The "other" Vietnam Vets
Everybody knows about the men who served in Vietnam. They have at least heard of the mentally trying conditions during the war and the resulting "post traumatic stress syndrome" (PTSD) so many veterans suffered from, or heard of the issues concerning negative public opinion of veterans for their role in a hated war. However, few are aware of the female role in the Vietnam War; women, the "other" veterans, shared in all of these problems and issues along with the gun-toting men. They were the nurses, and in A Piece of My Heart by Keith Walker the stories of many women are presented to better understand just how the Vietnam War affected women. Working in places like evacuation hospitals exposed women to the endless flow of casualties from the battlefield, and these experiences took major mental tolls upon the minds of the women who had to assist them, especially in their considerations for the value of human life. Women experienced other problems upon returning home such as the same PTSD and outlashes by anti-war protesters. Women were veterans of Vietnam just like the men, and they experienced many of the same problems as a result of their role there.
Women were exposed to an enormous amount of pain while in Vietnam. As veteran Rose Sandecki said, "[The Vietnam] War really did a number on all of us, the women as well as the men" (20). Nurses in Vietnam were exposed to a nonstop flow of casualties from the field. The landing of a Chinook with mass casualties on board had become a standard to Christine Schneider, a nurse in Da Nang. Practically every nurse’s story described the hospital scenes in Vietnam as "busy." Jill Mishkel explained that she experienced a minimum of at least one death per day. As Ms. Schneider described, "There was just too much death" (46). Ms. Schneider also mentioned, "Everybody was bad" (45); nurses only saw the bad because they were surrounded by it, day in and day out. Charlotte Miller described everything as "on a very negative basis" (324), and that she had to deal with these problems from twelve to fifteen hours per day, twelve to fifteen days in a row, a very rigorous schedule. Further emotional damage was incurred by the severity of the injuries that the nurses had to deal with. Nurses described situations such as little boys with their intestines hanging out, men with half their faces blown off, men missing their legs from a grenade explosion, paraplegics, quadriplegics, and in one case pulling someone’s shoe off and having the foot come with it.
Jeanne is a seven year old Japanese girl living with her parents and seven out of nine siblings. They live happily on the West Coast and have a nice, cozy house in a good neighborhood, until the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Jeannie’s dad is sent to an interrogation camp up north and the rest of family, along with several other million Japanese people, are sent to an internment camp known as Manzanar. The conditions there
Her father was a fisherman in Long Beach with her two oldest brothers working as his crew on his prideful fishing boat. The family lived in Ocean Park, a small town in Santa Monica, where they were the only Japanese family in their neighborhood. Her father liked it that way because the label of being Japanese or even Asian was trite. When the news that Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, Jeanne and most of her family found themselves asking the same question: " What is Pearl Harbor?" (Houston 6) When the news came, her father seemed to be the only one to understand. He proceeded to burn his country's flag that he brought to the US with him wh...
Applebee, Arthur N. "Farewell to Manzanar." The Language of Literature. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell, 2006. 203-12. Print.
On March 15, 1965, large shipments of troops arrived in South Vietnam. These troops occupied the country until 1973. During this time, many men fought and died for the United States of America. The numerous nurses that operated on thousands of soldiers are often forgotten. The soldiers that the nurses operated on were usually blown apart and crippled for life. The nurses worked diligently to save these men. Even by working hard to save these men they were not recognized as army personnel by the public. The Vietnamese citizens and even the male American soldiers looked down upon the nurses. The United States did not acknowledge the nurses that served in the Vietnam War until 1993. The nurses that served in the Vietnam War, although commonly unrecognized, served as bravely as their soldier counterparts, and some suffered much of the same mental and physical distress.
The soldiers that fought in the Vietnam War had to endure many incredibly horrifying experiences. It was these events that led to great human emotions. It was those feelings that were the things they carried. Everything they carried affected them, whether it was physical or mental. Everything they carry could in one way or another cause them to emotionally or physically break down.
The novel, Farewell to Manzanar, by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, tells her family’s true story of how they struggled to not only survive, but thrive in forced detention during World War II. She was seven years old when the war started with the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1942. Her life dramatically changed when her and her family were taken from their home and sent to live at the Manzanar internment camp. Along with ten thousand other Japanese Americans, they had to adjust to their new life living behind barbed wire. Obviously, as a young child, Jeanne did not fully understand why they had to move, and she was not fully aware of the events happening outside the camp. However, in the beginning, every Japanese American had questions. They wondered why they had to leave. Now, as an adult, she recounts the three years she spent at Manzanar and shares how her family attempted to survive. The conflict of ethnicities affected Jeanne and her family’s life to a great extent.
