What they Carried

So last week i reviewed a book while ten pages into it. A critical mistake that wont be made again. But here's the thing, it sounded like i was writing the wight thing at the time. I talked about how i thought this was another book about love letters and the Viet Nam war. I realize that it's about much more. The book is about a boy that shows so much promise: getting into Harvard and finally kissing his girlfriend when he is put into war. It's a non-fiction memoir about this boy wondering why he was chose in the draft and not some college dropout. The book touches on the idea of teenage idealism and how people going through that time in their lives want to know why bad things happen to them. 
So the boy drives away from his life hoping to leave his parents and his country behind along with all of the responsibilities. He finds himself at the Canadian border staying in the hospitality of an old man that owns a local drive-in. The man is described with the utmost care and love. He is a man that keeps his feelings to himself but the author makes it clear that the old man made the boy feel at home. He also crossed the boy as having a sense of understanding. 
This book is definitely not just another love story. Its a collection of real war stories that tell the story of a platoon during one of the most grueling time periods of all time. The Viet Nam war when the U.S. was absolutely scared out of it's mind of Communism. The support of the troops was thinning.