After thinking about all the things we would learn this year in American
history I decided to do my project on the experiences of Vietnam War
veterans. There is a lot of controversy as to whether or not the Vietnam
War veterans are given enough recognition for what they went through. I have
heard horrible stories of US soldiers dying from US borabs, shell shock, and
soldiers returning to America and not being able to function as active
merabers of society due to the horrors of the war. All I really know about
the war is what I have seen on television. I wanted to learn about the war
through the firsthand accounts of those who were there.
The Vietnam War was a military struggle fought in Vietnam from
1959 to 1975. It began as an attempt by Communist guerrillas (or Vietcong)
in the South, backed by Communist North Vietnam, to overthrow the
government of South Vietnam. The struggle grew into a war between South
Vietnam and North Vietnam and ultimately into an international conflict. The
United States and some 40 other countries supported South Vietnam by
supplying troops and munitions, and the USSR and the People's Republic
of China furnished munitions to North Vietnam and the Vietcong. On both
sides, however, the burden of the war fell mainly on the civilians.1
On January 27, in Paris, delegations representing the United States,
South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and the Provisional Revolutionary
Communist Government of South Vietnam signed an Agreement on Ending
the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam. The cease-fire officially went into
effect on January 28. Both the US and North Vietnam asserted that there
were no secret peace terms.2
All the US fighting forces had withdrawn from Vietnam by March
1973, but not without major losses on both sides. Two million Vietnamese
were killed and 3 million were wounded. The extensive use of napalm and
defoliants (such as Agent Orange) left many people badly burned, and
destroyed the ecology of a country that was mainly agricultural.
This is an important part of US history because it was the first war in
which there was no clear winner. 57,685 US soldiers were killed, and triple
that amount were wounded. Even those who returned to the United states
without physical damage suffered from depression, and had to live with
memories of the carnage and destruction that they saw. What bothers me
about the war is that even though these men risked their lives to fight a
war that had nothing to do with them only because their country was
anti-Communist, they have been seemingly forgotten by their country. Many,
especially those who suffered physical trauma, have no jobs and are forced
to beg for food on street corners and live under bridges.
The first book I read was Bouncing Back. It was a collection of the
experiences of a group of Air Force pilots who were gunned down and taken
as prisoners of war. The post-POW lives of the Air Force pilots I read
about contrasted greatly with those of the Marines I read about in The War In I
Corps.
The Marines lived dirty lived in the Jungles of Vietnam. One of the
best things about The War In I Corps was its great descriptions of the
things the Marines had to go through. As Richard A. Guidry put it : “In a driving
rain, laden with heavy packs, our platoon lurabered toward its place in the long
line of men sprawled in the thick sticky mud.... The rain added a slimy quality
to the crust of dirt and fungus that encased my body. Running my fingers
across my arm was like following the tracks of a snail.”3 It really gave me
a feel for what they were going through. It made me wonder how they didn’t
just not fight. The war wasn’t theirs, but due to bad luck they were stuck
in this horrible jungle forced to fight an enemy they had no reason to hate.
Living like animals with practically no food and little or no contact with
Their families. Under the same conditions I think I would sit under a tree and
wait it out.
While finishing the book, I remerabered a discussion we had in class
about whether or not the soldiers were considered as individuals. Guidry
explained how military thought of them:
“ To them we were just parts of the machine, no
different from cannons or jeeps. We were superfluous;
they were there to fill their clipboarRAB. Apparently,
nobody wanted to stop the infiltration, because it resulted
in a steady stream of favorable statistics, a couple dozen
kills a week at very little cost. That looked good for
everybody, and might even mean promotions for the
lower ranking officers. But down in the ranks, those of
us wit our faces in the mud knew that thinking was not
going to win the war”4
His book is full of accounts of superiors putting the troops in danger
when there was clearly a better way, and hiding in foxholes leaving the
soldiers without a leader to tell them what to do. So many injustices were
done in fact that a Lieutenant was murdered, and Guidry and his troop
planned to murder theirs.
