Innocents Abroad Too: Journeys Around the World on Semester at Sea by Michael Pearson.
In the Vietnam chapter of the book, the author talks about his experience of the Vietnam War even though he did not participate in the physical fighting.
Even though the author was American, he still felt for what the Americans had done to Vietnam after reading The Sorrow of War. He expressed that Boa Ninh's book had a heavy impact due to the insight it gave the readers to the scaring effects the war had on the Vietnamese.
The author tells the reader about a friend. He describes this friend as being "a confident, smiling boy, the companion who always knows how to talk to the girls, the one who always finds the right thing to say." He later goes to fight in the Vietnam War and returns "a silent older man." This displays the common traumatic scarring war has on almost all of whom survive.
Whilst The Sorrow of War tells the story from a survivor’s point of view, Innocents Abroad Too: Journey around the world on semester at sea tells the story from an observer. What he observed was war completely change this young man. War took away “confident, smiling boy" and replaced him with a stranger. In the end, the author simply just "wanted [his] old friend back." Sadly it was too late and "he was gone forever."
This change of personality was common for all who fought in the war. As humans we experience guilt, and how is it possible to not feel guilt when you kill? This would likely to lead up to constant stress for the family and friends of these soldiers. Even if they survived(which was unlikely) they had become a different person. This could lead up to stress on families when the surviving soldiers return home, bringing with them the sorrow of war.
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