Kyle Poirier        

Assignment 1

April 13, 2013

Part One

The story about Roger Donlon caught my attention. A big reason for this was that he was the first American in the Vietnam War that got the Medal of Honor, which is a pretty impressive accomplishment. When the Nam Dong camp was by the Viet Cong he displayed great courage and bravery that really impressed me. This made him seem like a great leader and then when they talk about his calm movie star like demeanor he seemed like a great referential leader. The fact that he was in the moment and explaining what he did gives him less credibility. Because he has a bias opinion about how he will convey his actions to others, especially with the possibility of getting a great honor depending on how he talks about it. Instead a reporter or someone else that has no invested interest would be a more credible trustworthy source. This however doesn’t mean his account of the story is not true because it very well could be.

Part 2

It was disappointing for me to read the story “Deliver Us from Evil.” It showed how we got into the war and the reasoning, which should have never happened. They didn’t want Communism to spread like dominoes around Asian countries, but we can’t always step in and change things to the way we want it. Doing this caused a lot of unnecessary deaths and harm that otherwise could have been avoided.

In Henry Prunier’s short story I found some positivity from the fact that, before we started going against the North Vietnamese, these are people that were willing to work with us. They were able to find great bonds and trust in each other and work together, this is reassuring for the hope that we all can find common ground and have world peace. Even though he was scared first getting there, because he was going into a totally different culture and didn’t know who was who, they took Henry in and treated him well.