Saigon Is Gone Rhetorical Strategies

In the Transcript: “Forgotten Ship: A Daring Rescue as Saigon Fell” the overall tone is fear and panic and it exhibits that most families in Saigon were very scared and worried. One example of the tone is when the transcript states “Marine helicopters descended on the South Vietnamese capital. More than 6,000 persons, as many as 900 of them Americans ,the rest Vietnamese and third country nationals were evacuated,plucked from U.S Embassy grounds , from rooftops throughout the city and from the nearby Tan Son Nhat Airport” to describe that the 33.3% of the South Vietnamese were evacuated because of the fall of Saigon. This word choice expresses panic and sends that message that it was a very harsh and alarming for the nationals. Another

Vietnam made a big portion of history also through its use of slang and war specified language.  This language came about through many means including its adaption to the Vietnamese language, coded words, phrases, profanity and initials that represent war objects, and other means, and to represent or even hide their emotional stand points.  On page 19, O'Brien describes the young soldiers as actors.  They were afraid of dying but they were even more afraid to show it.  On page 12, Lieutenant describes his feelings for Martha as dense, crushing love.  He then explains how he wants to sleep inside her lungs, breathe her blood, amd be smothered.  This sounds like extremely harsh description for love.  However, the soldier's environment became the most they could relate to.  For example, to describe the death of a soldier, they'd used phrases such as "Boom. Down. Like Cement," or "flat fuck fell."  O'Brien explains how the soldiers would make conscious efforts to joke about things and make comical references to have themselves laugh.  Page 19 describes that they used a hard vocabulary to contain the terrible softness.  At the end of page 18 and beginning of page 19, we find that the men would now and then panic and have the desire to cry out for the misery to stop.  They'd make unguaranteed promises to God and their parents in hope that that would be their source of survival.  On page 11 O'Brien tells that the Imagination was a

King's response to the unjustness of America's participation in the Vietnam is first capitalized by the claim that the importance of winning and paying for the war, was far more important to the Government during this time than any other discriminations, protests, or acts of unjustness that should have been paid a close eye to. King begins by proclaiming that through all of the work put into the efforts of equality, have disintegrated through the precedence of the the War. Through the usage of metaphors and extreme diction, King was able to set the tone of outrage and disappointment he sees within the current events. By saying that the Vietnam War was a "demonic destructive suction tube" in terms of how much attention and money was put into it, King effectively encourages the audience to take into consideration the mangled society and the drainage of the funds.

The author uses two intricate rhetorical strategies in this passage such as anecdotes and similes. The author carefully explains how the two sons in the story go to war and then come back with post traumatic stress disorder, abusing drugs and alcohol, explains how they suffered extreme jitters, and how they couldn’t sleep. The author’s purpose was to show the reader how hard it can be to go to war and that the government is not doing enough to put an end to the one million new veterans that may take their own lives.

Many authors have found that persuading an audience is sometimes the easiest way to grasp the attention of many and do so by using logos, pathos and ethos techniques. Sometimes misleading and based around personal opinions, understanding the initial reasons for using these strategies can explain why they are used. Based on my research these rhetorical strategies can be found throughout all three videos provided. The first two videos titled “Drunk History - Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks” and “Drunk History - John Adams vs. Thomas Jefferson” showed the least amount of these strategies, while the last video “Breaking News: Some Bullshit Happening Somewhere” provides the best demonstration of the use of rhetoric.

5. Narrator wanted ephasize that not all vietnamis soldiers are communists: “He was not a Communist. He was a citizen and a soldiers.”he wanted to show all soldiers are patriots.” He wanted to break up stereotypes.

I think that the opportunity for Ha and her family to stay in Saigon is going to come more and more difficult and the author's word choice in the writings make us feel hopelessness and sadness.. For example, when “...the Communists crashed their tanks...planted a flag with one huge star.” (Lai 69) This really told the southern Vietnamese that this country no longer belonged to them but had been taken over. The words like “Crashed” and “Planted”really create an image of someone being a boss and taking control of a certain area. This has much in common of when the North Vietnamese invaded and took over the American Embassy. Additionally, when Brother Vu says ,”...it’s better than letting the communists have it.” (60) Ha’s family knows that this option is lesser of two evils and the phrase “better than letting the communists have it” really sets a tone that the communists are going to take everything that families have and this makes us feel sadness and sorrow for their family. Finally, when the “Kirks military mission was to shoot down and North Vietnamese planes...stop the U.S. Marine helicopter, that evacuated people…”(Shapiro Paragraph Page 2

