A Peice Of My Heart Essay Research
A Peice Of My Heart Essay, Research Paper
A Piece of My Heart
Emily Coley
The & # 8220 ; other & # 8221 ; Vietnam Vets Everybody knows about the work forces who served in Vietnam. They have at least heard of the mentally seeking conditions during the war and the ensuing & # 8220 ; post traumatic emphasis syndrome & # 8221 ; ( PTSD ) so many veterans suffered from, or heard of the issues refering negative public sentiment of veterans for their function in a despised war. However, few are cognizant of the female function in the Vietnam War ; adult females, the & # 8220 ; other & # 8221 ; veterans, shared in all of these jobs and issues along with the gun-toting work forces. They were the nurses, and in A Piece of My Heart by Keith Walker the narratives of many adult females are presented to better understand merely how the Vietnam War affected adult females. Working in topographic points like emptying infirmaries exposed adult females to the eternal flow of casualties from the battleground, and these experiences took major mental tolls upon the heads of the adult females who had to help them, particularly in their considerations for the value of human life. Women experienced other jobs upon returning place such as the same PTSD and outlashes by anti-war dissenters. Womans were veterans of Vietnam merely like the work forces, and they experienced many of the same jobs as a consequence of their function at that place. Womans were exposed to an tremendous sum of hurting while in Vietnam. As veteran Rose Sandecki said, & # 8220 ; [ The Vietnam ] War truly did a figure on all of us, the adult females every bit good as the work forces & # 8221 ; ( 20 ) . Nurses in Vietnam were exposed to a nonstop flow of casualties from the field. The landing of a Chinook with mass casualties on board had become a standard to Christine Schneider, a nurse in Da Nang. Practically every nurse & # 8217 ; s narrative described the infirmary scenes in Vietnam as & # 8220 ; busy. & # 8221 ; Jill Mishkel explained that she experienced a lower limit of at least one decease per twenty-four hours. As Ms. Schneider described, & # 8220 ; There was merely excessively much decease & # 8221 ; ( 46 ) . Ms. Schneider besides mentioned, & # 8220 ; Everybody was bad & # 8221 ; ( 45 ) ; nurses merely saw the bad because they were surrounded by it, twenty-four hours in and twenty-four hours out. Charlotte Miller described everything as & # 8220 ; on a really negative footing & # 8221 ; ( 324 ) , and that she had to cover with these jobs from 12 to fifteen hours per twenty-four hours, twelve to 15 yearss in a row, a really strict agenda. Further emotional harm was incurred by the badness of the hurts that the nurses had to cover with. Nurses described state of affairss such as small male childs with their bowels hanging out, work forces with half their faces blown off, work forces losing their legs from a grenade detonation, paraplegics, quadriplegics, and in one instance drawing person & # 8217 ; s shoe away and holding the pes semen with it. In add-on, the soldiers they were handling were merely 18 or 19. As Ms. Mishkel said, & # 8220 ; They were immature, healthy, fine-looking work forces that could & # 8217 ; ve been my brothers or my fellows or my hubby, and they were deceasing & # 8221 ; ( 124 ) . Womans in the Vietnam War had a batch of seeking emotional emphasis that they had to cover with. All of these emotional injury that adult females had to see twenty-four hours after twenty-four hours had a noteworthy impact upon the adult females & # 8217 ; s moral construct of the value of human life. Ms. Miller mad a really interesting statement, stating, & # 8220 ; I am a professional committed to the construct that before anyone can administrate to the wellness demands of an person, one must acknowledge the self-respect of human life & # 8221 ; ( 322 ) . One could believe that upon first being sent to Vietnam, nurses, being Americans, had a profound regard for the value of human life. Nurses such as Sara McVicker & # 8220 ; had a difficult clip accepting that we couldn & # 8217 ; t maintain everybody alive and convey everybody back & # 8221 ; ( 144 ) . In the early yearss of her service, Ms. Mishkel said that she cried frequently, and that she thought the other nurses were & # 8220 ; wholly insensitive & # 8221 ; ( 124 ) . However, after twenty-four hours after twenty-four hours of experiences like Ms. McVicker & # 8217 ; s, where at that place merely merely weren & # 8217 ; t the resources necessary to be given to everybody, where instances with low opportunities of endurance had to be dropped to do room for others ; Ms. Mishkel shortly became every bit apathetic as everybody else. Many nurses, such as Ms. Sandecki, put up an emotional wall around them ; coercing themselves to care less. As Pat Johnson said, & # 8220 ; I don & # 8217 ; t think I & # 8217 ; ve of all time taken life every bit lightly as I did so & # 8221 ; ( 64 ) . The emotional emphasis was so great in Vietnam that frequently nurses lost their construct of the value of human life, a consequence of holding to blunt their emotions to get by with the strivings they were subjected to. Women & # 8217 ; s jobs were non over upon returning to the provinces ; adult females veterans continued to see a assortment of jobs of intervention, in relationships, in the workplace, and emotionally. Problems began for adult females every bit shortly as they left the compound they worked on. A figure of nurses felt a grade of
