In the next few weeks we're going to begin reading a novel about the Vietnam War. This novel will sustain us through the Winter and into the Spring when the novel, The Things They Carried, will become the focus of our region's most prestigious literary festival, "Get Lit!"
But before we get into all that however, I'd like to find out a little bit about what you already know about our involvement in Vietnam. Thus, by the the end of school today I would like you to answer the following five questions (in the comments section below this post, using Microsoft Word, or on a piece of paper) in complete sentences to the best of your knowledge. Oh yeah, don't forget to include your name!
Here goes....
1. In broad terms, please describe what happened in the Vietnam War. When did it start? When did it end? Why did the United States want to get involved in the first place? What were some of the consequences? Etc.
2. How was the reaction to the war back in the United States?
3. Do you have an opinion about the war? If so, why?
4. Were any of your family members involved in the war?
5. In what ways did the war in Vietnam forever change American culture and history?
Good luck,
-Ned-
1 comment:
The vietnam war is a very long and complex story that has history going back hundreds of years, but i will try to be brief and vague.
vietnam has almost always been struggling to gain their freedom from outside influence. it started with the chinese, then it was followed by the japanese. then during the good old colonial era, the french came in and decided that Nam was a good place to set up shop. there is a long and complicated explination behind that, but well keep moving.
flash foward to the 60's. America was deep into the cold war, and the french said that they needed help with the vietnamese people, and america was of course going to jump in and help, because the fear of communism was at a peak in american society.
vietnam had been seperated into the communist north, and the colonized south. we were coming in to stop the communist north from taking the country. we believed in the "domino theory" which is an idea that if one small country falls to communism, then they might all fall to communism.
we realized after a time that the war was unwinnable, so we left. the vietnamese did not turn into allies of the major communist powers as we had anicipated them to do. they just wanted to be free from outside control of their country. Ho Chi Minh once said, "i am a countryman long before i am a communist" which embodies what the north was fighting for.
2. The reaction back in the united states was generally negetive. there were lots of war protest, many of which ended in violence. this unrest was a major factor in helping to get us out of vietnam.
3. My opinion on the war is that is was an unjust, poorly planned, long drawn out CF. however, i believe that it is not my place to second guess the decisions of our forefathers.
4.No
5. The vietnam war has been known as the first major loss in the history of war in the United States. it helped to plant a seed of rebelion and disrest that still remains in the country.
how it changed history is two sided. in one sense it opened the eyes of a generation to the horrors of what can happen when we let fear control our country. on the other hand, we still allow fear to control our counrty and we still get involved in wars that we have no place in, and we make the same mistakes that they did back then.
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