Vietnam Veterans Oral Histories In The Classroom Analysis

There are so many history stories in history books and on the internet, but the source from people who were actually there is so much better than reading the nonsense. It’s better to hear stories from people who have actually lived and witnessed it rather than just read stories about it. Most students listen better than they read. When you listen to stuff, it sticks in our mind way longer than looking at a book trying to figure out what’s going on. Veterans are an example of this. They tell us stories about the times they were in the training and when they battled, if they did or have already. They have always been an important part of our nation’s history, present, and future. Everyone who went into the military or is currently planning to join has or will have a story to tell. It will be a part of them that they will always remember, the good times and the bad times. So many veterans love telling all the experiences they have witnessed. Thinking of it, it’s not a bad thing; it’s a great thing to be able to say they were actually there. Many students ask what the training is like when they first join the military, although it’s really tough, many still consider going, some even make the commitment to join right after they graduate. Those who do make it, the commitment, are the reason our nation’s history and future is how it is and how

O’Brien casts doubt on the veracity of the story to let you experience what the war felt like for him. When him and his fellow soldiers would sit around the campfire telling stories some where obviously made up for entertainment while others actually were authentic. This is how you have to view the book as like you are there with the troops listening to these war stories and deciding for yourself whether or not you believe them. The underlying theme isn’t really the vietnam war in itself, its the act of storytelling.

The Vietnam War was a violent and costly war that needed many men to fight for its cause. These men are now known as the Vietnam veterans. Numerous veterans who fought in the war were injured or lost a comrade during battle. These soldiers fought to protect the United States and its people while risking their own lives. A lot of these brave men were either killed or injured and did not gain the

Problem that the Vietnamese war veterans faced was the psychological effects which was very common for Vietnam veterans to have. The main cause of this is because it was different compared to other wars in the past like the condition that the soldiers were in. Studies has shown that a World War II soldiers experienced up to a total of 60 days under combat like conditions. A Vietnam infantryman endured on a comparable basis 300+ days therefore Vietnam veterans have more likely to develop psychological problems than a World War II veteran. (POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER (PTSD), 2001)

The Vietnam War was a unforgettable war that has had lasting effects on the United States and was a poor decision on the part of the United States government to get involved in. The United States had drafted many young boys into a war in which a lot of people did not support or even know why we were getting involved in, many people fled to neighboring borders or faced the criminal charges that came with dodging the draft because they were so against it. This war has left the United States with lasting impacts and there are many ways that we have changed since including our country as a whole and our veterans themselves. The war has affected our veterans in ways that are unimaginable, the psychological effects that they have endured are tough

I have learned a lot about what life was like at the time of the Vietnam War by interviewing my grandfather. My grandfather, Franklin Torr, was living in Dover, NH at the time, in his late thirties, married, and had three young children. The Vietnam War impacted my grandfather’s life in a unique way. One aspect of his life that changed at the start of the war was that a lot of his tenants, in the mobile home he owned, were in the New Hampshire National Guard and were stationed in Vietnam, flying missions, and some were advisors. He said the following about them; “Of the tenants that fought in the war, they thought they were doing the right thing at the time” When asked if he could provide a story of one of his Vietnam War veterans, he said that not a lot of them liked to talk about their war experiences in depth, two of his tenants that served in Vietnam died in Vietnam. One of his former classmates was a Marine Colonel, one thing he remembers this man mentioning was; “the troops did a great job while they were there”. The most shocking thing that he remembers from this

My father Jack Lyons was a soldier in Vietnam and had experienced the war to its fullest. His tour in Vietnam started in 1965 lasted for six months. He has not told many detailed stories about his time in the war, and I 've heard that Veterans who 've experienced war first hand and understand the true meaning of it never really talk about their experiences to anyone. I think this reticent ness is a way to help them, the Veterans of the war, cope with their near death experiences. When I interviewed my dad last week for this essay, he was a little shy at first to tell me about his tour in Vietnam. We discussed in the interview about the many physical affects the soldiers encountered in the war. My father stated, "The heat and the insects were one of the major problems he and his fellow soldiers had to adjust to"(Lyons PI). The heat and insects might be a terrible thing for one to encounter, but it was not as bad as being shot at, shot, or killed in action. "US Forces were embroiled in a vicious guerilla warfare with the Viet Cong"(Wikipedia 2). The Viet Cong never really met the US Army on an open battlefield and that aspect of their fighting made them even more

The short story that will be discussed, evaluated, and analyzed in this paper is a very emotionally and morally challenging short story to read. Michael Meyer, author of the college text The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature, states that the author of How to Tell a True War Story, Tim O’Brien, “was drafted into the Vietnam War and received a Purple Heart” (472). His experiences from the Vietnam War have stayed with him, and he writes about them in this short story. The purpose of this literary analysis is to critically analyze this short story by explaining O’Brien’s writing techniques, by discussing his intended message and how it is displayed, by providing my own reaction,

Throughout Tim O'Brien's short work "How to tell a true war story" O'Brien has two reoccurring themes. One is of the desensitization of the troops during their hardship regarding the events of the Vietnam War, and the other is of the concept of truth. Truth may seem simple enough to explain, but is in fact endowed with many layers. The story is chalked full of contradictions, as well as lies, and embellishments, and yet O'Brien claims that these are the truth. The truth, whether it be war or society's, is in fact a concept that can be conveyed many times and in many ways. Whereas each is independently untrue, the combined collaboration of these half-truths is in essence the only real truth.

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

Created by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), COINTELPRO, a secret program to undermine the popular increase which swept the country during the 1960s. Though the name stands for "Counterintelligence Program," the targets were not enemy spies but political groups. The FBI’s main objective was to eliminate "radical" political opposition inside the US such as the Ku Klux Klan(KKK) and The Black Panther Party(BPP). When they failed at repressing these groups using traditional modes such as exposure, blatant harassment, and prosecution for political crimes, the Bureau took the law into its own hands and secretly used fraud and force to sabotage legal political activity. Its methods ranged far beyond just surveillance, and amounted to a

Around this time, Americans feared the invasion of Communism, which triggered the FBI to investigate people within the U.S. whom were suspected of sabotage and undermining Democracy in the name of Communism.

In August 1956, the Federal Bureau of Investigations began a program originally with the goal of causing disruption and defection within the Communist Party of the United States. This operation was named the Counter Intelligence Program, or COINTELPRO for short. Just a few months later, in October, the Black Panther party was included in COINTELPRO’s investigations by President Hoover. By the mid-1960s, the FBI was bugging Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s home and hotel rooms and sent him an anonymous package pressuring him to commit suicide. By the time the program was exposed and subsequently shut down in 1971, the program had infiltrated the Socialist Workers Party, the Ku Klux Klan, the Black Panther Party,

The Vietnam War was a very long war, which when on for 20 years. This war went on to go on for such a long time it made it through four presidential terms which were, Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. These presidents had to give speeches to the people of The United States to inform them about what was going on in Vietnam and explain how it's getting closer to the end of the war Although all the presidents had to give speeches their speeches were talking about the same thing which was the war, but their concepts were different. The first speech is from President Eisenhower, he explains his "Domino Theory". The second speech was given by John F. Kennedy regarding the conflict in Vietnam.

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.