"APO 96225" by Larry Rottman

"'Dear Mom, sure rains a lot here.'" Line 3

       War is hell. And this poem makes it quite obvious. We all know this familiar story. We see it all over the news today. A young man goes off to war. He writes back home, expressing all of the positive aspects of the hostile environment he lives in so as not to worry his loved ones back home. However, this poem takes it a step further by the young man literally describing some of the horrors of what he goes through. His mother and father are horrified at what he says. Their son, their beloved son, killed a man. he murdered innocent civilians: women and children were burned by napalm because of him. It is also ironic in that his mother repeatedly asked him to tell her how it was. She knew war was terrible, and wanted him to express the things he did and saw to her; however, when he reveals the true nature of his work, his mother was "upset" and he again reverted to his vague letters back home.