There is a stark parallel between the Vietnam War and the circumstances under which life is maintained on Potrero Hill. The soldiers in Gods Go Begging are poor, uneducated, and trapped fighting in a war they do not support; the boys on Potrero Hill are also poor, uneducated, and unable to escape the war into which they were born. They are victims of their circumstances and their government. Some of the boys that Jesse meets in Vietnam are there because they were drafted. Unable to get a deferment, either due to a lack of funds or because no higher education establishment would accept them, boys are forced to go off to war. Others, like Mendez, fled to the United States in order to escape the violence at home that resulted from the United States’ …show more content…
In Vietnam, at least in Jesse’s company, men of all races are able to cohabitate peacefully, and then when they return home, they face prejudice once again. They are forced to fight a war in Vietnam against communist ideology while also fighting a war back home against racism. Splitting ones’ army is almost always a recipe for disaster as Amos points out, but as the U.S. went into war right as the Civil Rights movement was beginning to gain traction, the men had no choice. The indignities that they faced at home, at the hands of the very men they died to save, make killing Vietnamese soldiers under the directions of their own leaders, all the more difficult. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s death results in the most direct quote we see about the two pronged war: “Why the fuck am I shooting at zips? They ain 't never did me no wrong, never called me nigger. I should be at home shooting at the man, shooting at the Klan ” (Vea 134) This message is not uttered by one individual but by the African American men in combat as a whole. They are not at all committed to the Vietnam War, but are still stuck fighting there, unable to fight for their own rights at
Glathaar, Joseph T. Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers. New York: The Free Press Inc., 1990.
Glatthaar’s essay “Black Glory: The African-American Role in Union Victory” focuses on the important roles of African Americans in the Civil War. Although prominent in the Navy the Army is where blacks needed to make their mark. Originally blacks were a resource for the Confederate Army. They picked up where the white soldiers left off on the home front and behind the lines of battle. A quote from “General in Chief Henry Halleck to Grant, “Every slave withdrawn from the enemy is equivalent to a white man put hors de combat [out of action]” (146) shows acknowledgement of this. Glatthaar expands on how the Union enlisting black soldiers freed up many of the seasoned white soldiers. Many Union soldiers were prejudice and did not view them as equals. “Blacks had to fight Confederates in the front and discrimination in the rear.” (155) This essay supports how over time there grew comradery between black and white soldiers however post war, whites began to minimize the value of their black brothers in arms. What Glatthaar does best is point out that even though their battles were not as glorified in the public eye their efforts began before they took up arms in the war and they were a crucial part of the Union
Wallace Terry has collected a wide range of stories told by twenty black Vietnam veterans. The stories are varied based on each experience; from the horrific to the heart breaking and to the glorified image of Vietnam depicted by Hollywood. Wallace Terry does not insinuate his opinion into any of the stories so that the audience can feel as if they are having a conversation with the Vietnam Veteran himself. Terry introduces the purpose of the book by stating, “ Among the 20 men who portray their war and postwar experiences in this book. I sought a representative cross section of the black combat force.”(p. XV) Although the stories in this book were not told in any specific order, many themes became prominent throughout the novel such as religion, social, and health.
Protests were forming around the United States. As the Soldiers started returning home, some Americans were doing horrible things to the Soldiers. As they would return home, people would boo and hiss at them. People would even spit on them as the Soldiers would walk by them. Many civilians had a negative image of the retuning Soldiers that was hard to shake, Veterans recalled. Many Vietnam vets complained of employment discrimination and hostility from anti-war activists who didn’t understand the traumas Soldiers suffered. (Carroll) Even many years later some Vietnam Veterans still don’t say that they served or that they are a Veteran because people made them feel ashamed for doing the job their country called them up to
The film God Grew Tired of Us is a documentary about the journey of a couple of Sudanese “lost boys” to their new lives in the United States. The film is divided in two parts. The first one gives the historical background of what led to the boys’ situation at the time the documentary was being filmed and what their lifestyle at Kakuma camp looks like. It starts by recounting the events that led up to the Second Sudanese Civil War of 1983. The conflict was fought along ethno religious lines between the Muslim North and the non-Muslim South. By 1983, 27,000 people, including the lost boys, from the South were forced to flee as the Sudanese government, held in the hands by northerners, announced that all men in south should be killed regardless of age. After a short stay in an Ethiopian refugee camp, the boys finally arrived to Kakuma refugee
The Vietnam War was a controversial conflict that plagued the United States for many years. The loss of life caused by the war was devastating. For those who came back alive, their lives were profoundly changed. The impact the war had on servicemen would affect them for the rest of their lives; each soldier may have only played one small part in the war, but the war played a huge part in their lives. They went in feeling one way, and came home feeling completely different. In the book Vietnam Perkasie, W.D. Ehrhart describes his change from a proud young American Marine to a man filled with immense confusion, anger, and guilt over the atrocities he witnessed and participated in during the war.
