Reader Response Blog #2

The passage that i read that had the most impact on me was, “We waited as Doyle walked a little ahead of his position, hands on his hips, and looked out to the field ahead of us. Behind us, I heard choppers. I turned and saw them headed for us. They went by us out to the target zone. “Hey Scotty, did we. . .?” “Yep, we just shot the shit out of the first platoon.”

I can only wonder what was flowing through Perry’s mind when he realized that they’d just wounded, and killed their comrades. I understand that soldiers would be paranoid, and its easy to see how they could mistake comrades with allies in the forest of Vietnam. In an earlier passage, they called in Willy Peter, which was a type of artillery used to level whole areas of forested land. I can’t imagine the trauma that would occur from knowing that you killed someone on your side, even if it was just an accident. If I were Perry, I’d probably try to quit the war, and go back home. I’d try to forget that it ever happened, or try to get rid of any guilty from it. This passage gave a new insight to war that I hadn’t considered before reading it.