The involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War was highly polarized by Ronald Reagan as a presidential candidate and later as a president. He explained that the government needed to overcome the war to make America a superpower again. The war resulted in a high social-political influence which included the conflict between the working class men and the middle-class student, young generation and older generation, and whites and Blacks. There were 2.8 million Americans served in the war resulting in highest deaths other than the 1st and 2nd world war. The inhumane United States involvements in the Vietnam War led to polarization in the country.
Robert Cagle was born from an alcoholic family where his father died of cancer and drinking to death when he was twelve years old. Her mother died in 1982 referring to her as drunk, terribly lonely old woman. He deeply blames the U.S government of that time for their wrong involvement in the Vietnam War. In addition, he regrets having to shoot at a fourteen-year-old boy during the war. He hated
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A Vietnam veteran looks back in 1985' involves a narrator who was a 19-year-old boy in 1969, a member of Indian Company 3d Battalion 5th Marine. He questions himself a ‘why America came to Vietnam’ after an ambush attack by the North Vietnam Army. He elaborates that there must be another way of peace and freedom to the universe other than terrible wars like in Vietnam. In 1985, he realized that the American government together with the India Company fought to change Vietnam, but the result was minute, more people were injured, died, and left homeless. Wrong, Rambo, dead wrong because the Americans put the soldiers in the unwinnable war because it was entirely immoral and young men died for the Old’s pride. He finalizes that America has a significant role in the world; therefore it should be a moral force, a source of hope for hunger, terrorism, and poverty rather than defiance of morality through brutal
Tim O’Brien begins his journey as a young “politically naive” man and has recently graduated out of Macalester College in the United States of America. O’Brien’s plan for the future is steady, but this quickly changes as a call to an adventure ruins his expected path in life. In June of 1968, he receives a draft notice, sharing details about his eventual service in the Vietnam War. He is not against war, but this certain war seemed immoral and insignificant to Tim O’Brien. The “very facts were shrouded in uncertainty”, which indicates that the basis of the war isn’t well known and perceived
The Vietnam conflict has been known for being the most unpopular war in the history of the United States. The war of 1812, the Mexican war and the Korean conflict of the early 1950's were also opposed by large groups of the American people, but none of them generated the emotional anxiety and utter hatred that spawned Vietnam. The Vietnam war caused people to ask the question of sending our young people to die in places where they were particular wanted and for people who did not seem especial grateful.
The Vietnam War, which lasted for two decades (1955-1975), was probably the most problematic of all American wars. US involvement in Vietnam occurred within the larger context of the Cold War between the US and the USSR. It was, and remains, morally ambiguous and controversial. The Vietnam War was slated as both a war against Communism and a war aimed at suppressing dangerous nationalist self-determination. Christian G. Appy's book, Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam, is a graphic and perceptive portrayal of soldiers' experiences and the lasting effects the Vietnam War has had on the American culture and people. Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam, is an analytical work that has three major purposes: 1. to show that those who fought in Vietnam were predominantly from the working class 2. to convey the experiences of the soldiers who served in Vietnam and 3. to offer his own scathing commentary of American actions in Vietnam.
The Vietnam War: A Concise International History is a strong book that portrays a vivid picture of both sides of the war. By getting access to new information and using valid sources, Lawrence’s study deserves credibility. After reading this book, a new light and understanding of the Vietnam war exists.
Fussell, Paul. "Vietnam." The Bloody Game: An Anthology of Modern War. Ed. Paul Fussell. London: Scribners, 1991. 651-6.
An interesting combination of recalled events and editorial commentary, the story is not set up like a traditional short story. One of the most interesting, and perhaps troubling, aspects of the construction of “How to Tell a True War Story” is O’Brien’s choice to create a fictional, first-person narrator who might just as well be the author himself. Because “How to Tell a True War Story” is told from a first-person perspective and O’Brien is an actual Vietnam veteran, a certain authenticity to this story is added. He, as the “expert” of war leads the reader through the story. Since O’Brien has experienced the actual war from a soldier’s point of view, he should be able to present the truth about war...
	The novel illuminates light on the situation not just during the Vietnam era, but also rather throughout all history and the future to come. Throughout mankind’s occupation of earth, we have been plagued by war and the sufferings caused by it. Nearly every generation of people to walk this earth have experienced a great war once in their lifetimes. For instance, Vietnam for my father’s generation, World War 2 for my grandfather’s, and World War 1 for my great-grandfather’s. War has become an unavoidable factor of life. Looking through history and toward the future, I grow concerned over the war that will plague my generation, for it might be the last war.
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.”
American Public Opinion of the Vietnam War At the beginning of the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, in 1965, The American public favored the idea of war because they feared the threat of communism. Polls conducted in 1965, showed 80 percent of the population agreed with President Johnson and were for the war. Rousseau 11. The U.S. got involved in the war to stop communism. from spreading throughout South Asia.
The book, We Were Soldiers Once... And Young, begins at a pivotal point in American history. The year was 1965; the year America began to directly interfere with the Vietnam affairs and send our young men to defend the notion of "freedom." During this year, Vietnam interested and concerned only a few Americans. In fact, the controversy of American involvement in Vietnam had hardly begun. But this all changed in November 1965 at the Ia Drang Valley in distant Vietnam. The Battle at LZ X-Ray and LZ Albany was the first major battle of the Vietnam conflict; a conflict that lasted decade and caused American turmoil for many more years.
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
The Vietnam War was not a “pretty” war. Soldiers were forced to fight guerilla troops, were in combat during horrible weather, had to live in dangerous jungles, and, worst of all, lost sight of who they were. Many soldiers may have entered with a sense of pride, but returned home desensitized. The protagonist in Louise Erdrich’s “The Red Convertible,” is testament to this. In the story, the protagonist is a young man full of life prior to the war, and is a mere shell of his former self after the war. The protagonists in Tim O’Brien’s “If I Die in a Combat Zone,” and Irene Zabytko’s “Home Soil,” are also gravely affected by war. The three characters must undergo traumatic experiences. Only those who fought in the Vietnam War understand what these men, both fictional and in real life, were subjected to. After the war, the protagonists of these stories must learn to deal with a war that was not fought with to win, rather to ensure the United States remained politically correct in handling the conflict. This in turn caused much more anguish and turmoil for the soldiers. While these three stories may have fictionalized events, they connect with factual events, even more so with the ramifications of war, whether psychological, morally emotional, or cultural. “The Red Convertible,” and “Home Soil,” give readers a glimpse into the life of soldiers once home after the war, and how they never fully return, while “If I Die in a Combat Zone,” is a protest letter before joining the war. All three protagonists must live with the aftermath of the Vietnam War: the loss of their identity.
The setting of the story is in the jungles of Vietnam. At the time not many Americans are for the war and show it by turning their backs on the ones fighting. We start out
The author, Tim O'Brien, is writing about an experience of a tour in the Vietnam conflict. This short story deals with inner conflicts of some individual soldiers and how they chose to deal with the realities of the Vietnam conflict, each in their own individual way as men, as soldiers.
Gilbert, Marc Jason. "Vietnam War." World Book Student. World Book, 2010. Web. 21 March 2010.