APO: 96225: Personal Reflection

This was my favorite poem out of the section because of its simplicity and profound implications. The mother, to me, seems to represent innocence and curiosity. She seems to symbolize the attitude of the American public during the Vietnam war. Hardly anyone knew of Vietnam before the war started and were curious to learn about what was going on in the war. The mother displays these qualities in her curiosity for her son's well being. Just like the mother, a vast majority of the American public protested the war when they learned of the horrors involved in it. The poem seems to convey the robbing of innocence that war brings whether it was in the son's actions during the war that plague his concience or the mother's knowledge of the realities her son must face. This poem, as a whole, seems to embody the experiences the American people went through during the Vietnam war.