Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial
When I visited the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial in Washington, D.C., I was struck with an immense feeling of patriotism and gratitude for the soldiers that gave the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. While I was walking through the dark-tiled pathway, the solemn environment at the Wall gave me a chance to reflect on the lives and service of these great men and women. I imagined these warriors fighting in an unknown land for the freedom of people they would never meet, the thousands of dead and wounded strewn across the battlefield, and soldiers soaked with perspiration as they fought for the victory. I could hear in my mind the machine-gun’s rapid fire and the artillery shots ringing the air. These images created
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Visiting his memorial and seeing the awe-inducing marble columns and beautiful design gave me a chance to reflect on the achievements and mark on American history of one of our founding fathers. I found myself revisiting the Louisiana Purchase and his other landmark achievements, including the writing of the U.S constitution, in my mind. Furthermore, the many Jefferson quotes around the main room in the memorial gave a summary of the many events he participated in, including the aforementioned writing of the Constitution. I began to get a sense of the immense leadership and backbone needed to lead the country through these events, and the incredible impact he would have on our country. Our tour guide also contributed to my knowledge, teaching us countless facts about the memorial and its significance. One of the most interesting pieces of information I learned was about the history behind the memorial. The space was actually supposed to be a memorial to Theodore Roosevelt, but no federal funding was appropriated to create the memorial, so instead, decades later, FDR rallied support for a memorial to Jefferson. Now, because of all the changing sentiments on the memorial, there was a very interesting accident that occurred between the Jefferson Memorial and the bronze statue of Alexander Hamilton. They are facing straight at …show more content…
was one of the most thrilling and joyful experiences I have had in my entire school career. All the museums and memorials we visited were insightful and interesting, and the freedom and choice we were given was an added privilege to an amazing journey. I gained a different perspective of D.C. compared to any of my past visits, and I gained treasured memories that will last for years after the end of my eight grade year. Furthermore, I believe every American should take the time to visit Washington, D.C. or an American Historical Site because of the history and experience it provides you with. We learn history to make sure our generation will never repeat the mistakes of our ancestors, and there is no other place better than in the heart of America to experience its illustrious past. By learning about our past, we can gain greater respect for everyone that helped make our beautiful country what it is now and build a better future. Traveling to important historical sites such as Mount Vernon or Gettysburg give a whole new experience that cannot be read in books, and leaves a lasting impact on all who visited. If every citizen took their time to travel to any American Historical Site, the knowledge they gained about America and its people is invaluable and an asset to anyone who is willing to open their eyes and minds to true American
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.
Even visual media, which has improved remarkably over the last several decades, cannot express these feelings accurately. Today’s movies, photography and other digital media about wars are considerably more visual and realistic than in the past. They are capable of portraying events very close to reality. However, these photos and movie scenes still cannot make a person experience the exact feelings of another person who actually fought in a war.
Although controversial in its inception, Maya Lin's Vietnam War Memorial adequately fulfills the vision of Jan Scruggs, who returned home wounded from the conflict in Southeast Asia at the age of 19, for a monument to his fallen comrades in arms that would "provide a symbol of acknowledgement of the courage, sacrifice, and devotion to duty of those who were among the nation's finest youth."1
...of the struggle over how the war would be remembered. Blanketed by the discourse of disability, the struggle over the memory of veterans and the country alike would be waged with such obliquity as to surpass even the most veiled operations of Nixon’s minions. While Nixon’s plumbers were wrenching together the Gainesville case against VVAW in the spring of 1972, mental health and news-media professionals were cobbling together the figure of the mentally incapacitated Vietnam veteran. More than any other, this image is the one that would stick in the minds of the American people. The psychologically damaged veteran raised a question that demanded an answer: what happened to our boys that was so traumatic that they were never the same again? As it came to be told, the story of what happened to them had less to do with the war itself than with the war against the war.
In the beginning of his Beyond Vietnam speech, King recalled that “there were experiments, hopes, and new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of society gone mad on war” (6). By using such descriptive language that appeals to one of our five senses, sight, King was able to help the American people paint an image of the jubilant road that the United States was presumptively heading and then crushed, when it became involved with the Vietnam War. Furthermore, King adds that sending US troops to fight the war was not only devastating the hopes of the poor at home, but it is equivalent as “sending their sons their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population” (15). King’s usage of various descriptors provided insightful imagery, which allows his audience to picture as if they were the ones who actually sent their own loved ones to war. Martin Luther King Jr.’s use of appealing to the feeling of pity, anger, and sadness to strengthen and refine his
The Vietnam War holds a different meaning for people both young and old. The longest known US war lasted a solid eighteen years. Some would describe the war as a puzzle since not everyone was for the war. At the age of 21 Tim O’Brien was drafted for the Vietnam War. He states that The Things They Carried is a way for readers to feel what he felt during the war. The key experiences and emotions that he wants the reader to feel are frustration, not being able to find your enemy, having soldiers all around you losing their life, and being upset about being in a war in which you yourself do not believe in. Now forty years later after the Vietnam War first started O’Brien is left with face-less responsibility and face-less grief. He says it best himself “You bring war back home with you. The things you carried in the war are also things you brought back home.”
