Extra Credit: Women in Vietnam

[Hannah Baran (Louisa HS)]

Post a personal response to one (or more) of the stories we read in
class today, making a connection to TTTC or another text we've read
during this unit. Be sure to put in the same effort you normally
would so that this can replace the grade of an earlier post. Due
Thursday.

Also, remember to study for the c-quiz! The format will be crossword
puzzle (word bank supplied) along with a few synonyms, antonyms, and
analogies.

[Emily Richards]

That's a good question, Mrs. Baran. I read "Arrival in Vietnam" and
"Women in Command," and I want to make a connection between the
stories we read in class and "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong." Women
in Vietnam were often given office work or were nurses because they
were considered innocent and couldn't handle war. In "Sweetheart of
the Song Tra Bong," Mary Anne comes to the war, and after being there
for only a few weeks, she joins the Green Berets and leaves soldier
Mark Fossie because she isn't the same person she was. War gets to
her, as displayed when she says, "'Sometimes I want to eat this place.
The whole country - the dirt, the death - I just want to swallow it
and have it there inside me...I get scared sometimes - lots of times -
but it's not bad...but it doesn't matter because I know exactly who I
am. You can't feel like that anywhere else" (O'Brien 106). She isn't
the same person she was when she arrived, and this scares Mark Fossie.
This can be compared to the stories we read in class. In "Arrival in
Vietnam," Marion Crawford said, "When I first got there, it was like
nothing I had ever experienced" (Crawford). Women were effected by the
war differently. While men could handle the gore and fear, women were
sensitive, which the U.S. military understood when they refused to
issue weapons to women. Karen Offutt said, "It hit me right then that
I was helping kill people" (Offutt). This thought scared her, but most
men wouldn't be scared or worried about killing people. It's what they
were trained to do. The connection between the two stories and TTTC is
that women were considered sensitive and were often not put into the
field to preserve their innocence. Mary Anne did go out into Vietnam
and changed because of the things she saw, and women in the stories
were given office jobs and no weapons because they were being
protected.

On Feb 8, 1:46 pm, "Hannah Baran (Louisa HS)" <hannah.ka...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Ashton Trice]

I agree with Emily. Women were often given positions where they
wouldn’t be in the middle of all the blood and gore. They tended to be
reserved from the actual war, while the men took on all the action.
Peggy Ready from the “Coping” article mentions from her experience, “I
learned real quick that you tried not to get in a crowd, and if you
did, that you watched out for things like anybody who had anything in
their hands” (Ready). Most women were terrified of the war and were
careful not to be put in a position that they could injure themselves.
Unlike other women in Vietnam, Mary Anne was fascinated with the war.
She says, “It’s like I’m full of electricity and I’m glowing in the
dark- I’m on fire almost- I’m burning away to nothing- but it doesn’t

matter because I know exactly who I am. You can’t feel like that

anywhere else” (O’Brien 106). The war transforms Mary Anne into a
completely new person. Women in Vietnam were affected by the war
because they lost their innocence. Even though they were in positions
where they weren’t on the field, their innocence couldn’t be fully
protected. They experienced things that women in America couldn’t
possibly imagine.

On Feb 10, 1:19 pm, Emily Richards <emilynicholericha...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Kelly Candeto]

Good points Emily and Ashton!
I agree that the war definitely did have a different effect on women
then it did on men, but in some ways, it was the same effect, just
different variations. It is a natural thing to have being at war
change you and your perspective on life. War takes away a certain
innocence from a person. We live in a culture were it is more
acceptable for a man to have his innocence taken away than a woman.
So, when women went to fight in Vietnam, the government gave them
positions that would try to let them hold onto that innocence: desk
jobs, nurses, or trying to keep up soldiers' morale. But just being at
war and seeing all the gore and horror and death, even if you aren't
the one directly involved, is still enough to change you. "What
happened to her, Rat said, was what happened to all of them. You come
over clean and you get dirty and then afterward it's never the
same" (O'Brien 109). The stories told by the women in the handout are
based on the same principle. While they might not of witnessed the
same intensity of the war that Mary Anne did, they fought in the same
war. All of them said that they'll never be the same person that they
were when the went to Vietnam. Some are always on edge - waiting for a
bomb to go off, some wake up screaming in the night, and some avoid
trash in the road for fear that there's a bomb inside. These are all
effects of a war that men experience as well, but in our culture, it
just doesn't seem as natural for a woman to have them.