Impact of War on Soldiers
Expectations are often different from reality. Most time, the reality ends up frustrating, especially to those expecting much. This assertion is proved in a memoir by Philip Caputo in his account of the Vietnam War. His memoir recorded in “A Rumor of War” is an excellent autobiography accounting for first-hand experiences of a soldier in the war. The author is a lieutenant in the Vietnamese war and records the hostilities and realities of the war. The experiences recorded by the author showed a different version of his expectation when he joined the United States Marine Corps. The war in Vietnam has a toll on him, especially emotionally, and pushes him to almost mental despair. The memoir gives a detailed account that brings the reader close to the emotions of the author and makes one feel the burden soldiers have to carry in war. In a sense, every war has its effects. Among the most common impacts is a psychological effect, which arises in every soldier whenever they realize the reality is completely different from what they expected when signing in for recruitment. Capulo realizes that he was getting distant from his emotions and started having psychological issues. This shows the distinctive variance of the reality of war and the expectation of soldiers. This paper focuses on how the Vietnamese war impacted Capitulo.
The memoir is divided into three parts. However, it is important to note that the author acknowledges that he does not intend to write a political or history book; rather, he intends to record the experience of a single soldier. The first part details how he felt joining the Marine Corps and his training. He is overwhelmed when assigned to Vietnam since he had joined the Marine Corps after failing in college, and he wanted to prove himself. At the time, the Vietnam War was considered a bluff. Little did they know that everything was bound to change adversely. The second part of the book showed when the war started having a psychological toll on Capulo. He was assigned to the desk recording deaths.
It was at this part of the memoir that we notice the impacts the war had on Capulo. It is also where we see the expectations of Capulo as he joined the Marine Corps deviate from reality. As he was assigned at the desk, his task was to record the dead soldiers. That meant he was to see the dead bodies. It is important to note that the Viet Corp-whom were the enemies-enjoyed torturing the American soldiers. As the officer recording dead soldiers, he saw the torture his comrades went through before meeting their painful deaths. He started having nightmares and could see all his comrades and their behavior even in their death. He would witness fellow soldiers sinking into black, gloomy moments but soon jump out of those moments with rage. Most of the fellow soldiers as Capulo records were often suffering from anxiety and depression. This indicates that the reality at Vietnam had frustrated Capulo, who had joined the Marine Corps with the expectations of ending the wars and being celebrated as a national hero. On the third part of the memoir, the author gets afraid of growing mad, and requests to be reassigned into the field.
Overly, the memoir shows a different turn of event for any soldier joining the army. The war on Vietnam had a serious psychological set back on Capulo. He records his experiences to help the public both soldiers and non-soldiers understand the reality of the war. From his memoir, it is very clear that his view of war was overly changed. He suffered psychologically as he notes feeling guilty for being alive. In a sense, he was not aware of what he was signing for a while joining the Marine Corps. However, by the end of his tenure in Vietnam, his view of war had overly changed.