Question for Vietnam Vets or other history teachers/military experts...

[Unknownsoldier]

Gents, lets all try and keep on topic for the OP. We don't need to debate the war, or the varying points of view. The op is simply looking for good educational resources. So far this has been a great thread and I'd hate to see it slip off topic.

Definitely

The three books I've listed are fairly standard texts at Uni' but I'll have a root around and see if I can find anything else

 

[SRock]

Definitely

The three books I've listed are fairly standard texts at Uni' but I'll have a root around and see if I can find anything else

 

[knlgskr]

"We Were Soldiers Once and Young", Hal Moore; "Viet Nam Primer", David Hackworth and anything else he wrote.

 

[garyg]

One of the aspects of the Viet Nam war that struck me always as different, if not wrong, from the earlier conflicts, was that a "tour" was only a year. As a result, individuals were not sent over together with others of their unit, and returned alone when they timed out, or in a box. No cameraderie on the way over, just inserted as the FNG, like a replacement part. They didn't return in troopships victorious, but rather just one more, or two, per plane on their way back to The World.

I am not sure if it made a difference, but those one or two guys getting off the plane were surely more vulnerable than if they had all come marching home en masse.

Maybe a thought for discussion, whether in for the duration would have produced a different result

 

[The Knize]

Here is the US Army's Center for Military History's take on the Viet Nam war from a military perspective, which seems fairly unbiased to me. http://www.history.army.mil/books/AMH/AMH-28.htm

The OP did not actually say he was looking for "for good educational resources." He asked "Is there anything in particular that I need to tell them, anything important that gets overlooked or lost?" I think there would be lots of opinions on that. I suppose my own suggestion though is for an 11th grade class the OP "do[esn't] need to debate the war, or the varying points of view." There is more than enough there for a factual overview to take up the full five weeks!

 

[crowdog]

There is also a text for the PBS series, which I have called Vietnam: A History http://www.amazon.com/Vietnam-History-Stanley-Karnow/dp/0140265473

I think it is a fair read.

My suggestions that would be interesting to discuss. The role of shadow, or propped governments. Guerrilla warfare, and a very undefined enemy. The advent of instantaneous news, and especially television and its reporting of the war. The increase of war technology and the US reliance upon it. Finally not only that soldiers were received in varying ways, but that with modern air travel, they could be on the line in the morning, and home by that night.

There was a lot of documentation about why the WWII soldier didn't SEEM to have as many issues as later soldiers. This was one of the theories. That WWII soldiers took weeks and even months to return home on transport ships, with thousands of others. They could talk about their experiences with a very understanding audience, and process many of the horrible things they saw and experienced. This was not the case with Vietnam, and other modern wars.

I think that the history of Vietnam has shaped us and especially current politics and tactics significantly.

Marty

 

[dpmtherrien]

There are many chapters of VietNam Vets of America. I'm sure they would be glad to assist you. Most major and even smaller cities have chapters.

 

[Mr. Igg]

Columbia had a fantastic 2-hour ethics panel over twenty years ago. It dove into all the ethical issues that come up during a war. Happily for you, it was Vietnam-focused. Some are clearly relevant today--and the video was 20+ years ago--like the role of embedded journalsts.

I just found it online (for free!):

http://www.learner.org/resources/series81.html?pop=yes&pid=196#

Lots of good sources so far, and some good points made about areas to cover: the role of societal support, the role of political constraints and others, the difference between conscription and an all-volunteer force, and others.

 

[SRock]

"We Were Soldiers Once and Young", Hal Moore

Great book, the movie of the same name (like most movies) didn't do the book justice.

 

[Alacrity59]

I think the fact that the Vietnam war was really one of several proxy wars the US fought with the USSR during the cold war is a big part. The impact on society both in the US and in other countries was huge . . .involving all media . . . so much music came out of it . . . peace, love, hating the government, mistrust of anybody over 30. Freedom of speech became more free as difficult discussions were publicly held. Check out the Smothers Brothers on Wikipedia . . . do you think Leno or others these days would have been censured as they were?

I don't think Iraq or Afghanistan have or will have a tenth of the impact to society in the G10 that Vietnam had.

 

[BCatl]

To me, it was a failure of the USA to take the history and culture of a nation into account before making a decision to begin military operations. We have the historians, and the books and the experts, only our leaders don't consult them.

