire support base located between Laos and the DMZ. The Marines built the base but they was also ordered to abandon it. After struggling and fighting for the base, the base just fell into the

In 2013, associate professor of psychology at the University of California, Kate Sweeny and her researchers surveyed 230 law school graduates for a period of four months after taking their bar exam in July 2013 ( J. Hoffman, 2015). The purpose of her research was to focus on the waiting period during which the person is uncertain of the outcome of a life situation and how they manage any anxiety that may occur during that time. The individuals that were surveyed in this descriptive research used three different strategies when asked about how they tried to avoid anxiety while waiting on their exam scores. The first group attempted to suppress their fears by trying to not pay attention. The second group sought for silver linings. “They tried to anticipate something good in a bad outcome” Dr. Sweeny explained. The third group used defensive pessimism.