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Effects of vietnam war on us
Effects of vietnam war on us
Vietnam war summary
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Effects of vietnam war on us
Effects of vietnam war on us
Vietnam war summary
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Voices from Vietnam is a collaboration piece between two authors that is a detailed and very deep book about the conditions of Vietnam and gives a first person view of the warfare by quoting veterans from the war about their time in Vietnam. The two authors Richard Burks Verrone and Laura M. Calkins are Oral Historians at The Vietnam Project at Texas Tech University and both have Doctorate degrees. This book describes the tragedy, the harshness, and the lifestyle of combat in Vietnam. The veterans talk of the weather and the land and describing them both as harsh and dreary. They also speak of their opponents and the methods they used.
Elijah Fox Dragos Global 2 Due: 1/7/16 Historical Accuracy of “We Were Soldiers” In 1955 a profusely nervous America feared the global spread of communism. This raging fear led them to interfere and attempt to stop Viet Cong’s attempt of a communist takeover of South Vietnam.
Literature review of “The Things they Carried” and “The White Heron.” The Things They Carried This is a collection of stories given by different narrators about their times and experiences as members of a platoon group of soldiers during the Vietnam War. There are at least three main narrators of the stories in the book, the author Tim O’Brien, Mitchell Sanders and Bob Kiley.
James W. Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me is an honest approach to early American and modern American history. Loewen sampled eighteen high school history textbooks and personally dissected each book and compared them to one another and his findings as a professional writer for the History Channel’s History magazine. In Lies My Teacher Told Me, Loewen tackles the misconceptions and inaccuracies that he discovered when reading these popularly taught American textbooks. The book directly covers major events in American history from Columbus’s first arrival in the Caribbean to the Vietnam War and goes into vast detail about the faults that modern textbooks make when describing such events.
Introduction – After the swift victories of World War One and Two, the United States has played a dominant role in world affairs, not only through its political and economic policies but through the aura of its seemingly undefeatable military as well. At home, there was a massive trust in governmental institutions and the economy was thriving with a very good sense of peace, security, and prosperity among its people. However, the Vietnam War was not only a military war but a war on the economy and psychology against everyone from the military personnel to the citizens who were watching the devastation of the war through the media, as this was the first ever broadcasted war. It not only changed American foreign policy forever but it also permanently
Herr's book paints a considerably more complex and nuanced picture of the War than many other versions of it, which often portray the war as a heroic combat between good and evil. Herr demonstrates to us that the fight was much more than just a struggle between two armies and that it had a significant impact on the lives of millions of people. Dispatches' potent condemnation of the media's role in the Vietnam War is another factor in its continued relevance today. Herr demonstrates that the media actively shaped how the war was perceived rather than simply serving as a passive witness of the fight. Herr examines the manner in which the media contributed to the spread of a false account of the war by showing the ways in which the military controlled and used the media.
While the Vietnamese authors emphasize themes of loss, trauma, and devastation caused by the war, the American authors tend to focus on disillusionment, disorientation, and challenges to American exceptionalism posed by the conflict. Despite these differences, both sets of authors offer critiques of the dominant narratives of the war, challenging official government propaganda and providing counter-narratives that deepen our understanding of the conflict. The Vietnamese authors' focus on the personal and collective trauma caused by the war is rooted in the historical and cultural context of Vietnam, which has experienced centuries of colonization and war. In contrast, the American authors' disillusionment and challenges to American exceptionalism reflect the larger cultural and historical context of the United States, which has often viewed itself as a beacon of democracy and freedom. These perspectives on the war can be used to deepen our understanding of other conflicts and global issues today, particularly in terms of recognizing the ways in which historical and cultural contexts shape our perceptions of and responses to
However, the lack of material covered on the Vietnam War further proves that the war remains an event Americans attempt to forget. In America today, the Vietnam War continues to be looked at negatively, which provides further proof of why we must learn about American troops’ ethical lapses in war and how this affected world power and human rights. In the My Lai Massacre, platoon leader LT William Calley Jr. and his men of Charlie Company murdered a village and gang-raped the population. It was not until helicopter pilot; Chief Warrant Officer (CWO) Hugh Thompson landed his helicopter and stopped the killing of the innocent civilians by Calley and his men.
