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“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?” This is the question posed by Mahatma Gandhi, which can be applied to many of the wars that the United States has encountered in the past century, including World War II and the Vietnam War, which are the historical subjects of literary works by John Hersey and Ron Kovic. The destruction, physically and emotionally, of both wars are shown very differently through the two accounts of the wars, through stylistic efforts, as well as the facts and their presentation. John Hersey’s Hiroshima details the lives of six people in Hiroshima, Japan, immediately before the atomic bomb was dropped, as well as the aftermath of the attack. The subjects of Hersey’s work include people from all backgrounds, including a Jesuit Priest, two doctors, a Methodist Pastor, a young clerk, and a mother and her three children. Because Hersey used a diverse group of people as subjects, the reader is able to see all aspects of what happened. Hersey greatly focuses on the physical devastation caused by the bomb. One hundred thousand people were killed as the