silence kills

“Okay class,” an authorative voice sounds out, “today we are going to talk about the Vietnam War.” A sea of dumbfounded faces stare the teacher down. “Does anyone know anything about the Vietnam War?” the voice continued to ask. The sea of faces is motionless, no true sign of coherence or understanding of the teacher’s words. A hand is slowly raised and then called upon.

“That’s when Pearl Harbor was bombed, wasn’t it?” answers an anonymous student.

“Yeah, Yeah,” voices out another student without raising a hand, “D-day was part of Vietnam too,” only vaguely knowing of what D-day is.

“No, No,” comes a voice from the back of the class, “That’s all from World War 2.” A nod of agreement is shown by the teacher. “I know about Vietnam,” continues the student, “I saw a movie on it. I think it was called Full Metal Jacket.”

Today’s students and young adults do not have the knowledge of the years that the Vietnam Conflict occupied. Stories of what happened in the United States during that time are common and plentiful, however those stories of what actually happened over seas, in the trenches, in the fields are not. Students are forced to learn of these times through reading regular classroom hist

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Time is winding down to get the truth out to society; let us listen. O’Brien has started by telling war stories; start relieving those suppressed feelings and memories and let others learn from what you carry.

No single experience can ever be completely passed on to another person by a story, especially if the teller or author has not had the experience first hand. Telling the stories of what they had experienced will help eliminate these “far fetched” or “not even close” publications. He never told any of his stories but he wanted to. Then on others, this seems to be heard more often, veterans saying the movies or books are “far fetched” or “not even close to what actually happened”.

It is understood that war is a difficult topic to talk of. Not to mention the typical textbook is not exactly the easiest of things to read, thus influencing students to become uninterested. The story will never make someone else feel what had been exactly felt in the story situation, but what the story will do is give the listener or reader a sense of reality, a sense of truth, possibly even a whole new outlook on the situation. If that man would not have stepped forward and helped out with that movie much of our society would still be ignorant to the knowledge and the second hand experience, though it was only observing, that Saving Private Ryan provided. As are the World War II Veterans, the Vietnam Veterans are fading as well. Time will only allow the suppressed memories to build up in the minds of those carrying them, pushing to get out, to be heard.

Works Cited

O’Brien, Tim. Again this will help educate the American people of this subject of which only Vietnam Veterans carry the true knowledge.

Approximate Word count = 1137
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

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