My essay is a comparison of a song and a poem about the Vietnam war. The song is "Goodnight Saigon" written by Billy Joel and the poem is "No Word Spoken" by Edward J. Domaleski. These two are very different but revolve around one main point; the American soldiers experience in the Vietnam war. Joel writes about the whole war experience while Domaleski writes just about one solitary battle. Domaleski is also more detailed than Joel in his writing.
             Domaleski's lines of poetry discreetly describe the scenes of a battle, while Joel's generally describe the hardships of the American soldiers during the war. "No Word Spoken" stars off by describes some soldiers marching through a forest. They hear something, not knowing what it is they "spread out" to investigate. Monkeys begin moving around and it is now raining, the soldiers are told silently to be "quiet" they "don't breathe".
             They see four of the enemy, silently ordered to begin the fight, "grenades fly" and "clips empty". Once the battle is over and there are "no more screams" silent orders are given to get up and search the bodies for anything valuable that can be used on their awaiting journey. Before the soldier leaves he looks around and notices the "smell of death", but he is silently told to go "forward".
             Through this whole battle there was not a single verbal order given, it was all by hand. The use of hand signals instead of words makes the soldiers feel lonely and distraught. It makes a bad situation even worse.
             Billy Joel's lyrics speak of Parris Island, a place where the soldiers fought a battle. He talks about the Americans preparation by saying that they where "sharp as knives". This goes hand in hand with the "gung-ho" attitude of the new troops, they felt they were ready to defend their country.
             "Tamelesss horses" describes how they went in to battle and "in plastic as numbered cor
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