"Dear Mom, sure rains a lot here."
("APO 96225" - Larry Rottmann)
In our society, truth is often hidden in order to protect the fragile minds of America's citizens. Every account of a tragedy is somehow sugar-coated so that Americans who hear the news do not discover the real truth. This poem points out this flaw in America through satirical understatements. In this line from the poem, a soldier from the Vietnam War writes to his mother about the war. Instead of telling her the details, he just tells her about the weather using an understatement of how things are going. However, the mother is not satisfied with the small talk. She wants to know the every detail of the war and how her son is actually doing. After hearing the truth, she denies that this is even occurring. The father even accuses the son of writing a purposefully depressing letter just to worry his mother.
America is exactly like this family. People in our country only want to know about the good things that occur in the world. Just last week, we watched a documentary in Government about 9/11. I had always heard about this tragedy, but never before did I actually realize how great of an impact the attack made on our nation. My understanding was due to the sugar-coating of accounts by broadcasting stations. When I saw the real footage, I realized what had actually happened on that day. I think America purposefully builds naive citizens in order to allow government to have more control. That is a different story....
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