General Apache Poem

The article in the novel “Essays on Writing,” on General Apache was fascinating. Why you might ask? Well it developed the story on a true person’s life into a poem. It developed on from a professor who after years of teaching found it more beneficial to meet with his students on the topics that they would want to write about rather than choosing topics for them. In doing this he came across a student who had been in the Vietnam War. This particular student through trust was able to envelop his life stories of before the war, getting drafted, his experiences through the war including his expertise fighting and strategy skills, the effects it had on him after the war and how people treated him, which in turn led him to alcoholism and fighting and then the rehab from that after 20 years. He then talked to him about all these different factors and writing them into different essays and how to go about it. Well the more they hung out and discussed these stories, the more interested professor Harrington became. Through time it then led to Harrington being inspired to write a piece of literature, a poem, on the life of this soldier. The poem that he wrote was exactly what General Apache had been trying to get out of himself this whole time. It was an incredible poem. The way it was written was like if this soldier’s life had been writing it himself, using language that you would believe he was talking to you. It felt like you were hearing this firsthand. Not only that but it goes through his whole life story from laying ball in Cincinnati to cutting throats in Vietnam to being shot and almost paralyzed to the drinking and finally to the recovery of it all. When you read the poem you feel the heartache, the pain, the violence, and the sorrow. It’s like you want to reach out and just give this man a hug, because it stirs up all these emotions without even being to descriptive. It made you think of things that you wouldn’t even really consider, like how people were cruel to veterans for killing people in war. Honestly these couple pages were really inspiring and I definitely recommend anyone into reading them, or at least the General Apache poem.