Stories can save us. Each day we live our lives we are given the chance to believe and tell stories. In Tim O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, we are able to get a more personal approach on the ways in which the soldiers coped with the unforgettable memories and images; that would be with them for the rest of their lives. No matter how tough these men were, they were not physically, mentally, or emotionally prepared for what the Vietnam War had in store for them. At the beginning, the narrator O’Brien says, “for the most part they carried themselves with poise, a kind of dignity” (20). After the war, the psychological burdens the men carried during the war continue to haunt them and define who they are. Those who survive carry guilt
...ust deal with similar pains. Through the authors of these stories, we gain a better sense of what soldiers go through and the connection war has on the psyche of these men. While it is true, and known, that the Vietnam War was bloody and many soldiers died in vain, it is often forgotten what occurred to those who returned home. We overlook what became of those men and of the pain they, and their families, were left coping with. Some were left with physical scars, a constant reminder of a horrible time in their lives, while some were left with emotional, and mental, scarring. The universal fact found in all soldiers is the dramatic transformation they all undergo. No longer do any of these men have a chance to create their own identity, or continue with the aspirations they once held as young men. They become, and will forever be, soldiers of the Vietnam War.
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.
Each soldiers experience in the war was devastating in its own way. The men would go home carrying the pictures and memories of their dead companions, as well as the enemy soldiers they killed. “They all carried emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing- these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight.” These were the things that weighed the most, the burdens that the men wanted to put down the most, but were the things that they would forever carry, they would never find relief from the emotional baggage no matter where they went.
The Vietnam War was a traumatic experience for everyone that fought on the ground. American soldiers were up close and personal with the Viet Cong (enemy) which made them live in constant fear for their lives. They never knew how they would die or when they would take their last breath, and this thought was always in the back of their minds. The Vietnam War was very brutal, and the amount of death from both sides was enormous. Tim O’Brien’s story “The Things They Carried” is an accurate description of the Vietnam War. He paints a good, yet brief, description of what the war was like for the American soldiers who fought on the front lines.
The Vietnam War Memorial. It is a wall, but it is also a monster that many avoid, and many are nervous to visit. In truth, all it is though is facts. It lists the names of all the soldiers that died in the conflict that was staged in a small country in Asia. All the names. There are so many names. Names that go on and on. There are over fifty-eight thousand of them, and every single one of them is a real person. A real man. A real woman. A real person. A real soldier. A real American. It was probably a man who considered whether or not to even serve his country. He probably left his crying mother behind, and when he arrived in the hell that would serve as his home for many miserable days, months, years. A hell that eventually would serve as his funeral home. Maybe he came back in plastic, or maybe he did not come home at all, as several thousand GI's turned into MIA's or POW's, which then changed into names on the wall. Those brave boys, not men, boys who gave their lives for a cause that they didn't understand were reduced from ambitious citizens in the greatest country in the world to names on a wall.
“The last American soldier left Vietnam during the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975. For 2.4 million who served in Vietnam, there was no official homecoming. In June of 2005, Branson, Missouri held “Operation Welcome Home” for Vietnam Veterans. The parade and events were planned to provide the celebration and recognition they did not receive 30-plus years earlier.” (Vietnam: Homecoming) The veterans were able to see the Traveling Vietnam Memorial Wall and find the names of men they had known they had dies while serving. These veterans met with men they had formerly served with. Although this event was only a fraction of the welcome the soldiers truly deserved, many veterans were very appreciative of this. “Branson gave me closure to a book that has been kept open for 37 years.” (Crowe) For decades, Vietnam veterans had not been appreciated for their service to the United States. This experience allowed them to begin to heal the wounds that had been open for decades, due to the horrendous things they saw in battle and the lack of appreciation by the American people as a whole.
Tim O’Brien served in the Vietnam War, and his short story “The Things They Carried” presents the effects of the war on its young soldiers. The treatment of veterans after their return also affects them. The Vietnam War was different from other wars, because too many in the U.S. the soldiers did not return as heroes but as cruel, wicked, and drug addicted men. The public directs its distaste towards the war at the soldiers, as if they are to blame. The also Veterans had little support from the government who pulled them away from their families to fight through the draft. Some men were not able to receive the help they needed because the symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) did not show until a year
As we got further and further into the Vietnam War, few lives were untouched by grief, anger and fear. The Vietnamese suffered the worst hardship; children lay dead in the street, villages remained nothing but charred ashes, and bombs destroyed thousands of innocent civilians. Soldiers were scarred emotionally as well as physically, as