Philip Caputo's A Rumor of War, is a very realistic and harrowing account of the Vietnam War from a soldiers perspective. Caputo's approach to depicting the Vietnam War is very intriguing, because you see the war as he saw it. The reader grows with the author as he changes from a young starry-eyed soldier, dreaming of "bayonet charges, and desperate battles against impossible odds." (Caputo, p. 14) To a weathered warrior fighting not only an unconventional enemy, but also a battle waged in the depths of his own psyche. Being able to read an account of the Vietnam War from the perspective of a person, who was actually there, rather than some anti-war hippie or a bigwig politician, really gave me a broader picture of the war and what it did to the people involved.
Caputo begins his story reflecting on the reasons why he joined the Marine Corps. He, like many young men, joined the military out of boredom and thirst for adventure. He bought into the Kennedy idealism of "ask not......
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Approximate Word Count: 634
Approximate Pages: 3 (260 words per double-spaced page) |