“The worse part about serving in this war wasn’t the blood shed or fighting in general, but how we were abused. I left Josiah but thanks to poor filing and lack of care for those serving I not only lost my abilities, I lost my name.” The strongest and most horrifying statement that left Joe’s mouth during our interview. Prior to our interview I have had the honor of being Joe’s tech tutor for the past two months, from time to time he would come trying to learn some basic computer skills now that the campus is going mostly digital. He’s a season veteran who served in the Ghost battalion in Southern Laos being some of the first people to enter the war, even before the US advisors, sent on secret missions for the US Marine Corps.
Prior to our interview I did an in-depth read and research on the Vietnam War, my grandfather serving in WWII and having 3 uncles serve in the Korean War played heavily on my own person experiences. Seeing them randomly break down and lose their minds somewhere at moment’s notice, I was tentative to ask serious questions to Joe out of fear of hitting a soft spot. Thankfully he’s a joyful individual who was more than willing to tell me about his experiences that weren’t too secretive and regale me with thoughts and opinions that were not far different than that of my own family members who served. I centered my questions on his personal thoughts of the war, what it was like for him and how he originally decided to enlist in the war in the first place. My first real question to him was: “You were serving in the Marine Corps. prior to the official war starting, when you learned of the impending crisis, what were your first thoughts?”
“Honestly scared, I was doing Seal training at the time, hearing anything...
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...g knowledge of it all he honestly had a shining embraced that I was blown away by.
Personally I found myself on the verge of an emotional breakdown, his story so closely related to that of my family members who have served and the horrors they have deep in the back of their mind. He was a physical embodiment of the horror the war was no only to the country of Vietnam but for those who were there to fight. He explained how the reason we suffered o greatly during the war because unlike other wars the US has fought in the past, they were fighting this wear for themselves without know the people they were fighting with. To the Vietnamese, the war wasn’t to fight communism or bring a halt to some type of tyrannical leader engaging in the domino effect, but for their own freedom, and because of that, we were doomed from the start from making my kind of positive impact.
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.
i. Difficulties faced by soldiers due to the nature of fighting in the Vietnam War - Personnel had difficulties with transportation supplied with adapted vehicles back seat faced rear to provide additional fire power (Source A) – It appears as if the government didn't worry enough to supply men with safe and capable equipment - Threat of traps led to fear as vehicles had to be parked on street at night (Source A) o Check for traps each morning became a daily ritual particularly in fuel tanks (Source A) o A request for a locking fuel cap was denied because weren’t entitled to one” (Source A) • What circumstances would have needed to arise for them to be entitled to one? The Offensive full guard was set up (24hrs a day), personnel got no sleep and were constantly on alert (Source A) – How significant would this have been in the personnel’s mental frame of mind?
The Vietnam War was, mentally and physically, one of the most brutal the United States has ever participated in. Our soldiers had to undergo daily miseries and sufferings which wore on them in body and mind. Dysentery was a common cause of physical wasting. Other diseases combined with the continuous rain and mud caused flesh to rot and made daily life that much more insufferable. Long periods of boredom would be broken by unexpected guerilla attacks or booby traps. The enemy rarely materialized long enough to be actively fought or even identified. Equally uncertain as who they were fighting was the answer to the question of what purpose they were fighting and dying for.
Imagine yourself as a nineteen year old boy headed off to Vietnam. It’s the late 60s and you were drafted into the Vietnam War. You watch as some of your friends flee the chance of fighting in a war where they have no idea what their fighting for. You watch as thousands of your countrymen die, too young to have been there. Imagine fighting an enemy that you can’t even see.
Soldier's Personal Narratives of the Vietnam War and The Vietnam War and the Tragedy of Containment
John Young is a United States Army veteran who fought in the Vietnam War from 1966-1969. During his tour in Vietnam, he formed close bonds with his unit and witnessed the horrors of war, including the deaths of many of his friends. Witnessing these events led John to
...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.
Tim O’Brien holds a unique ability to show the realities of everyday life for many veterans. When you listen to him speak you get a feel of what it is like to be a soldier at war, not only ment...
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.
The Vietnam War is one of the most controversial subjects in American politics. The US went to the war under the guise of the domino effect, as they believed that if Vietnam fell, the surrounding countries would fall as well. President Johnson said “If you let a bully come into your garden, the next day he’ll be on your porch, and the day after that he’ll rape your wife” One thing that is not controversial is that we lost the war. Lots of different factors contributed to the United States unsuccessful trip to Vietnam. Among many reasons, one of the two biggest factors in the lose of the war was America’s foreign policy how and how bad the US underestimated how important freedom and independence was to the people of Vietnam. On top of that the US used the wrong military strategy, instead of focusing on limiting collateral damage the US used heavy artillery that killed citizens and alienated would be supporters. There was political corruptness in South Vietnam governments, which meant that they could not build an alternative to the NLF. At home, the public opinion of the war was decreasing at a constant rate and demonstrations were at an all time high. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and these problems all contributed to a Vietnam tour that went horribly wrong and an attitude among the American people that was growing ever doubt full of their government.
To begin with, the discussion board was exceptionally captivating and revealing about the events, which happened in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Truth be told, I discovered the remark about the soldiers from the Vietnam War, not being honored and were spit on and shouted at very fascinating. Under those circumstances, it is appalling in light of the fact that as indicated by Moody and Sasser (2015), “ yet not all the Boomers were protesting against the war in Vietnam. On the contrary, many of them were fighting in that war or were opposed to the protesters” (p. 459). Yet, it is good to hear your relative is partaking in a Soldier Care ministry program.
During the Vietnam War, the first platoon (approximately forty men) was lead by a young officer named William Calley. Young Calley was drafted into the US Army after high school, but it did not take long for him to adjust to being in the army, with a quick transition to the lifestyle of the military, he wanted to make it his career. In high school, Calley was a kind, likable and “regular” high school student, he seemed to be a normal teenager, having interest in things that other boys his age typically had. He was never observed acting in a cruel or brutal way. In Vietnam, Calley was under direct order of company commander, Captain Ernest Medina, whom he saw as a role model, he looked up to Medina. (Detzer 127).
The soldiers feel that the only people they can talk to about the war are their “brothers”, the other men who experienced the Vietnam War. The friendship and kinship that grew in the jungles of Vietnam survived and lived on here in the United States. By talking to each other, the soldiers help to sort out the incidents that happened in the War and to put these incidents behind them. “The thing to do, we decided, was to forget the coffee and switch to gin, which improved the mood, and not much later we were laughing at some of the craziness that used to go on” (O’Brien, 29).
It can be hard to fully comprehend the effects the Vietnam War had on not just the veterans, but the nation as a whole. The violent battles and acts of war became all too common during the long years of the conflict. The war warped the soldiers and civilians characters and desensitized their mentalities to the cruelty seen on the battlefield. Bao Ninh and Tim O’Brien, both veterans of the war, narrate their experiences of the war and use the loss of love as a metaphor for the detrimental effects of the years of fighting.
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