Ramirez, Juan. A Patriot After All: the story of a Chicano vet. University of New Mexico. Library of Congress: 1999.
I chose this book, because many of the books I was planning to read; my library didn’t have them. But as I was looking for another interesting book that had to do with the Vietnam War, because that’s what group I am in for the “War Documentary Project”. I actually came upon a book that was somewhat related to my ethnicity, which I thought was kind of cool, because I didn’t know of any Mexican descent people that were Vietnam vets. This book is autobiography of a persons life, being a youth wanting to go to the Vietnam War, and mostly focused on his life changing experience in war, and when he came back home.
The books main action point was when he was talking about his experiences in war, and told how he was put on combat when he barely arrived to Vietnam and wasn’t prepared on ways to react. And mostly because before getting to combat you have to do some time at war getting used to it. He was saying how out of fifteen people in his squad only 3 survived including him. Even though he didn’t know them very much or well enough, it traumatized him for watching their death, because the stepped on one the trap that exploded. It was also a shock, when he went in to the war, he observed that some of the people already in the war acted so cold to the Vietnamese civilians and would let them die and wouldn’t do nothing about it, and said he would never let himself get like that. When his term was over he was a big alcoholic and was addicted to a lot of hard drugs. He became very aggressive and abusive when he was drunk and it affected his relationship with his family, friends, and life. He came back as a whole new person.
The character I chose is the main character; his name is Juan Ramirez growing up in California when he was little people called him John. He was a Chicano; his parents were Mexican and had had family living in Northern California with him. Both of his parents worked in the fields, and soon they saved enough to buy a small house. Soon his father joined the army for WWII and came back and wasn’t given the things he was promised for joining. When he came back from the war he was like him but just an alcoholic. After graduating from high school he decided to join the war.
I really enjoyed this book, because I never read a war book before, that I actually understood what was going on. I’m glad that I had done some research on the war before I started to read, because in some instances they would talk about communism, but I knew what they were talking about. And they also said a lot of good information of what the war was about, and how life was like for the U.S citizens living watching the war happen, and also the innocent Vietnamese Citizens. I would recommend this book to my friends, because the whole time when I was reading it kept me wanting to read more, very interesting.
The books main action point was when he was talking about his experiences in war, and told how he was put on combat when he barely arrived to Vietnam and wasn’t prepared on ways to react. And mostly because before getting to combat you have to do some time at war getting used to it. He was saying how out of fifteen people in his squad only 3 survived including him. Even though he didn’t know them very much or well enough, it traumatized him for watching their death, because the stepped on one the trap that exploded. It was also a shock, when he went in to the war, he observed that some of the people already in the war acted so cold to the Vietnamese civilians and would let them die and wouldn’t do nothing about it, and said he would never let himself get like that. When his term was over he was a big alcoholic and was addicted to a lot of hard drugs. He became very aggressive and abusive when he was drunk and it affected his relationship with his family, friends, and life. He came back as a whole new person.
The character I chose is the main character; his name is Juan Ramirez growing up in California when he was little people called him John. He was a Chicano; his parents were Mexican and had had family living in Northern California with him. Both of his parents worked in the fields, and soon they saved enough to buy a small house. Soon his father joined the army for WWII and came back and wasn’t given the things he was promised for joining. When he came back from the war he was like him but just an alcoholic. After graduating from high school he decided to join the war.
I really enjoyed this book, because I never read a war book before, that I actually understood what was going on. I’m glad that I had done some research on the war before I started to read, because in some instances they would talk about communism, but I knew what they were talking about. And they also said a lot of good information of what the war was about, and how life was like for the U.S citizens living watching the war happen, and also the innocent Vietnamese Citizens. I would recommend this book to my friends, because the whole time when I was reading it kept me wanting to read more, very interesting.
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