The Vietnam War was not a “nice” war. Soldiers were forced to fight guerrilla troops, fought in horrific weather conditions, had to live in dangerous jungles, and, worst of all, lost sight of who they were. Many soldiers may have entered with a sense of pride, but returned home desensitized. The protagonist of “The Red Convertible” by Louise Erdrich is testimony to this. In the story, the protagonist is a young man full of life before the war, and after the war he is a mere shell of his former self. The protagonists of Tim O'Brien's “If I Die in a Combat Zone” and Irene Zabytko's “Home Soil” are also severely affected by the war. The three characters must undergo traumatic experiences. Only those who fought in the Vietnam War understand what these men were subjected to, both in fantasy and in real life. After the war, the protagonists of these stories must learn to deal with a war that was not fought to win, but rather to ensure that the United States remained politically correct in its management of the conflict. This in turn caused much more distress and turmoil for the soldiers. While these three stories may contain fictionalized events, they connect to real events, even more so to the ramifications of war, be they psychological, morally emotional, or cultural. “The Red Convertible” and “Home Soil” give readers a glimpse into the lives of soldiers once they return home after the war and how they never quite return, while “If I Die in a Combat Zone” is a letter from protest before joining the war. All three protagonists have to live with the consequences of the Vietnam War: the loss of their identity. Erdrich's “The Red Convertible” and Zabytko's “Home Soil” both give strong interpretations of two distinct reactions. In their powerful words of fiction, the… center of the paper… faces similar pain. Through the authors of these stories, we get a better sense of what the soldiers go through and the connection that war has to the psyche of these men. While it is true, and known, that the Vietnam War was bloody and that many soldiers died in vain, what happened to those who returned home is often forgotten. We overlook what became of those men and the pain they and their families went through. Some are left with physical scars, a constant reminder of a horrible time in their lives, while others are left with emotional and mental scars. The universal fact found in all soldiers is the dramatic transformation they all undergo. None of these men no longer have the opportunity to create their own identity or continue with the aspirations they once held as young men. They become, and forever will be, soldiers of the Vietnam War.