Reading this account has been an interesting experience. My feelings of it as an historical document are a bit on the fence. As a skeptic I am disinclined to believe that all of this is truth, that the author did not in some ways embellish her feelings and sentiments. She seemed to not be writing the diary only for herself but also as something for her family and people to read after the war. Her prescient knowledge that the diary would be for others would have to affect and possibly compromise what she really felt for other sentiments and feelings she felt were more “noble” and “pure”.
From the standpoint of literary non-fiction, this is a brilliant account. It is utterly heart-wrenching and idealistic. Upon reading the diary, a recurring thought kept entering my head, “how could we fight a people so wholly possessed with ideals and nationalist sentiment and expect to win?” Certainly, had our leaders known the perseverance and adherence to principle the Vietnamese people embodied we would not have waged such a fruitless and unnecessary war. Another thought was that I doubt our soldiers would have had so many vested interests in a “victory” as the natives of the country. How could a G.I. drafted into a war he didn’t want to fight ever be expected to serve as these people did. They were willing to sacrifice everything for “freedom”. As for freedom, it is interesting to think that we were supposedly there fighting for the “freedom” of the south Vietnamese. Why is our aversion to communism so great that we regard any nation that chooses it as not choosing to be free? How can you fight an entire nation’s sentiment? I am reminded of V for Vendetta, when V said an idea is bigger than any one. It is bigger than you than me and bigger than everyone all together. You can not fight an idea with bullets, with bombs, no matter how large they are. When something is willed it is above death, above pain, above all.
The conviction evinced in this diary is something I look upon with a sense of longing. In our country today, I don’t believe we have these convictions. We would never understand the self-sacrifice these people were prepared to go to. It makes me nostalgic for a more noble time, a time when honor was valued. Real honor. Not the type politicians use to make headlines or the type we use as rationale for a cause with ulterior motives.
It is amazing how an idea can permeate a culture like this. This idea really has no bearing on everyday life. People who supported the ARVN would have lived very similar lives to those that supported the North. They ate the same foods, participated in the same holidays, and wore the same dress. They are infinitely times more similar than different, yet these ideas of revolution cause them to think of each other in very different ways. Even to the point of calling them “enemy”. Why is it these small ideological define how we view others? Why can we not see the similarities and embrace them? Would there have been a war had it not be for our intervention? Foreign occupation is never appreciated. For the most part, people’s want to solve their own problems. I think people would rather have their problems and be left to solve them than have an outsider mediate or arbitrate the individual group differences.
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