Three Lives

The selection from the play Three Lives provides some unique insight on the Vietnam War from the view of the refugees. Without warning, the war seems to jump into the lives of the main character and his family, and they are swept up into the mad rush to escape with little time to gather things or do anything other than burn the pictures of family. For the main character this seems to be of great importance because he sees his "childhood...just ashes fluttering in the wind...fluttering in the wind." He loses his entire life up to this point in an instant, and as the pictures of his childhood are destroyed, so is his actual childhood in a sense, as he is thrust abruptly into a war. The play later goes on to capture some of the distinct fears that the refugees would have experienced, like running from airplanes going out on a bombing run, or running to the American helicopters who are airlifting them out of the country. It all come to a climax at the end with the lines, "My second taste of America. Every man for himself. No one there to lift you up. You're on your own now." This, for many of the refugees, would be the first glimpse of Americans: Pilots and soldiers who refused to take people on board their helicopters, when many of Vietnamese people needed help. The refugees would only have this idea of Americans to go on after arriving in the United States, which most definitely seems like it would have an impact on how the newly arrived Vietnamese would interact with American society. As an American citizen, this is kind of a scary thought, considering the amount of contact that the U.S. has with other nations in war time. I can't imagine what it would be like being forced to travel to a country where the people seem to pay little heed to the struggles of people who could be family members trying to escape from a war torn area, and who seem to only place importance on the job they were given.