APO 96225

"APO 96225"
Larry Rottmann

This poem was very interesting, especially with the evident irony.  The son told his mother the light parts of war and the the weather he was experiencing.  Like most parents, his wanted the truth about war and honesty about what he's actually been doing.  The son came back with "Today I killed a man.  Yesterday, I helped drop napalm on women and children" (Rottmann, page 846).  The irony of the poem comes when his father asks him to stop being honest and just talk about the lighter subjects--after he had asked for the truth.  The second question in the book was also interesting because it dealt with the war in Vietnam.  [I obviously thought of Forrest Gump when I read this one.]  Most Americans did not agree with going to war in Vietnam, so many people probably did not want to hear the negative, terrible aspects of the war situations.  They only wanted the light parts of war, probably in order to distance themselves from the horrors of war.  The theme of this unit of literature was alienation, which was pretty evident in this poem, although the speaker does have parents back home.  I'm sure most soldiers feels alienated from their home countries when they are abroad, regardless of how many loved ones they left back home.