Lit Circle Letter 1

My group and I have been reading the novel The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh for a week and we have gotten one third of the book finished. The dramatic book is about a Vietnamese view of the Vietnam War, and the many stories that tie together that makes the main character's life. Kien is traumatized from the war, experiencing people dying all around him, including his friends, some from the same village. Some of the stories don't seem to make sense, until you read a little farther ahead. One of the best described war scene is on pg46:

"Often in the middle of a busy street, in broad daylight, I've suddenly become lost in a daydream. On smelling the stink of rotten meat I've suddenly imagined I was back crossing Hamburger Hill in 1972, walking over strewn corpses. The stench of death is often so overpowering I have to stop in the middle of the pavement, holding my nose, while startled, suspicious people step around me, avoiding my mad stare."

Death of the soldiers from both the United States of America and Vietnam, all piled so high that it creates a hill of corpses. It is a very inspirational novel that talks to about all of the emotional stress, and of the many situations that create the men of both armies wonder why they were fighting. Going against the orders of their superiors, some men were lethaly punished, and others abandoned their fellow comrades.
This book was well written and is a great source for reading about real life experiences of a veteran. War and battles, and more fighting; is there anyway the dispute could have been done peacefully? I am now one third of the way through the novel and hope to find many more interesting experiences Kien had in his life as an army scout for the Vietnamese army.