Bouncing Back was a more inspirational book. The characters had
reason to live, even though they were trapped in POW camps. They dreamt
of a better place, and fought the interrogators as hard as they could. They
set up a tapping code to communicate along the walls, and would even teach
each others the things that they had studied in college.
The interesting thing about the book is the way the Air Force pilots live
their lives when they weren’t fighting as compared to the Marines. They
lived
in air-conditioned rooms. Three square meals a day, as compared to the
Marines who had one ration a day (on a good day), and half a ration every
other day during long battles where they could not get food into the
battlefield.
For Al Stafford (the main POW in Bouncing Back), however, the good
life ended only three weeks after he entered the war. After being hit from
behind by a SAM missile he ejected from them plane. “ He used his survival
radio to make one transmission to Compton (his superior). ‘Sorry boss,’
Stafford said ‘I’ll see you after the war.’”5 He later had to throw away
his
radio, his only contact with the people that cod save him, in fear that he
would be tortured by the Vietnamese till he called for a rescue. He even
though of committing suicide by overdosing on the morphine he carried, but
instead decided on throwing it away, so that he wouldn’t be able to. So
even
this early in the war, the horrors of the POW camps were already known.
I believe the worst torture Stafford had to endure was being without
water. “As time passed, Stafford’s awareness shifted away from his physical
pain and the uncertainty of his situation and focused on one single fact and
sensation: he was thirsty... He got down off the stool, onto his knees, and
licked the floor where he tiles joined, hoping some water had a accumulated
there. When that failed, he tried licking damaged places on the wall,
hoping
that some water had sweated through.”6 It was only his second day without
water, and he had to wait three more.
The book continues to describe the horrible conditions in the rooms,
the small amounts of food, and the torture that they had to go through on
occasion, but never was any soldier’s ordeal described the way Stafford’s
had been.
Its amazing how some people can persevere. After spending eight
years as a Vietnam POW Stafford was released. When he returned home
his wife was still waiting for him, and the only problem he suffered was
occasional depression.
history I decided to do my project on the experiences of Vietnam War
veterans. There is a lot of controversy as to whether or not the Vietnam
War veterans are given enough recognition for what they went through. I have
heard horrible stories of US soldiers dying from US borabs, shell shock, and
soldiers returning to America and not being able to function as active
merabers of society due to the horrors of the war. All I really know about
the war is what I have seen on television. I wanted to learn about the war
through the firsthand accounts of those who were there.
The Vietnam War was a military struggle fought in Vietnam from
1959 to 1975. It began as an attempt by Communist guerrillas (or Vietcong)
in the South, backed by Communist North Vietnam, to overthrow the
government of South Vietnam. The struggle grew into a war between South
Vietnam and North Vietnam and ultimately into an international conflict. The
United States and some 40 other countries supported South Vietnam by
supplying troops and munitions, and the USSR and the People's Republic
of China furnished munitions to North Vietnam and the Vietcong. On both
sides, however, the burden of the war fell mainly on the civilians.1
On January 27, in Paris, delegations representing the United States,
South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and the Provisional Revolutionary
Communist Government of South Vietnam signed an Agreement on Ending
the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam. The cease-fire officially went into
effect on January 28. Both the US and North Vietnam asserted that there
were no secret peace terms.2
All the US fighting forces had withdrawn from Vietnam by March
1973, but not without major losses on both sides. Two million Vietnamese
were killed and 3 million were wounded. The extensive use of napalm and
defoliants (such as Agent Orange) left many people badly burned, and
destroyed the ecology of a country that was mainly agricultural.
This is an important part of US history because it was the first war in
which there was no clear winner. 57,685 US soldiers were killed, and triple
that amount were wounded. Even those who returned to the United states
without physical damage suffered from depression, and had to live with
memories of the carnage and destruction that they saw. What bothers me
about the war is that even though these men risked their lives to fight a
war that had nothing to do with them only because their country was
anti-Communist, they have been seemingly forgotten by their country. Many,
especially those who suffered physical trauma, have no jobs and are forced
to beg for food on street corners and live under bridges.
