Firstly, the title of the poem "APO 96225" by Larry Rottmann says a great deal about the poem- almost as much as the poem itself. This says that it is an Army Post Office address and from this alone, sympathy is evoked. People that fight for our country make a huge sacrifice, and so do the families of those who serve. Therefore, seeing the correspondence between the two already serves as pathos in the poem.
Present as well in this poem is irony. Even though the mother asked specifically to hear of every endeavor, when he told her, she could not bear it emotionally. She probably did not realize what the implications of her request would be. " Today I killed a man. Yesterday, I helped drop napalm on women and children," (Rottmann 46).The violence and gore of war is not exactly the most light of subjects, and certainly not appropriate for a mother to imagine. However, it is reality. There is not all sunsets, funny monkeys, and rain; there is killing, there is blood, there is death. Maybe we all want to close our eyes to it, but if we keep our eyes open and aware, we see the horror that is war.
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