My Lai History

The Vietnam War that commenced on November 1, 1955, and ended on April 30, 1975, took the soldiers through a devastating experience. Many lost their lives while others maimed as the war unfolded into its full magnitude. The book Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam by Bernard Edelman presents a series of letters written by the soldiers to their loved ones and families narrating the ordeals and experiences in the Warfield. In the book, Edelman presents the narrations of over 200 letters reflecting the soldiers’ experiences on the battlefield. While the letters were written many decades ago, they hold great significance as they can mirror the periods and the contexts within which they were sent. This paper takes into account five letters from different timelines and analyzes them against the events that occurred in those periods vis a vis their significance. The conclusion will also have a personal opinion and observation regarding the book and its impacts.

This hesitancy contributed to the lack of public support, further impacting the military efforts, which all played another role in the United States’ loss in Vietnam. Lastly, a significant factor in America’s loss in Vietnam can be credited to a failure to understand the conflict as a whole and the perspectives of the people within the conflict. The failure to understand the conflict is noted by Professor Jeffery Record, who states that America’s loss is partially due to a misinterpretation of the nature of the conflict itself (Document 4). Specifically, to the United States, the Vietnam War was a war to contain communism, while to the Vietnamese people, it was a war for independence (Worksheet/Video). This major disconnect greatly impacted the relationship between the United States and South Vietnam as allies, contributing to their loss against North Vietnam and the Viet Cong.

Vietnam was an entirely new type of war for the United States. It still remains morally and historically problematic in today’s society. The Vietnam War had a tremendous impact on American society and culture, primarily because it was the first war to be televised. The American press played a significant

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

In her book The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990, author Marilyn Young examines the series of political and military struggles between the United States and Vietnam, a nation that has been distinctively separated as the South and the North. Young chooses to express the daily, weekly, monthly progresses of the affairs collectively called the Vietnam Wars, focusing on the American interventions in the foreign soil. She seeks to provide an answer to a question that has haunted the world for years: What was the reason behind the United States interfering in the internal affairs of a foreign country in which it had no claims at all? Young discloses the overt as well as covert actions undertaken by the U.S. government officials regarding the foreign affairs with Vietnam and the true nature of the multifaceted objectives of each and every person that’s involved had.

“Anyone who commits American Forces to a land war in Asia, ought to have his head examined,” averred the World War II hero and late five-star general Douglas MacArthur, assaying the United States ' involvement in Vietnam with President John F. Kennedy in 1962 (McDougall 2013, 251). Apprehensive about a Communist drive in Asia, the United States Congress radically dissented from MacArthur 's perspective while the vast preponderance of Americans wallowed in ambivalence. The Vietnam War was a war on two fronts for the United States, one at home and one abroad. As public opinion canted, domestic tensions became substantiated through inexorable antiwar protests across the nation. With a mounting resistance movement in the United States knocking on Washington 's door and a North Vietnamese foe devoted to a protracted guerrilla-style war, the most inimical adversary of the American war effort was the clock.

Wars are a difficult place to be. “THE VIETNAM WAR transformed a generation” (Roberts 1). With all that happened during the war such as exposure to

The Olson and Roberts book, My Lai is based upon the March 18, 1968, assault on My Lai. By examining the material, an explanation of why this massacre occurred is drawn. The main factors that lead to the My Lai assault were difficulty engaging with the enemy and the problem of distinguishing between the enemy soldiers and civilians, which both led to rage and frustration among soldiers and a misinterpretation of the mission.

Moss, G.D. (2010), Vietnam an American ordeal (6th ed.), Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall

Even the UC systems don’t have much to offer to the students about Vietnam. Also most of the immigrant parents are busy working long hours to financially support their families that they have trouble finding the time to even sit down and discuss the past together with their kids. ‘’Necessity forces them to focus not on the past horrors but on their Future: entering the mainstream and seeking decent jobs and the good life for their families,’’ said many children of former political prisoners and war veterans. As hard as it was for them I believe it is more important for someone to be an activist and not get into assimilation so easily.

The United States intervention in Vietnam is seen by the world as America’s greatest loss and longest war. Before the start of the war in Vietnam, the thought of the United States losing this war was unheard of because America was technologically superior, no country in south East Asia could contend with them. Lyndon B. Johnson announced that he would not be the president to allow South East Asia to go Communist . Why the United States lost the war has been a huge debate since the end of the war, because there were so many factors affecting why they lost; the war was a loss politically, after losing support from not only the American public but also the South Vietnamese and losing a political mandate for the war by 1973, when the last

“Teaching the Vietnam War makes one realize how the shape of a narrative determines, and is determined by, its content” (Franklin 246). The Vietnam War was one of America’s most controversial wars. Many of its aspects are still plagued with great uncertainty. Those aspects of the Vietnam War are argued and debated about, they were argued during the time of the war and the arguing has continued. The Vietnam War was indeed a time of confusion. Why did the war start? What was the United States’ real reason for getting involved? What was the objective of the war? What were the American soldiers really fighting, or in reality, dying for? How do you explain a war to someone who has not experienced firsthand, especially if you were not

Sometimes what we learn in the classroom is a lesson for life. Sometimes something in our life outside the classroom makes us want to learn more. While sometimes, our life experiences outside of classroom intersect with our experiences inside the classroom. For me such intersection took place when I took the seminar of Professor Foglesong titled Debating Intervention: The United States and Foreign Revolutions and Civil Wars. The work I did and the knowledge that I got inside the seminar classroom, intersected and become the basis for my future writing of the research paper titled Clifford Case: The Unknown Maverick of the Vietnam War that was published in the New Errands: The Undergraduate Journal of American Studies, in Spring 2015.

George Herring 's article " The legacy of Vietnam" talks about the military clash between the communist North Vietnam, backed by its allies and the government of South Vietnam, backed by the United States and other countries that are anti-communist that happened in Vietnam during Richard Nixon 's presidency. The Vietnam War was a terrible war, especially for Vietnamese because a millions of them died during the war. The author not just describes the war itself; he also analyzes the killing and the attack that occurred during the war. In general the Vietnam War was the most costly war contrast to other wars and it was the most shocking eras in American history. The Vietnam War had an impact in American history. It brought fear from the war

The Vietnam War is one of the most important conflicts of the twentieth century. It is the second most traumatic, contentious, and problematic event in U.S. history—the first being the Civil War. Yet the Vietnam War, means that “the dispute zone”. it was also called "Second Indochina War" and the "American War".