Our leaders could only see this through the lens of fighting the "spread of communism". Whereas the average Viet saw it as a struggle to build a fairer society in any way possible, and could really care less about the political philosophy behind it. Also,we didn't know much about Vietnamese people (or we didn't care to find out beforehand). At that time, you didn't see many who were six feet tall, but they were tough as nails with a tenacious, survive at all costs mentality.

We keep making the same mistake. Our slogan in Iraq was "spread democracy". You can't spread democracy when the culture and history of a people are resistant to it. These countries have their own history, and we need to study it and be aware of it before we jump the gun, and waste American blood.

 

[texquill]

Be sure to let your students focus on the length of our involvement in Viet Nam. In 1952, my father, a USAF officer assigned to helicopter flying training duties, was bringing French Air Force officers (my father's students) home for dinner. After completing their helicopter flying training, the French officers were assigned to duty in Indo China. After the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the country was partitioned, and we (the U.S.) remained involved, but as advisors to The Republic of Viet Nam (South Viet Nam). So, from at least that perspective, Viet Nam was a 20+ year experience for the United States.

 

[coolbluewater]

Per my earlier post, here's the 3-DVD series, The Vietnam War with Walter Cronkite. 90+ % of what I've seen from others is B.S. (the PBS multi-DVD series being somewhat of an exception) and one-sided, but this is accurate and follows the history of U.S. involvement quite well.
I rented it from Netflix, but Amazon has it:http://www.amazon.com/Vietnam-War-With-Walter-Cronkite/dp/B00009KU95

As for books, I'm sure your time window is limited; Harold Moore has a few; John L. Plaster's SOG books are good, but fairly narrow in scope.
The Cronkite series gives the widest overview and captures a good amount of detail for the timeline and mostly all raw footage.

 

[Unknownsoldier]

One of the aspects of the Viet Nam war that struck me always as different, if not wrong, from the earlier conflicts, was that a "tour" was only a year. As a result, individuals were not sent over together with others of their unit, and returned alone when they timed out, or in a box. No cameraderie on the way over, just inserted as the FNG, like a replacement part. They didn't return in troopships victorious, but rather just one more, or two, per plane on their way back to The World.

I am not sure if it made a difference, but those one or two guys getting off the plane were surely more vulnerable than if they had all come marching home en masse.

Maybe a thought for discussion, whether in for the duration would have produced a different result

The other problem this was found to cause was that guys would just become experienced and acclimatised then they would be rotated home. Meaning guys would get to know the tricks of the trade and then they'd leave unlike Britain and US in Burma in WW2 where guys were rotated back behind the lines then sent back in which allowed skills to be kept honed. [Could'nt resist a shaving pun...].

Tom

 

[jbp84]

Gentlemen, these are GREAT suggestions and I appreciate all of them.

1. I've contacted the Colonel in charge of the AFROTC at our school for some ideas on guest speakers. Turns out the crossing guard at our school was in Vietnam! So I'm going to sit down and schedule a time for him to come and speak to the class.

2. The first day we started I made the same comparison some of you made between how vets are treated today versus how they were treated coming home from Vietnam. Despite some major lapses in access to health care and mental health, veterans today are treated much better than in the 1960s/1970s. I also told them that no matter what you think of a war that the people who are actually risking their lives in combat deserve the respect of those who aren't. Another thing I mentioned to them is that some people like to say that we "technically" didn't lose the war. My response to those people is to tell anyone who lost a friend or relative, anyone who was deeply wounded (physically or psychologically), anyone who got spit on when they came home, that we didn't "lose" the war.

3. I read "Rumor of War" when I was in high school and I've been recommending it to some of the kids in my classes whom I know are military buffs. I don't have time to assign the whole book as reading but I'm going to pull some passages out to read. The PBS American Experience website about Vietnam has some great primary sources, timelines, maps, etc. that I'm going to use as well. Full Metal Jacket is definitely not going to fly, even though I really like the movie myself. This is a fairly conservative school district/town and I'd have a tough time justifying it. It's one thing to have a few swear words slip in during a documentary or two, but I'm picking the battles I know I can win as a student teacher!

4. Country Joe McDonald: Our extra credit assignment this unit is to make a CD with 5 songs released between '65 and '72 that are directly, or indirectly, about Vietnam and reflect the attitude of the time. If any kid comes in with Sgt. Barry Sadler's "Ballad of the Green Berets" I'm going to be surprised. Happy, but surprised. I played them the clip from Woodstock of Country Joe McDonald as an example.