Myers explains the life of a young African American man named Perry that goes off to fight in the Vietnam war. Perry was born and raised in the projects of Harlem New York and joined the army as an escape out of Harlem. "My plans, maybe just my dreams really, had been to go to college, and to write like James Baldwin. All the other guys in the neighborhood thought I was going to college. I wasn’t, and the army was the place I was going to get away from all the questions."(Myers 15). The main reason he decided to go off to war is because he could not afford college and Perry thought the best escape would be joining the army. Although racial equality with in the army and nation was already established before the Vietnam racial tension still caused Perry to join the army. In the late 1960s are nation society was still trying to adapt to the Civil Rights Ac. Even though government housing was racially integrated African American were still separated into an all African American housing. For society had not changed with the nations laws and caused African Americans and Whites to socially segregate one another. Which did not change the housing market after the civil rights and caused African American housing to be as awful as it was in the 1950s. Even in the setting of “Fallen Angels” African Americans were still trying to escape poverty with joining the army. The escape of war was even
Most of the soldiers did not know what the overall purpose was of fighting the Vietnamese (Tessein). The young men “carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place” (O’Brien 21). The soldiers did not go to war for glory or honor, but simply to avoid the “blush of dishonor” (21). In fact, O’Brien states “It was not courage, exactly; the object was not valor. Rather, they were to...
There is a lot of collaboration, and teamwork that goes into the production of a play. Every position behind the scene has to be filled to allow the actors on the stage be successful. These positions include responsibilities such as stage manager, set conduction, costume construction, prop designer, sound designer, house manager, costume crew, running crew, sound operator, light board operator,publicity assistant, videographer, and special projects approved by instructor. All of these behind the scene positions help the actors be the best they can. With that being said, the crew for Godspell obviously did a fabulous job working together to make the show a success.
The 1960’s and early 1970’s were a time that eternally changed the culture and humanity of America. It was a time widely known for peace and love when in reality; many minorities were struggling to gain a modicum of equality and freedom. It was a time, in which a younger generation rebelled against the conventional norms, questioning power and government, and insisting on more freedoms for minorities. In addition, an enormous movement began rising in opposition to the Vietnam War. It was a time of brutal altercations, with the civil rights movement and the youth culture demanding equality and the war in Vietnam put public loyalty to the test. Countless African-Americans, Native-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, women, and college students became frustrated, angry, and disillusioned by the turmoil around them.
The relationship between the gods and humanity in The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Odyssey are the same. In each saga, the gods seem to live nearby and are always present. Both epic poems portray humans as simply at the mercy of the gods. The gods feel that it is their duty to intervene if they feel that man is traveling off course from his destiny. However, the gods are not all powerful.
The question of why bad things happen to good people has perplexed and angered humans throughout history. The most common remedy to ease the confusion is to discover the inflicter of the undeserved suffering and direct the anger at them: the horror felt about the Holocaust can be re-directed in the short term by transforming Adolf Hitler into Lucifer and vilifying him, and, in the long term, can be used as a healing device when it is turned into education to assure that such an atrocity is never repeated. What, however, can be done with the distasteful emotions felt about the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Surely the citizens of those two cities did not themselves directly provoke the government of the United States to deserve the horror of a nuclear attack. Can it be doubted that their sufferings were undeserved and should cause deep sorrow, regret, and anger? Yet for the citizens of the United States to confront these emotions they must also confront the failings of their own government. A similar problem is found in two works of literature, Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound and the book of Job found in the Tanakh. In each of these works a good man is seen to be suffering at the hand of his god; Prometheus is chained to a rock by Zeus who then sends an eagle to daily eat Prometheus' liver while Job is made destitute and brought to endure physical pain through an agreement between God~ and Satan. To examine the travails of these two men is to discover two vastly different concepts of the relationship between god and man.
The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, lasted from 1954 to 1975. But, it was in 1965 that the U.S. first stepped onto Vietnamese soil. One year earlier, Ali dominated Sonny Liston in a six round event and announced his membership in the Nation of Islam (Whitaker “Muhammad Ali”). Subsequently, an amendment was made in the Army’s mental aptitude test guidelines; Ali who was classified as 1-Y, a classification for citizens who are restricted to Military use strictly in national emergency, became classified as 1-A, a classification used to denote citizens who are available for unrestricted military use (“Clay Hires”). Before, during and after this, African Americans continued their struggle for basic human rights. In the process, the great Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated. Despite the loss of many great African American leaders, the movement was a success. The U.S. government passed three acts to secure African Americans’ and minorities’ justice in the face of the law. The first came in 1964 in the form of the Civil Rights Act. The second, the Voting Rights Act, came in 1965. The last was the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Muhammad Ali’s encounter with the Draft Board was as important to the black community as the March on Washington in
“Glory” depicts a period in the American Civil War emphasizing on the war modus operandi and troop movement techniques. The film focuses on the first real African-American regiment, 54th of Massachusetts, and the way these soldiers are trained and prepared to fight. Even though they acquire a new status as soon as they enlist for battle, they still face prejudices and are discriminated against by the white men. They’re not trusted to be able to fight with the same ardor and patriotism as the others and this puts them on a lower and inferior rank. Surprisingly enough, things change by the end of the movie, when Massachusetts 54 is engaged in battle and proves the efficiency and the courage of the black men who succeed in making a difference by changing the course of the war. Even though they were not victorious in the battle, they managed to show the world their value, and they brought an important victory for the entire mass of black people against the prejudices and misjudgments of their white neighbors.
The Vietnam War marks a pivotal point in history as being the first war not decidedly won by one of the wealthiest and most powerful nations. It stands as one of the most polarized wars to date as an infamous example of how the will of the United States government and the will of people stood in direct opposition of each other. Although shrouded in a dense propagandist haze, I plan to show that despite the United States’ claims to defend the world against Communism, this war actually weakens and damages civil rights across the board, domestically and on foreign soil.