The literary journalism paper has given me a new opportunity to write in a different style compared to the typical academic papers throughout humanities core. Literary journalism was a bit of a transition from the previous writing assignments since it is mainly focused on the diction, one’s choice of words, to narrate the story. After the interview with my grandmother as previously mentioned, I have finally learned the full story of how my family actually arrived in the United States. Through my research, I have discovered more about the Vietnam War.
For instance, I had no idea that the communists forced civilians to go to reeducation camps in which they are to be “brainwashed” under the communism ways to believe that it is beneficial for society. When in reality, people are actually suffering torture in these camps and some people actually die and do not return. It’s insane to actually think that in one point throughout history that a group of human beings can perform such inhumane actions on one another or even treat someone else like an animal. Through my interview with my grandmother, I have been able to see my family’s history in a new perspective, one that is grateful for everything I have now that I’m aware of all the obstacles my family has gone through. My grandmother mentioned how as boat people, my family had to stuff themselves with 25 other people inside a tiny boat they built themselves and they ended up in multiple different locations. The fact that some Vietnamese refugees got turned away from locations and resorted to temporarily living in nature like animals is crazy to believe it actually happened. From previous humanities core lectures, we have learned that war affects all whether we’re fighting in it or not. Everyone is affected in some way and in the Vietnam War, civilians got affected through their lifestyles which most had to change and experience a new lifestyle in a new country.
What also intrigues me is what gets into the minds of the soldiers and the torturers as they perform such inhumane actions with their hands such as torturing to even killing the innocent. How does one self-recover from the idea of this horrendous actions? Could it possibly be similar to how the United States felt after their intervention in Vietnam?
After the Vietnam War, many soldiers question the justification behind their actions that they were forced to commit in Vietnam. Similar to the film Coming Home, in which one of the main characters, Luke is a war veteran from the Vietnam War who is paralyzed. In the ending scene of the movie, the audience views the Vietnam War through Luke’s perspective on how war is unnecessary and nothing good comes out of it except a ton of bloodshed for no apparent reason. The United States resorted to taking Vietnam under paternalistic arms. Therefore, President Ford helped transport refugees safely to the US and established refugee camps where they could resettle themselves. The United States found a way to, in a sense, redeem their action through humanitarian acts assisting Vietnam to safety from communism. However, how can a soldier through war resolve for all his horrible actions towards others throughout the war? One take of action can be seen among history as veterans returned from the Vietnam War and began anti-war protests as they questioned their own involvement in Vietnam.
writing along the lines of war 