Like I said, I really appreciate the advice and suggestions. I'll try to keep everyone posted as to how things go.

 

[jbp84]

Gents, lets all try and keep on topic for the OP. We don't need to debate the war, or the varying points of view. The op is simply looking for good educational resources. So far this has been a great thread and I'd hate to see it slip off topic.

I appreciate this! But discussions like these aren't off topic at all as far as I'm concerned. It's this exact kind of stuff I never got exposed to growing up, or in my own history classes. It wasn't until I was 25 years old in a college history class that I learned much about Vietnam.

 

[Unknownsoldier]

So FMJ won't fly, but Country joe will? LOL

Conservative (is that the same as here: Unwilling to let reality come into real life???.....). I love the idea that some Grunt would get shot and would say "Oh dear, I do believe one of the Vietnamese fellows has shot me.....".

A note remember the difference between Vietminh and VietCong, Vietcong was a term invented by the US to dehumanise their foe......

I don't get the whole school system, is anything standardised like our National Curriculum???

What age group are you teaching that'd help me ween out some of the more adult movies? TBH I love FMJ and the fact it was filmed in the UK, but here are a couple of pictures you can use in class.

I think this is in Ho chi minh city..... but maybe others will correct me...

These are the gongs the Australians got for Vietnam.

If you'd like me to look out any further bits I have a stack of stuff from an SASR guy in vietnam

Tom

 

[shyrlock]

I was there.
I served as a rifleman in a mechanized infantry outfit. It would be pretty hard to put the experiance into words, I am not to good at writing about this anyhow.
Let's see , I was just 20 when I arrived in country, early 69. I remember the heat and humidty was incredible. I was very scared at first, but sort of cocky and confident too.I wanted very much to gain the respect of sgt's and lts, most of all the guys who were seasoned guys. Lot of times it was just hot and boring, a lot of bugs and strange sounds and smells. There were a lot of things to be afraid of. Booby traps, mines and stuff. Sometimes things happened quickly.
I remember how close the guys were. I have never felt that closeness since. We all wanted to do good, but wanted to get through it and go home OK.
I sort of liked the Vietnamese people and culture, but we usually weren't able to be too close to them. After a while, it wasn't so scary anymore, just sort of resigned to what would be. Being a stand up guy in the outfit was always important. You counted on your buds and they counted on you. Somtimes it was just too sad to see a bro that was really a great guy get hurt bad or killed. It didn't seem to make any sense as to what happened to who.
when you got short, getting ready to go home, then you started being scared again.
All in all, I didn't feel bad about it. I felt sad for the guys that were not so lucky.
When I got home, the treatment was pretty bad. It seemed like all of the people my age thought we were all abunch of crazy criminals or something.
I felt really bad. I remember one VA job counselor told me not to tell anyone that I had been to Vietnam, when I was going for a job interview. This really tormented me inside because I felt like my buds and I had served the best we could, We fought hard when we had to and we put up with all the nasty crap of being grunts in a hot stinking jungle.
And now we were told to pretend we were not there.
Well, I guess thats just the way things are sometimes. In my heart I know what we did and how we trusted and looked out for each other. That is something thatr most people will never know. I am proud to have served.
Mike

 

[Paris]

A book I read years ago on LBJ stated that he got us into Viet Nam because he feared the anti-communist Goldwater right would defeat him in 1968 (he then chose not to run). To me he was a lying bastard whose arrogance got so many wonderful young men killed. This was a horrible time in our history.

A short aside: I was a young Marine and with some other Marines walked into a traven close to a major University. Anti-war sentiment was very high (as were most of the students) at that time. Anyway we walked in - wearing our uniforms and a young girl sitting with her boyfriend yells out, "I hate Marines". My fellow Marine walked over to her and said, "I know why you hate Marines." She yelled back, "Why?" His answer was, "Because you have never been fu-ked by one." Her boyfriend just sat there.

 

[jbp84]

A short aside: I was a young Marine and with some other Marines walked into a traven close to a major University. Anti-war sentiment was very high (as were most of the students) at that time. Anyway we walked in - wearing our uniforms and a young girl sitting with her boyfriend yells out, "I hate Marines". My fellow Marine walked over to her and said, "I know why you hate Marines." She yelled back, "Why?" His answer was, "Because you have never been fu-ked by one." Her boyfriend just sat there.

What was he going to do? Argue with a friggin' Marine? That's funny. I won't be able to tell that to my class, but it's still funny.