Vietnam is a country located in Southeast Asia. It serves as the setting for a gruesome and traumatizing campaign. Vietnam, however, also symbolically represents the struggle and the fear. The fear being that American soldiers like Tim O’Brien and Bob Kiley are in a location that is strange and unsettling. They are in another man’s land, not in the comfort of their own homes. To the American soldiers Vietnam is Hell with evil lurking every corner. “Jungle, sort of, except it’s way up in the clouds and there’s always this fog-like rain, except it’s not raining-everything’s all wet...you hear shit nobody should hear.” Nothing is familiar, and the soldier’s coping mechanisms are limited, as indicated by O’Brien’s description of Lemon and Kiley at the beginning.

The Vietnam War and Era has been a strange configuration of differing parts. So many differing parts that more often than not Historians struggle to find a way to accurately make sense of this behemoth of history. In an effort to make sense of Vietnam, it must first be segmented. Unlike previous military consumed eras, the Vietnam era has no general consensus for long. It must be fragmented by topic, antiwar, politics, soldier’s perspective, cultural changes on the home front, and military engagements. But then it must also be split based on the years in which change is not occurring.

He asked these questions to find out why his mother doesn 't want to join the noble cause. In doing so, Nguyen thoroughly displayed his willingness to help fight the Communists. This passion stemmed from his adoption of American patriotism, which perpetuates the notion that Communism should be eradicated. This patriotism sets the foundations as something for him to become attached to as an American. However, his parents’ views about the fight conflicted with those of Nguyen. His mother objected by saying, “The war’s over” (53). Committed to being a pacifist of the Vietnam War, she showed disinterest towards the cause. His father takes a different stance by saying , “The war may be over ... but paying a little hush money would make our lives a lot easier” (53). Nguyen’s father neither denies nor confirms whether the war is over. However, the fact that he is not fully supporting the cause against Communism meant that his father also disagreed with Nguyen. Seeing his parents’ reluctance towards the war effort caused Nguyen to be outraged. The parents’ pacifist position challenged Nguyen’s dedication to being a patriot. As such, he doubts where he truly stands on this subject matter.

Consequently the veterans of the Vietnam war had experienced things that one can not imagine, such as losing a close friend, seeing millions of men dying right before their eyes; men who were their age maybe even younger. These memories did not vanish when they finally returned home, they are carrying the war with

In 1975, the ‘Fall of the Saigon’ marked the end of the Vietnam War, which prompted the first of two main waves of Vietnamese emigration towards the US. The first wave included Vietnamese who had helped the US in the war and “feared reprisals by the Communist party.” (Povell)

This passage made me connect the Vietnam War and the Iraq War with my own life. I continue to live my life day by day without the acknowledgement of the war going on in Iraq at this very moment. The war in Iraq is broadcasted daily but it seems only a reality to the soldiers participating. While I continue with my daily activities the soldiers in Iraq are fighting for their own lives and country. It seems as if it is just an alternate world in which I am privileged to view and do not have to live the reality of being in the war myself.

In a speech Rev. Martian Luther King Jr. gave to the Riverside Church in New York City, King conveyed his beliefs on the horrific atrocities currently present in the Vietnam War. King began by stating that no longer Vietnam was a oversea issues, "Vietnam [had to be brought] into the field of my moral vision". Likewise, King stated the issues at home such as the overwhelming majority of the nation's poor were fighting in the Vietnam War. In King's mindset, a nation that held it self on the acclaim that all men are created equal, was in fact not equal. King uses a variety of persuasive elements including, but not limited to: concrete examples and analysis, a robust tone, and powerful rhetoric. While King was only one voice out of many of those who were on both sides of the war, King still managed to change others views about politics through the usage of his persuasive elements. In all, King posses a natural eloquence that allows him to spread his message far and wide with the hopes that America will never forget the testatrices that took place at home and oversea during the Vietnam War.

In addition, Hayden depicts ‘Saigon’ in his poem, which was the capital of South Vietnam being overrun and bombed, killing civilians-- including Americans-- by the communist Viet Cong (BBC News).