How is the Vietnam War taught in the U.S?

[commodore96]

for every Indian tribe moved a nice tax free casino is created

how is creating a casino balancing out the removal of a Native American tribe? all that does is make them poor as well as robbing them of their land.. There is no way the treatment of the native Americans can EVER be reonciled as far as I'm concerned, I sincerely hope this wasn't a serious statement..

It wasn't serious, but it is true.

 

[C2Ultima]

For example, at my school, we shortly studied the 'Search and Destroy' tactics, which as far as I understand, was basically US soldiers walking into Vietnam villages and wiping them clean out, regardless of whether the inhabitants were innocent or not.
is the Vietnam War taught in the US education system?

That was only one occasion. It was called the My Lai massacre, and it happened because a lieutenant named William Calley was paranoid of the Vietcong. Unable to bear the pressure of not knowing who was Vietcong, and who was innocent, he snapped. He ordered the entire village burned down. Not many people were happy about it around the world, including the U.S. The few people who tried to defend it in the U.S received lots of death threats. Indeed, Calley was sentenced to life in prison for it.

Again, very, very few people in the U.S supported it. The main effect was that it only made the average U.S citizen more eager to get out of the war.

As far as how the Vietnam war is approached, in High School, we learned about it pretty in depth. We're not proud of it, but it's best to know it happened, so as to prevent similar occasion in the future. It was basically a disaster, and we're in no hurry to repeat it.

U.S participation in the Vietnam war can probably be summed up with the quote from Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Vietcong and communist NVA.

?You will kill 10 of our men, and we will kill 1 of yours, and in the end it will be you who tire of it.?

 

[loc978]

Well, in US history class I was shown the Vietnam war engagement by engagement and given approximate body counts for both sides, starting with the attempted French occupation. I was also shown videos of Presidential speeches, senate meetings, protests, et cetera, and I was tested on who took what positions. Generally the gory details of engagements were glossed over with numbers, but political motivations were laid out starkly for students to make their own values judgements on.

The class tended to agree that we were an entity of bad guys fighting another entity of bad guys, while the soldiers involved on both sides and the people of Vietnam were both victim and patsy to our country's ham-handed attempt to stave off a non-existent threat.

Ironically, we weren't fighting bad guys at all. The people we were fighting were themselves fighting for independence from brutal French rule and had been since long before America stepped in. In fact, the only reason that North Vietnam turned communist was because we backed France's oppression in order to gain their support against Russia. Russia and China agreed to help Ho Chi Minh, but only if he would go full communist. He was more of a nationalist before that. Of course, once NVN did turn communist, they were suddenly part of the "international communist conspiracy" and had to be stopped at all costs.

So really, we brought it on ourselves.

On a global scale, I agree with you... but when you look at the tactics used by the VC and condoned by their commanders and political figures... well, you've got some gross human rights violations going on there. They were even further from "good guys" than us, on the battlefield.

 

[Bowmerang]

Hey Lionsfan, I agree that the US didn't get its ass kicked by the NVA as many people here seem to think. However, you seem to think that defining "victory" is purely a tactical matter. Sure, we won more battles than we lost, and we prevented the north from conquering the south (for a while), but you're ignoring the diplomatic repercussions of the war, how Americans lost trust in their government, and how we failed to back up our promise to protect South Vietnam from another invasion. Using your logic, Japan won the Second Sino-Japanese war because, from a tactical perspective, they had the upper hand.

So fine, educate people about the successes of the war, but don't be so naive to think that we won just because we didn't necessarily lose. Ask any historian, they will tell you that we failed in our objectives of the Vietnam War.

 

[Death_Korps_Kommissar]

In Ireland the vietnamn war is pretty well covered, im planning my history project on the history of vietnamn in general, should be pretty interesting. Its pretty neutral but you get an air of "MERICA' bombing innocents because of the policy of containment and paranoia about McCarthyism and therefore mistaking freedom fighters in vietnamn, who happen to be communist, as Russia's attempts to spread communism"

Im wondering OP how do they teach the WoI in GB? i missed the thread, got a link?

Most schools just kinda gloss over it, they instead focus on the Home Issues at the time, and not the fact that technically the US won the Vietnam War

That is pretty dam funny, they actually teach you that bullshit?

