Task
Use details from the sources below to support your ideas.
Please remember:
American involvement in Vietnam began in the 1950s when we aided France in its efforts to recolonize the region, escalated in 1960s when US soldiers were sent to South Vietnam, and ended in the 1970s when North Vietnam invaded the South and reunited the two countries.
What were America's reasons for pursuing a policy of containment in Vietnam? Were they good reasons? |
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B. |
Below is a 5-minute excerpt from President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Peace Without Conquest” speech, delivered at Johns Hopkins University in 1965.
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C. |
Below are excerpts from two letters by Glenn Munson, a Marine in the Vietnam War, from 1966.
"Dear Mom, . . .
Yesterday I witnessed something that would make any American realize why we are in this war. At least it did me. I was on daylight patrol. We were on a hill overlooking a bridge that was out of our sector. I saw a platoon of Vietcong stopping traffic from going over the bridge. They were beating women and children over the head with rifles, clubs, and fists. They even shot one woman and her child. They were taking rice, coconuts, fish, and other assorted foods from these people. The ones that didn't give they either beat or shot. . . . Those slobs have to be stopped, even if it takes every last believer in a democracy and a free way of life to do it. I know after seeing their brave tactics I'm going to try my best. So please don't knock [President] Johnson's policy in Vietnam. There is a good reason for it. I'm not too sure what it is myself, but I'm beginning to realize, especially after yesterday. . . . . . . . A few weeks ago, I had the chance to talk with some Marines . What they had to say would have had an impact on the people back home. . . . From what they said, the Vietcong aren't the only ruthless ones. We have to be, too. Have to. You'd be surprised to know that a guy you went to school with is right now shooting a nine-year-old girl and her mother. He did it because if they got the chance they would kill him. Or throwing a Vietcong out of a helicopter because he wouldn't talk." |
E. |
Below is a 4-minute audio clip of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 1967 speech entitled "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence."
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F. |
The song below was released in 1967 by the influential San Francisco rock group, Country Joe and the Fish. Titled "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die," the song remains one of the most popular Vietnam protest songs from the 1960s.
Lyrics:
Well, come on all of you, big strong men, Uncle Sam needs your help again. He's got himself in a terrible jam Way down yonder in Vietnam So put down your books and pick up a gun, We're gonna have a whole lotta fun. CHORUS: And it's one, two, three, What are we fighting for ? Don't ask me, I don't give a damn, Next stop is Vietnam; And it's five, six, seven, Open up the pearly gates, Well there ain't no time to wonder why, Whoopee! we're all gonna die. Come on Wall Street, don't be slow, Why man, this is war au-go-go There's plenty good money to be made By supplying the Army with the tools of its trade, But just hope and pray that if they drop the bomb, They drop it on the Viet Cong. CHORUS Well, come on generals, let's move fast; Your big chance has come at last. Now you can go out and get those reds 'Cause the only good commie is the one that's dead And you know that peace can only be won When we've blown 'em all to kingdom come. CHORUS Come on mothers throughout the land, Pack your boys off to Vietnam. Come on fathers, and don't hesitate To send your sons off before it's too late. And you can be the first ones in your block To have your boy come home in a box. CHORUS |
G. |
The two excerpts below are reflections on the Vietnam War more than a decade after it ended.
This excerpt comes from an autobiography published by Richard Nixon in 1985, entitled No More Viet Nams.
“Like all wars, Vietnam was brutal, ugly, dangerous, painful, and sometimes inhumane. This was driven home to those who stayed home perhaps more forcefully than ever before because the war lasted so long and because they saw so much of it on television in living, and dying, color. Many who were seeing war for the first time were so shocked at what they saw that they said this war was immoral when they really meant that all war was terrible. They were right in saying that peace was better than war. But they were wrong in failing to ask themselves whether what was happening in Vietnam was substantively different from what had happened in other wars. Their horror at the fact of war prevented them from considering whether the facts of the war in Vietnam added up to a cause that was worth fighting for. Instead, many of these naïve, well-meaning, instinctual opponents of the war raised their voices in protest."
This excerpt comes from Wars Without Splendor, a book written by historian Ernest Evans in 1987.
"The reason for the loss of public support for the Vietnam War was that the United States never had a very convincing case for intervention in the first place; and whatever moral and strategic reasons it did have for intervention were far outweighed by the costs of the war. So it is a gross over-simplification to say that American public opinion turned against the Vietnam War simply because they could watch it, unlike earlier wars, on television. Public opinion turned against the war because the costs of the war were in plain sight while the benefits to be gained by continuing the war were quite elusive."
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