The first book I read was Bouncing Back. It was a collection of the
experiences of a group of Air Force pilots who were gunned down and taken
as prisoners of war. The post-POW lives of the Air Force pilots I read
about contrasted greatly with those of the Marines I read about in The War In I
Corps.
The Marines lived dirty lived in the Jungles of Vietnam. One of the
best things about The War In I Corps was its great descriptions of the
things the Marines had to go through. As Richard A. Guidry put it : “In a driving
rain, laden with heavy packs, our platoon lurabered toward its place in the long
line of men sprawled in the thick sticky mud.... The rain added a slimy quality
to the crust of dirt and fungus that encased my body. Running my fingers
across my arm was like following the tracks of a snail.”3 It really gave me
a feel for what they were going through. It made me wonder how they didn’t
just not fight. The war wasn’t theirs, but due to bad luck they were stuck
in this horrible jungle forced to fight an enemy they had no reason to hate.
Living like animals with practically no food and little or no contact with
Their families. Under the same conditions I think I would sit under a tree and
wait it out.
While finishing the book, I remerabered a discussion we had in class
about whether or not the soldiers were considered as individuals. Guidry
explained how military thought of them:
“ To them we were just parts of the machine, no
different from cannons or jeeps. We were superfluous;
they were there to fill their clipboarRAB. Apparently,
nobody wanted to stop the infiltration, because it resulted
in a steady stream of favorable statistics, a couple dozen
kills a week at very little cost. That looked good for
everybody, and might even mean promotions for the
lower ranking officers. But down in the ranks, those of
us wit our faces in the mud knew that thinking was not
going to win the war”4
His book is full of accounts of superiors putting the troops in danger
when there was clearly a better way, and hiding in foxholes leaving the
soldiers without a leader to tell them what to do. So many injustices were
done in fact that a Lieutenant was murdered, and Guidry and his troop
planned to murder theirs.
Bouncing Back was a more inspirational book. The characters had
reason to live, even though they were trapped in POW camps. They dreamt
of a better place, and fought the interrogators as hard as they could. They
set up a tapping code to communicate along the walls, and would even teach
each others the things that they had studied in college.
The interesting thing about the book is the way the Air Force pilots live
their lives when they weren’t fighting as compared to the Marines. They
lived
in air-conditioned rooms. Three square meals a day, as compared to the
Marines who had one ration a day (on a good day), and half a ration every
other day during long battles where they could not get food into the
battlefield.
For Al Stafford (the main POW in Bouncing Back), however, the good
life ended only three weeks after he entered the war. After being hit from
behind by a SAM missile he ejected from them plane. “ He used his survival
radio to make one transmission to Compton (his superior). ‘Sorry boss,’
Stafford said ‘I’ll see you after the war.’”5 He later had to throw away
his
radio, his only contact with the people that cod save him, in fear that he
would be tortured by the Vietnamese till he called for a rescue. He even
though of committing suicide by overdosing on the morphine he carried, but
instead decided on throwing it away, so that he wouldn’t be able to. So
even
this early in the war, the horrors of the POW camps were already known.
I believe the worst torture Stafford had to endure was being without
water. “As time passed, Stafford’s awareness shifted away from his physical
pain and the uncertainty of his situation and focused on one single fact and
sensation: he was thirsty... He got down off the stool, onto his knees, and
licked the floor where he tiles joined, hoping some water had a accumulated
there. When that failed, he tried licking damaged places on the wall,
hoping
that some water had sweated through.”6 It was only his second day without
water, and he had to wait three more.
The book continues to describe the horrible conditions in the rooms,
the small amounts of food, and the torture that they had to go through on
occasion, but never was any soldier’s ordeal described the way Stafford’s
had been.
Its amazing how some people can persevere. After spending eight
years as a Vietnam POW Stafford was released. When he returned home
his wife was still waiting for him, and the only problem he suffered was
occasional depression.