This book made me feel really uneducated. I wonder if that is because the war was so bad for us and we lost that it isn’t taught as throughly as the wars we won? I had a hard time finding a grove on this book...it drags for me. I didn’t like this book, and after some reflection I realized I wasn’t supposed to. I didn’t like it because it made me uncomfortable. It showed some glaring gaps in my education when it came to the Vietnam war and the aftermath. I knew that out soldiers had been mistreated when they came home, but I had never given a thought about the treatment of the Vietnamese here or in Vietnam. And that made me uncomfortable to realize. This war showed everyone in a poor light, no one was on the right side everyone had an antagonist part to play. The world is violent, the author didn’t sugar coat it to make it easier for the reader, and he shouldn’t have. Maybe we have too sugar coated and blind to a giant historic event because it was unpleasant and we lost. This is one of those books that makes you not only look at the story, but society and yourself, and I didn’t like it because it wasn’t a favorable light. But with that being said I feel like at the end it clicked. I had borrowed this book from the library but I am going to buy a hard copy. I know I will want to read at least once more and I feel like this is a book my kids should have access to when older.
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