The impact of the Vietnam War upon the soldiers who fought there was huge. The experience forever changed how they would think and act for the rest of their lives. One of the main reasons for this was there was little to no understanding by the soldiers as to why they were fighting this war. They felt they were killing innocent people, farmers, poor hard working people, women, and children were among their victims. Many of the returning soldiers could not fall back in to their old life styles. First they felt guilt for surviving many of their brothers in arms. Second they were haunted by the atrocities of war. Some soldiers could not go back to the mental state of peacetime. Then there were soldiers Tim O’Brien meant while in the war that he wrote the book “The Things They Carried,” that showed how important the role of story telling was to soldiers. The role of stories was important because it gave them an outlet and that outlet was needed both inside and outside the war in order to keep their metal state in check.
Pol Pot was a Cambodian Revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge outbreak that led to many many deaths. Before Pot began all of this craziness he went to college on full scholarship to study radio electronics. He quickly became vastly interested in Marxism and ended up losing his scholarships. Pol Pot then returned to Cambodia and joined the underground Communist movement. (The History Place; Genocide
Victim precipitation refers to the theory of criminology where a victim of crime is believed to have provoked or incited the acts of the offender. This theory is mostly associated with crimes such as rape, assault, robbery and homicide.
This historiographical study will define the romantic notions of Rosie the Riveter in an analysis of differing gender ideologies in the writings of Emily Yell, Maureen Honey, and D’Ann Campbell. Campbell’s (1984) analysis of the women’s war effort is defined by the way in which women rejected the patriarchal institutions that forced them to serve. Certainly, this historiographical interpretation defines the way in which some women chose to fight against the U.S. government as an institution that curtailed their freedoms. Campbell 91984) defines the conflicting role of women’s rights during WWII, which created gender tensions between men and women on the homeland. Emily Yellin's (2004) historical perspective provides a non-feminist style of historiography, since she does not focus on the gender-breaking role of the “Roses” that worked in the factories, This book defines the traditional roles of “mothers” and wives” that served as nurses in the Red Cross and other organizations during the war as a part of a sacrifice for the “fathers” and “husbands” that fought and died in the war. Finally, Honey’s (1985) evaluation of wartime media propaganda illustrates the double-standard of “Rosie the Riveter” and the underlying motives of a patriarchal government that utilized them as temporary workers during this historical period. In essence, a
...as Mary Ann in the novel show that women can do so much more than sew and cook. Without women, all wars would have been a lot harder. Although men tend to keep a macho facade in order to calm others (such as the women in their lives), inside they may be like glass, easy to break. A society set on the ideal stoic, fearless warrior who acts ruthlessly and saves the damsel in distress (also showing that women are weak) obviously is one where doomed to sexism. Without the comfort and inspiration, men would have deteriorated in the face of death. All and all, women provided the needed comfort, nursing, “manpower”, and love that the soldiers of Vietnam need, something that helped them endure the havoc of war. O’Brien’s expert use of the feminist lens allows the reader to know that women indeed were a powerhouse in the Vietnam war, without whom, men would have perished.
Crime and victimization are two topics that when combined most tend to get confused. According to Merriam-Webster being victimized is...
...nd bloodshed. Women gave a reason to go to war, a reason to come back from the war, and oddly, a reason to want to return to the war. The men were in a fraternity of life, and with no women around for so long they began to rely on themselves, and no longer had the needs that were provided them by women. They wanted to play in the jungle with their friends, only this time with no guns. They missed the life that they spent together eating rations and swapping stories. When they went home they were veterans, like the old men of the World Wars. If they stayed, they were still heroes, warriors, and victims. They still loved deeply the women at home, because they had no reason to fight or bicker, or possibly realize that the women they assumed would be waiting for them had changed in that time. The men were torn between love of women, and the love of brotherhood.
New technologies are making bioterrorists better equipped and making research and development easier. Genetic engineering is the first example of how a bioweapon could be easily made for mass destruction. A virus such as Ebola Zaire – a virus with up to a 90% death rate – could be engineered to have an easier way of transmission. The small change, a change in only a few genes, could potentially destroy most, if not all, life on earth. If Ebola Zaire was engineered to have the same way of spreading as Ebola Reston, which spreads through the air (Preston 336), it could reach death tolls that have only lived in fiction.
...o not receive the credit they deserve. This group of women is known as the civilian women in Vietnam. It actually is not known how many women are in this group, but it is known that the number is quite significant. Many of these women worked on behalf of the American Red Cross, Army Special Services, United States Organizations, Peace Corps, and varies religious groups such as Catholic Relief Services. Many of these members did not actually stay in Vietnam, many of them traveled abroad. The women who volunteered with the Army Special Services worked operating libraries, service clubs and even shops. These shops were meant to boost the enthusiasm of the military men deployed in Vietnam. Some other women would travel and work as a journalism, keeping track of the war and involvement of the soldiers. There were 59 female civilians whom actually died in the Vietnam War.