Before viewing the documentary, I was not aware of the United States involvement in the Strategic Hamlet Program. I had no idea that this form of brutality was United States backed and even worse how widely accepted it was. It was shocking to think of the U.S. supporting such a cruel and barbaric program.

In "A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain", Robert Olen Butler utilizes two narratives in order to help understand the everlasting Vietnam struggle. The first narrative involves Dao reliving his experiences, through his visions of the deceased Ho Chi Minh. Dao recounts of his separation from Ho in the city of Paris. Here, Ho began to read the works of Marx, and pursued a life of politics, and embraced the Vietnam struggle, while Dao pursued a religious path. The glaze represents Ho's failure to be at peace, because once accepting the Vietnam struggle, "you would be incomplete forever" (249). This same lack of inner peace is exemplified in the second narrative of his son-in-law and his grandson. The two discuss their involvement in the murder of a Vietnamese in America. Butler links the narratives when he compares one of his visions with Ho and the attitude of his son-in-law and grandson, "'You won the country. You know that, don't you?' Ho shrugged. 'There are no countries here.' I should have remembered Ho's shrug when I began to see things in the faces of my son-in-law and grandson" (245). His son-in-law and grandson are representing the everlasting struggle of Vietnam, while Ho represents what the everlasting struggle will lead to.