Problems Faced by the United States Soldiers in Vietnam

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Problems Faced by the United States Soldiers in Vietnam

Source A:

An increasing number of recruits scored so low on the intelligence

test that they never would have been let into the normal peacetime

army. The tour of duty in Vietnam was one year.Soldiers were most

likely to die in the first month. The large majority of deaths took

place in the first six months. Just as a soldier began gaining

experience he was sent home. A rookie army was constantly throwing

inexperienced men against experienced guerrillas on their home ground.

Answer:

Parts of this statement are very true and a fact however some of this

statement could be interpreted as bias and an opinion. We have to take

on such factors as was the author of this statement at Vietnam was he

trying to reach out to a certain audience and was he bias. We can tell

that the author is a left winger and against war due to the way he

phrases and the tone of certain sentences in the statement.

The first sentence stating that many recruits scored low on the

intelligence test is actually both a true and untrue statement. This

is untrue because seventy nine percent of all of the draftees in the

Vietnam conflict had high school or higher educations. However the

draftees during the war only made up twenty five percent of the

overall forces that were serving through out the Vietnam conflict.

This means that only a quarter of the Vietnam forces would have scored

highly on the intelligence test. And the figure is that only fifteen

percent of soldiers that signed up and was not already in the army

passed the intelligence test. Therefore this statement is both true

and false. Therefore this statement is inaccurate.

The next statement is true. The tour of duty (time that a soldier had

to spend in Vietnam) in the Vietnam Conflict was only one year. The

next statement is an opinion and not a fact. There is no factually

evidence to back up this statement saying that most soldiers were

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