The Vietnam War

Vietnam War

Before our intriguing lesson on the Vietnam War, the vast majority of my knowledge derived from Hollywood and occasional trips to the Vietnam War Memorial on especially sunny summer days in Washington DC. Sure I knew the basics of the war, United States vs. the Viet Cong, the time period in which the war was fought, the reason the United States entered the war, sure I knew that there were many people who were strongly opposed to the war and the draft that made it so controversial, but what I failed to realize was the caliber of such actions, the consequences of the war, the degree of the protests against the war, the intense hate for the war. One of the things that shocked me was when I found out that 60% of the men on tours of duty in Vietnam were 21 and under,they were just boys who had been persuaded by the fear of disappointing society and their families to accept the draft and head into the dense, unforgiving jungle of Vietnam.
One of my biggest misconceptions of the Vietnam War was my failure to realize the importance of the television on the war. Before this war, few Americans had the ability to watch what was happening in foreign wars and what they could see was mainly propaganda, but throughout the course of the war the TV became most Americans primary source for getting the news and now these families could watch the horrors of the war from their living rooms. Unlike previous wars where the footage released was edited and mainly propaganda, this footage was uncut and showed the everyday american family something they found themselves unable to handle anymore and these protests are ultimately what helps bring this war to an end.
As we continue to read The Things they Carried and discuss the Vietnam War, I find my knowledge of the war, which I previously thought was impressive, lacking and I find myself learning new facts about the war every few pages. This is a very dark chapter in American history and one that I hope we can learn a valuable lesson from.