The Vietnam War was a war that conflicted with many Americans due to the wrongful morality and actions taken during the war. The U.S. took action in the war to continue the fight to keep communism from spreading. The war was a shock for America as it took a defeat in the end, North Vietnam conquered South Vietnam, the side we had backed. Although America did not have the most casualties, this was a win, but overall, physical casualties were not only lost in this war but mentally it took a great toll. In the book, A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo, his story begins with a memoir that allows readers to develop a deeper understanding of a soldier in war.
In the “Vietnam Veterans Against the War Statement” delivered by John Kerry on April 23rd, 1971, Kerry speaks to the tragedies done by and done to American troops during the war. On behalf of the organization, Kerry shares some of the grueling stories “this country, in a sense, made them do” (Kerry 1971). To name a few, Kerry recalled stories of rape and mutilation done to American troops and accounts in which hatred overpowered American agency, causing troops to destroy South Vietnamese land. Although troops were told to enact violence in that moment, the passing of time reveals a sense of confusion. Kerry shares that he and the other antiwar troops believe that “there is nothing in South Vietnam…that realistically threatens the United States of America” (Kerry 1971).
The Vietnam war took a major death toll in Vietnam, United States, South Korea, Thailand, New Zealand, and Australia. Just in the U.S., “more than 58,000 American soldiers were killed while more than 150,000 others wounded”. On both sides, there were almost 2 million civilians dead and 1.1 simply on the Vietnamese side. The My Lai Massacre, where soldiers brutally killed Vietnamese children and mothers, presents an example where the war mentally changed the soldiers in the war in a very horrendous way. On the other hand, the United States took brutal losses in the Tet Offensive, where the Vietcong slaughtered over 100 towns and twelve United States air bases.
“Woodstein” and Watergate, Edward Snowden and the NSA, and Seymour Hersh and My Lai exposed the hidden wrongs of the US government with staggeringly influential power to change both the government and journalism. Here, we will be focusing on the fallout from Hersh’s reports on the 1968 massacres at My Lai (“Pinkville”), Vietnam. With the exposer of US Army immorality by Seymour Hersh of the St. Louis Dispatch in a series of reports the field of war journalism was forever changed into two distinct eras, Pre and post Vietnam and fundamentally changed the journalist, military relationship.
The novel written by Graham Greene, The Quiet American, conveys his point of view, as an English reporter, on the complexity of being forced to choose a side during the Vietnam Wars. While Phillip Caputo’s memoir, Rumor of War, is a heartbreaking journey of an American Marine who describes the true nature of the horrors experienced in the war zone. In addition, Le Ly Hayslip’s memoir, When Heaven and Earth Changed Places, signifies a woman’s perspective as a Vietnamese peasant. Her story is unbelievable and inspiring because of the strength she has to battle against struggles and to forgive those who victimized her. These primary sources suggest how differing events of trauma
The American convention is that they were Vietcong soldiers. But three out of four patients seeking treatment in a Vietnamese hospital afterward for burns from napalm, or jellied gasoline, were village women” (477). When studying American history from this perspective, one sees not only the good American forces had hoped to do, but also the harm that they caused. The information that comes to light when using this perspective, like the example of the injured Vietnamese civilians, brings forward questions that might have remained unasked; for example, was the attack wounding and killing civilians a necessary evil when fighting communism? Did American forces have the right to decide that sacrifices would be made by Vietnamese people?
The U.S. also spread pro-refugee propaganda sharing imagery of “saving” the Vietnamese. The “operation babylift ” image in lecture 4A, portrays a “rescue” narrative, however, this propaganda was made to cover up the severe refugee situation America had created in Vietnam. This narrative comes in contrast to how the U.S. interfered with the war based on ideology and invested money, weapons, and the lives of many Americans which led created a lot of instability within the country. The war had a severe impact on the people of Vietnam with many civilian deaths, the destruction of livelihoods, and even having children, women, and the elderly fight. Furthermore, as more Vietnamese sought asylum in the U.S., Americans experienced “compassion fatigue” and provided fewer resources for these