guilt in leaving the busy hospitals. As Ms. McVicker said, “I felt bad about it; it was almost like I was deserting [them]” (145). Upon arrival other nurses experienced antagonism from the American people; one nurse was denied passage on her plane home because her clothes were bloody, while another was greeted by anti-war protesters throwing tomatoes. In addition, many women suffered from PTSD just as men did. For instance many like Ms. Johnson had trouble talking about the war because it was “just too painful” (65). Others, like Ms. Mishkel and Sandra Collingwood, experienced social problems and couldn’t get involved in any relationships upon returning. Ms. Sandecki had problems maintaining a job because of a continued apathetic tendency upon returning from Vietnam; “Nothing meant anything when I came back from Vietnam” (18). On the other hand, many women do claim to have grown mentally in Vietnam, like Georgeanne Andreason who learned not to take things for granted as a result of Vietnam. Never-the-less, the emotional consequences were still harsh for most leaving “scars” that would last for many years after the war. Women had much to say about the Vietnam War, on how it was being fought and mistakes that were made by the United States. For the most part, the women in A Piece of My Heart did not attack the US for being involved in Vietnam, through some like airline attendant Micki Voisard did have some general doubts about the necessity of the killing that went on there. Most of the women who did attack the US complained of how the US was operating in South-East Asia, not the fact that they were there. For example, a really important point made by Ms. Schneider which is shared by many people was that she was tired of hearing soldiers “say time and time again that they could win, but they were told to go only so far” (50). She was saying that the US wasn’t winning in Vietnam because its own government wasn’t letting it. After losing the war, many felt just like Ms. McVicker in that they felt that they had fought for nothing. These people were very upset with the government for just pulling out, and with the South Vietnamese who had simply given up all the land America had fought so dearly for without a fight. However, probably the most intriguing observations of all were made by Sandra Collingwood, a civilian volunteer who wanted to work with the Vietnamese from their own point of view. She, unlike most, identified with the Vietnamese rather than the Americans through her knowledge of the Vietnamese language and farming culture. Because of this camaraderie with the locals, she got to see the American mistakes through the eyes of an Asian. For example, she heavily criticized the actions of the military. She called attention to the embarrassing calls GIs made at local women which alienated them; the “fun games” of GIs to grenade water buffalo, which ere the most important tools used by farmers which their entire lives revolved around; the the rocketing of apartment complexes to get a sniper or two, in the process losing the support of hundreds of Vietnamese who lived in those complexes. She also admonished the Strategic Hamlet Program, saying that removing locals from their sacred, ancestral ground was a terrible sin to commit in the culture of the Vietnamese. She herself exclaimed, “I started developing antagonism toward the American military” (217); “I went through an irrational hatred of khaki (military) green…of anything military” (224). If the actions of the American military could evoke the hatred of a fellow American, imagine the effects upon the Vietnamese! The insight of these women, especially of Ms. Collingwood, are quite fascinating. It is really interesting to consider that the effects upon, and insight of the women as a result of the Vietnam War might be greater than those of the men. Though the men did the dying, the situations women were placed in were truly more emotionally taxing than the majority of males. Nurses only saw the bad, only the bodies of dozens of wounded and dying soldiers per day. They were surrounded by death without exception each and every day. There can be little doubt that the minds of nurses, especially in the concept of the value of human life, were dulled even more than the minds of the soldiers toting guns. In addition, women also had to suffer through he same rough reception as men upon their return to the United States. Women also had many unique ideas spawning from unique experiences of women like MS. Collingwood which can be analyzed and learned from. Women definitely played a very important role in Vietnam, and it’s really amazing how these “other” veterans could so easily be overlooked by the American people.
