Comparison of Bao Ninhs book The Sorrow of War and Oliver Stones film Heaven and Earth essays

Comparison of Bao Ninh's book The Sorrow of War and Oliver Stones film Heaven and Earth essays War has always been destructive, both of land and people. The war in Vietnam was no different, and the testimony of the people that lived it makes the events memorable and tragic. In later years the voice to speak for the people involved in the war changed, and so did the point of view. There is no longer just the American side of the story, the hardship that American soldiers went through or had to deal with on return home, but there is also the Vietnamese story, and in no way is these peoples story less dramatic or moving. Both Bao Ninh's book, The Sorrow of War, and Oliver Stones film Heaven and Earth deal with the war in Vietnam as a story told from the perspective of the Vietnamese. In doing so they offer a unique understanding of the people that were involved in the conflict on first bases, the people that lived and fought the war. Because of the media bias with regard to the Vietnam conflict, readers and movie goers world wide know about how the American's suffered in Vietnam and about how it's war veterans have trouble adjusting to life back home in the US. But the American's lost less than a million men in that war and their social institutions and infrastructure survived relatively the war relatively intact. The Vietnamese lost two million men, and their culture, society, landscape, and traditions were literally obliterated by the conflict. Yet their side of the story has seldom been told. Worse still, they have always been portrayed in the media as faceless "gooks", "Charlie", or "VC". Up un til a few years ago, it would have appeared that the Vietnamese participants in the conflict were people without an identity. 1 Bao Ninhs first novel is about his most influential life experience, the war in which he participated as a young man. Born in 1952, he served in the Glorious 27th Youth Brigade during the Vietnam war. Out of the five hundred youths who went to war...