APO 96225

This was definitely my favorite poem of the unit because it was told like a story.  Irony is a big part of the poem as dramatic irony takes place when we know what went on in the Vietnam War, but the people in the U.S. really had no idea.  A mother begs her son to tell them what is going on, but the son is trying to block his parents from the depressing side of the war.  The mother continues to beg, and the son tells her that he killed a man and dropped napalm on women and children.  She was horrified, and the father told the son to not write depressing letters.  I find this quite hysterical because the parents were asking for the truth.  When they finally received the truth, it was horrible, and they did not want to know anymore.  The poem really shows how clueless the people in the U.S. were about the war in Vietnam, and all they really wanted was answers.  In reality, the people just wanted to hear positive things happening in Vietnam instead of negative.