Death Coverage In The Military

A representative for the Pentagon, whom the veterans thought would offer strong support for the memorial, essentially said, “Why should we build a memorial to losers?” (Scruggs 30). Some politicians and others agreed, calling the veterans “crybabies who should receive less from the government” (Scruggs 31). Many Americans, however, especially veterans and those who had lost loved ones in the war, strongly supported the memorial. Tens of thousands of letters thanking the Fund and offering support accompanied widely varying donations to the memorial, such as one that said, “The whole town turned out for the funeral for he was the only boy who died there from this small town - but there it ended. There is no recognition of his death anywhere so far as the town he grew up in is concerned.” (Scruggs 26). Some that supported the Memorial were even a part of those who had condemned the war - “I opposed the war. I marched (and prayed) for peace. I counseled C.O.s. But I will never, never forget what so many gave of what they had for what they believed. And many of these, tragically, were the best we had.” (Scruggs 27). To those at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund receiving the letters, both supporting and condemning, they showed equal amounts of the pain that ran deeply through America, and they began to work harder at their attempt to heal this

During the Vietnam War, Americans were greatly influenced by the extensive media coverage of the war. Before the 1960’s and the intensification of the war, public news coverage of military action was constrained heavily by the government and was directed by Government policy. The Vietnam War uniquely altered the perception of war in the eyes of American citizens by bringing the war into their homes. The Vietnam War was the first U.S uncensored war resulting in the release of graphic images and unaltered accounts of horrific events that helped to change public opinion of the war like nothing it had ever been. This depiction by the media led to a separation between the United States government and the press; much of what was reported flouted

The final theme I notice between Tim O’Brien and the Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam videos is the blame or guilt every soldier felt between things going wrong on missions or losing their friends. In “The Things They Carried”, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross takes the blame for the death of his soldier Ted Levander. In the story it states “He felt shame. He hated himself. He had loved Martha more than his men, and as consequence Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war”. Lt. Jimmy Cross often caught himself dreaming about a girl he loved to escape the war. He possibly thought about her too much which is why he took the blame. But in all reality, Lavender was shot while using the bathroom and that’s that. The only blame for that would be the war itself. In the video 60 Minutes: “My Lai Massacre”, a report on a very brutal attack on a Vietnamese village by U.S Soldiers, Hugh Thomson is a hero for saving many Vietnamese civilians from an awful fate. More than 150 women and children were marched

Throughout America’s history, few things have left the nation in such controversial turmoil as the Vietnam War. With an American death toll of almost 60,000 troops, the Vietnam War has gone down in infamy as one of the most tremendous struggles Americans have faced both overseas and on the home front. Because of the tumultuous controversies caused by the war, Americans split into two social factions – those against the war and those who supported it. During the years of 1961-1975 - the era in which the war had its greatest effect on Americans - the population of citizens from 18-35 years old and the Presidency were both affected irreversibly.

Whilst, towards the beginning of the war, the media being released was largely in support of the war efforts, later years of the conflict exhibited a more negative press, where more negative portrayals of troops were being sent home and featured on the news. Bias of the media played a large part in moulding public opinion of the conflict going on in Vietnam, exemplified in media reports of the Tet Offensive which, “was actually a U.S victory because the North suffered enormous casualties. Television, however, portrayed the attack as a brutal defeat for the U.S” (McLaughlin 2015, The Turning Point, para. 2). As hypothesised by David Halberstam, Vietnam was, “the first time in American history a war had been declared over by an anchor man,” (Hallin n.d., para. 9) when Walter Cronkite, “[expressed] his view that the war was unwinnable, and that the United States would have to find a way out.” (Hallin n.d., para. 9) Many speculations about the media defining public opinion about the war are made largely due to the fact that civilian opinion changed as media reports began to become more negative, which then lead to many anti-war protests and the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam. Due to the negative effects the lack of censorship had on the public during Vietnam, the government recognised the power of the media and changed censorship practices for following

There are only two comprehensive inferences that can be drawn upon when assessing the impact and legacy of the reporting of the Vietnam War on America and its media; the impact was enormous and its legacy unending. More than thirty years have passed since the American military withdrew from Vietnam, and in that time, the war has continued to permeate the cultural, and political landscape of America, impacting all subsequent war

The ‘Tet Offensive’ showed the first signs of the effect the media had in Vietnam, which led to the the question of “why did the audience see what they saw?” Firstly, unlike previous wars journalists had “extraordinary” freedom to cover Vietnam without any direct government intervention. Overtime this noticeably created a problem where the harsh brutal accounts from journalists differed from the positive optimism that United States Officials portrayed. The media was simply the messenger to the American people. But this was the first instance where technological advances had allowed a war to be played out on your own television screen every night of the week. The journalists reacted in the same way as the American public; they too were shocked beyond belief at the constant scenes of burning villages, bloody soldiers and lifeless bodies. These feelings came across in the broadcasts and like the ‘media effects theory’ explains, naturally Americans took up that same belief. This was the first time that the American public showed collective beliefs opposing to the war. To further push public opinion against the war, Hallin suggested that there was a “…declining morale among American troops in the field…”. The thirty-minute nightly

The Vietnam War was the critical conflict that altered our “post modern” societal view of what war is really about. Tim O’Brien shows the brutal reality of war to our “post modern” society without adding the propaganda and fluff that our society has come to accept. In our trying times today, Operation Iraqi freedom has supposedly come to an end. With the amounts of embedded reporting, our society has been able to see battles as they occur. The news ran non stop coverage on the war, where T.V. audiences were enthralled with scenes of battle. These broadcasts did not accurately depict the American casualties. The only live broadcasts were images of U.S. soldiers were taking out objectives with little resistance from Iraqi forces.

