I Killed a Man

In  APO 9625 by Larry Rottman, the author uses dramatic irony to communicate the attitude of the American public toward the Vietnam War. When we think of war in general, we think of gore, pain, suffering, and destruction. Death surrounds the surviving soldiers and the whole aspect of war becomes a gruesome thought. Apparently, the mother does not seem to understand this. She asks her son to tell her what it is really like. He avoids the conversation of war entirely because he knows it will upset his mother. After her persistence, he finally tells her that he killed a man and dropped napalm and women and children. The son then gets reprimanded for telling his mother what she wanted to know," 'Please don't write such depressing letters. You're upsetting your mother' " (Rottman, 846). The American public wanted to know what happening in Vietnam. They also did not want to believe the horrors that awaited the soldiers. The American public can't handle the truth.