Letter Home From a Soldier in Vietnam
Dear Mom,
I am doing great. Well…When I say great, I mean I'm as good as you can
be over here. This place is like a giant valley of death, that's keeps
getting filled with more dead American soldiers every day. We keep
asking ourselves the question, why are we here? Why are we dying for a
cause that's got nothing to do with us? We just don't see the point in
us being here any more. It's been 7 months since I saw you all now. I
hope you are all doing well. You take so much for granted when you're
at home you know, just little things, like the sound of your voice
telling me to get out of bed. I dream about ...view middle of the document...
The
Highlands of Vietnam are spooky, unbearably spooky, spooky beyond
belief. They are a run of erratic mountain ranges, gnarled valleys,
jungled ravines and abrupt plains. They are perfect for fighting for
the VC, because they are used to it, but for us, it's hell! We have to
walk through miles of elephant grass every day on patrol. It's 15 foot
high and razor sharp. We get cut to bits constantly. We try and use
rivers to advance through rain forests, but the surrounding bushes are
ideal cover for VC waiting to ambush us. We have to be so careful.
Every step we take we have to watch out for mines and booby traps. We
have to be constantly on the lookout for Charlie.
That's another thing. You never know who is VC and who is South
Vietnamese. The VC disguise themselves as Vietnamese peasants or
farmers. They dress exactly the same, and do things like tell us that
'VC are bad, and Americans are good'. We have to go round villages
searching for weapons and clues that give away any sign of VC. If we
find anything then we have to do a zippo raid on the whole village. We
just burn it to the ground. It's so much easier than carrying hundreds
of pounds of rice back to the camp. If we don't find anything then the
Vietnamese still have to face rigorous questioning. So many innocent
people die every day over here, and sometimes it's us Americans that
kill them. Some of the soldiers get so filled up with rage and anger
they just take it out on the nearest Vietnamese people. We saw one of
the other platoons using napalm the other day. It was horrible. We
just stood and watched, as an innocent Vietnamese family got burned to
death. The children were screaming as napalm burned through their
skin. The soldiers were crying while they were torturing the people.
They were just so angry that some of their men, who were like brothers
to them had been killed. They didn't care if they were VC or not. They
were Vietnamese, and that was good enough for them. I don't know what
I would do if one of my platoon got K.I.A. We are all so close. When
you're out here you rely on each other with your lives. We are
brothers, and would all die to save the man next to us. My platoon has
been lucky. We...
