Jay Nemeth’s “War of Vietnam” raises awareness for the appreciation of soldiers who were involved in the Vietnam War. The poem follows a linear structure with an AABB rhyme scheme. The poem begins in a story like manner with “One day”, giving the impression it is just another regular day. Nemeth depicts the subject in the poem to be very clueless and naïve in the start by stating “he had no idea what in the hell he was fighting for”. The purpose of this innocent like depiction is to raise awareness of the unfair and harsh requirements of “young boy(s)” to fight in War. The poet hyperbolises the suffering of the young boy in the poem as he “could hardly remember his name”, suggesting war has stripped him of his personality and identity. The poem is separated into two parts as the rhythm and rhyme scheme changes in lines 11-14. These four lines “After seven years of fighting, He'd seen all his buddies die. He just sat down in the Jungle and began to cry” these lines don’t have a rhyme scheme, and the syntax is shortened compared to the rest of the poem, drawing more emphasis on these lines. A violent and dark imagery is conveyed through the use of words like “fighting”, “die”, “jungle” and “cry”. At this point in the poem, the mood and tone changes, and the reader becomes emotionally effected. The reader gets the sense that the mood is lightened in the line “Then one day they got the call, that they were going home”, however in the next few lines we discover that the boy’s time in Vietnam was pointless and that “his own country didn’t care” “Nobody cared that he had been at war”. His sadness is extended when he metaphorically states that he had already died, because of war “At the age of eighty that once young man died”. Through the use of various poetic and literary devices, Jay Nemeth seeks to increase appreciation of War veterans.
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