APO 96225

I thought this poem was very realistic. One thing I really liked about the poem was that you could feel the emotions of the different people in the poem. When reading the poem I could imagine and hear in my head a young man writing to his mom and trying to sound very optimistic. On the other end, i could imagine a worried and scared mother begging to know what her son has gotten himself into. The central theme of this poem can be seen in a variety of different things I think. I thought the main point of the poem was that we always want to know the truth. When we feel like we arent given the whole story we always press people to tell us every detail even when we know we are better off not knowing. Therefore, when they do tell us we regret ever asking in the first place. The mother begs and pleads her son to be honest with her and tell her exactly what's going on, but the minute he tells her she becomes extremely upset. Also, in our small group someone mentioned that maybe the mother just wanted to believe that her son was okay. She wasn't asking him to tell her more because she wanted to know more, but rather she was asking for him to assure her that he is fine. This poem was writtien about the Vietnam War- which got a lot of negative attention. Our small group thought maybe the mother just wanted her son to reassure her that the war wasnt as bad as people made it out to be. Either way, the mother was clearly not ready for the truth.