I am not a history buff by any means, which only functions to further hinder my understanding of the Vietnam War. I have been blessed to have grown up in country free of war on our home soil, but this leads me to merely having an abstract conception of war. It is extremely difficult to wrap my mind around the concept of war when my only experiences with images of war have been of video game battles and scenes from movies such as Platoon and Forest Gump. This leaves war in the realm of entertainment, the world of fiction, rather than the world of reality. In a way, this is how all of history has seemed to me; stories of the past that are no more real to me than the fictional stories of the great novelists. Sadly, the war in Vietnam is no exception. Although it does not give the due respect to the soldiers, this war is just as unreal as all the others.
To me, the war in Vietnam was a war made in fear. The United States military seemed to be fighting a foreign government that they did not fully understand and certainly didn’t, or possibly couldn’t, communicate their intentions to the soldiers actually fighting their battles. Platoon presented the intentions of the soldiers as completely misguided; it seemed that each individual soldier was fighting a different battle rather than them working together as a cohesive group. I imagine this lack of unity stemmed from the breakdown of communication between the U.S. officials at home and the commanders overseas. The most uneasy part of all is the disregard the U.S. soldiers had for the civilians of Vietnam. In this website The War in Vietnam that confronts the anti-war sentiments of the American people, Nixon is quoted in continuing the war in efforts to gain “peace with honor” because he was not willing to be humiliated by the fuzzy resolution of the war. However, I feel that honor can not come to war in which civilian lives are being so irreverently sacrificed. The true humiliation of the war in Vietnam comes from the fact that so many men did not believe in the cause for which they were fighting, in fact, there may have been no clear cause at all. The image of a young boy injured as severely as his combative opponents is one such example of the irreverance the U.S. had for the civilians of Vietnam during the war. Nothing in this land was worthy of their respect.
To me, the war in Vietnam was a war made in fear. The United States military seemed to be fighting a foreign government that they did not fully understand and certainly didn’t, or possibly couldn’t, communicate their intentions to the soldiers actually fighting their battles. Platoon presented the intentions of the soldiers as completely misguided; it seemed that each individual soldier was fighting a different battle rather than them working together as a cohesive group. I imagine this lack of unity stemmed from the breakdown of communication between the U.S. officials at home and the commanders overseas. The most uneasy part of all is the disregard the U.S. soldiers had for the civilians of Vietnam. In this website The War in Vietnam that confronts the anti-war sentiments of the American people, Nixon is quoted in continuing the war in efforts to gain “peace with honor” because he was not willing to be humiliated by the fuzzy resolution of the war. However, I feel that honor can not come to war in which civilian lives are being so irreverently sacrificed. The true humiliation of the war in Vietnam comes from the fact that so many men did not believe in the cause for which they were fighting, in fact, there may have been no clear cause at all. The image of a young boy injured as severely as his combative opponents is one such example of the irreverance the U.S. had for the civilians of Vietnam during the war. Nothing in this land was worthy of their respect.
2 comments:
I totally agree with your statement that honor cannot be given to a war where lives were lost as "sacrifices". In my post, I talked about this as well. This war was not needed, and when the United States entered it, it made things worse. Lives were sacrificed needlessly. I always hear people talking about how these people who lost their lives aren't being honored like they should, but they are. There are many memorials set up, but in the same respect, a lot of people didn't agree with the war, so they aren't going to give much honor to them. These people aren't mad at the veterans or those who lost their lives, but at the situation.
Your post is beautifully written and insightful, Kim!
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