APO 96225

Sometimes the truth is better when it is concealed, such as in the poem "APO 96225" by Larry Rottmann. The poem starts out with a letter from the son fighting in the war saying "Dear Mom, sure rains a lot here" (Rottmann, 3). Throughout the course of the rest of the poem, the son continues to sugarcoat what is really going on in the place where he is fighting the war. But, no matter what he says, the mother always asks what is really going on there. It seems rather ironic that when the son finally tells his mother what his life is really like that the father replies saying "Please don't write such depressing letters. You're upsetting your mother" (Rottmann, 17-18). It is quite ironic because all he was doing was obeying her, yet he ended up hurting her. Sometimes the people in our lives know what is best for us. In this situation, it was best for the son to withhold the information about what it was really like in the place where he is in the war. Even though its tough, sometimes sugarcoating news can be better for someone than finding out the reality. The poem ends the same way that it begins stating "Dear Mom, it sure rains here a lot" (Rottmann, 19-20). Maybe, the poem ends the same way as it begins to show that even though the mother received new she did not want to hear, their lives are still the same as when they started. The information that the mother learned did not change the son's situation, but only changed the perspective of the mother.