The 1960s was a period of immense change in America. The decade brought about various social changes such as the Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s Liberation Movement. These movements would forever change the landscape of America. However, the discussion of the Vietnam War was never far from people’s minds. This war would serve as an introduction to what war was to the home front. It was in the homes of America where so many had been previously sheltered from the realities of war. During previous conflicts, there had been a military censorship on all media that pertained to war. This would not be the case in Vietnam, it would be completely uncensored. The ability for reporters to provide a commentary on the war without censorship would change the all-American, Captain America view that Americans had in previous wars. The lack of censorship would be a major factor in the overall soldier experience in the Vietnam war.

Regarded as one of the most controversial and polarizing military conflicts in U.S. history, the Vietnam War has left a deep and lasting impact on American culture, politics, and foreign policy. From 1964 to the present day, the Vietnam War redefined the scope of U.S. influence both at home and abroad, and caused a fundamental shift in American society that dramatically changed the way in which Americans viewed their government and the role of the United States as a world power. For an entire generation of Americans, who watched as the horrors of the war in Vietnam unfold before the spotlight of the national media, the Vietnam War directly challenged the superiority of the American way and the infallibility of U.S military dominance. In truth, the U.S government, U.S. military, and the American people as a whole struggled to accept the lessons of America’s greatest military failure and the sobering reality of the war’s consequences. To this day, the legacy of this so-called “American War” continues to resonate throughout the fabric of American society as a cautionary tale of U.S foreign intervention and blind acceptance of open-ended conflict.

Public opinion on the Vietnam War hit its second turning point during the Tet offensive, which raged between January and April in 1968. NVA forces launched a huge attack on nearly all cities in northern Vietnam. Many US military bases were also affected by the attack. In total, over 4300 American and South Vietnamese soldiers were killed in action during the Tet Offensive. 16000 were wounded and over 1000 were missing in action. North Vietnamese and Viet Cong casualties numbered approximately 45000, with an additional 7000 taken prisoner. Shortly after this information was released, the anti- war movement reached its highest membership. In hindsight, we cannot fully understand weather the anti-war movement escalated because censorship of the media was let go, but one could argue that they worked together hand-in-hand to increase interest in the truth about Vietnam. If it had not been so vividly presented in the media, the Tet Offensive would not have posed such a huge problem. The offensive became a turning point. Up until this point, the US public was led to believe that the war was coming to an end, and that the soldiers would be home within the year. Herman and Chomsky argue that “Media coverage of the Tet Offensive has been the centrepiece of the critique of the media for ‘losing the war’ by their incompetent reporting and anti-government bias reflecting their passion for confronting authority.” They can be supported when we consider that still iconic images such as ‘the napalm girl’ began to be seen in the papers and on television. Americans depended on television to see and understand the war, but the death and destruction they saw appeared as unjustified murder when prospects for the war began to deteriate, so as expected the more and more American people lost faith in the war and the government after

1. STATEMENT OF RESEARCH QUESTION Throughout the years, the Vietnam War has lived up its name as “one of the most obscure episodes and, at the same time, one of the most serious conflicts not only of the Cold war period but also of the whole modern history” (Hodboďová, 2008). It was apparently the most long-lasting conflict in American history and most disfavored war that broke out after World War II and ended in 1975. The peculiarity of this war lies not only in its prolonged duration but also in an overriding number of war casualties, or in other words, the death and destruction to the country’s people. Averagely in the struggle, more than one million Vietnamese soldiers and over 58,000 Americans were killed, not to mention the massacre

The Vietnam War was a tragic part of the United States’ history that to this day holds a great deal of mystery and a lack of information. It was an unpopular war, taking place from 1955 to 1975, with surmountable losses on each side. Forty years later, the consequences of the Vietnam War are still prevalent in the side effects of Agent Orange, post-traumatic stress disorder of soldiers, and the national debt. Though those are significant problems, the biggest influence of the Vietnam War that impacted Americans was the staggering number of soldiers killed in action, missing in action, or taken as prisoners of war. Vietnam was a danger zone where no life was guaranteed, bodies were hard to recover dead

When analyzing the Vietnam war it is clear that the press had a significant role in helping bring the conflict to an end. Largely, this was the result of the gruesome reports and images that the networks chose to air and the public’s corresponding opposition to the war. To understand this relationship, and hence helping to end the war, it is necessary to look at three distinct areas. These include the reason that the press chose to air gruesome reports, specific reports that outraged the public, and examples of the corresponding changes in public opinion.

As more and more troops were being sent to Vietnam, and the casualties began to rise, people began to question the government’s involvement. “Even military troops came to mistrust their government’s reasons for keeping them there, as well as Washington’s claims that the war was being won”.(Vietnam War) The Vietnam war was the first war to be broadcast on television. This meant that for the first time the American people were able to see the war instead of just hearing about it on the radio. They were able to see firsthand the soldier’s faces, see the reality of where they were fighting and to see the