What bullshit are you referring to?

That you won i gather.

Woah dude, leaving the project a tad late don't cha think? =P

What happened to your old avatar? i had gotten used to that thing, now everything is new and strange.

haha i know right? i only have like what? minus 14 days? There's still time damnit! i have a Delorean! Naw, my Project work shall begin after the summer is out, thats when the serious work begins so this summer im going to tear the country a new one

Dude I changed that like, before Easter on my American Psycho buzz =P
More to the point I'm recognised around here? :L
Are you in fifth or sixth year, dude?

 

[SupabadMan]

I'm not sure, I'm Canadian, but no doubt they either don't talk about it very much, or how they successfully defended democracy or some crap.

 

[Chris^^]

for every Indian tribe moved a nice tax free casino is created

how is creating a casino balancing out the removal of a Native American tribe? all that does is make them poor as well as robbing them of their land.. There is no way the treatment of the native Americans can EVER be reonciled as far as I'm concerned, I sincerely hope this wasn't a serious statement..

It wasn't serious, but it is true.

sadly so

 

[Death_Korps_Kommissar]

For example, at my school, we shortly studied the 'Search and Destroy' tactics, which as far as I understand, was basically US soldiers walking into Vietnam villages and wiping them clean out, regardless of whether the inhabitants were innocent or not.
is the Vietnam War taught in the US education system?

That was only one occasion. It was called the My Lai massacre, and it happened because a lieutenant named William Calley was paranoid of the Vietcong. Unable to bear the pressure of not knowing who was Vietcong, and who was innocent, he snapped. He ordered the entire village burned down. Not many people were happy about it around the world, including the U.S. The few people who tried to defend it in the U.S received lots of death threats. Indeed, Calley was sentenced to life in prison for it.

Again, very, very few people in the U.S supported it. The main effect was that it only made the average U.S citizen more eager to get out of the war.

As far as how the Vietnam war is approached, in High School, we learned about it pretty in depth. We're not proud of it, but it's best to know it happened, so as to prevent similar occasion in the future. It was basically a disaster, and we're in no hurry to repeat it.

U.S participation in the Vietnam war can probably be summed up with the quote from Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Vietcong and communist NVA.

?You will kill 10 of our men, and we will kill 1 of yours, and in the end it will be you who tire of it.?

Acctually, even though the fine Lieutenant got life imprisonment, he only served three under house arrest. Ah justice!

 

[emeraldrafael]

That and my grandfathers always tells them that he pities them for having to fight that war, and by comparison WW2 was the easier war to fight in.

I'd say that depends entirely on which front of WW2. Look up both the Red Army and the Wehrmacht 6th army, both went through utter hell.

Few of those who survived from the 6th army were left with all of their limbs, and I'm not talking about war wounds.

Not trying to say "YOU AND YOUR GRANDAD KNOW NOTHING" I just read up on the battle of Stalingrad not long ago and feel like people should know what a horrible war truly is.

/derail

No, I understand. he Fought int he european theatre, but at least there, it was easier then the Vietcong. you werent fighting the losing battle, the nation was behind you. Plus, like I said, you werent fighting the Viet cong. Again, its all his personal opinion though.

Thoguh I can say one thing. my uncle (who's in his sixties now) gets spit on from time to time if he mentions he fought in Viet Nam, and told that he must have been one of those murdering dogs that just liked to murder anyone he could get in his cross hairs. I can see where my grandfather would say his war was "easier".

I mean, just that abuse against my uncle alone while my grandfather is told he's a hero is so... degradingly... horrible. And thats not even with what happened to him int he war (which any time I ask, he always just says dont ask, things I've done I'd never wish for anyone to do or have done), and fighting in the war (whcih, if you've done any travel, South east Asia is a far more dangerous place just naturally then europe).

 

[Scars Unseen]

Oddly, teachers here magically twist it to just be all our fault and never mention the french.

may I mention the US international policy of containment?
you can't lay the blame solely on the French, in fact America supported and even funded Ho Chi Minh in pushing for independance during and immediately after WW2. May I also point out that America prevented the free and fair elections promised in the Geneva Accords of 1954.

I certainly agree that wars are only won by doing what needs to be done and that the 'media war' was pivotal in Americas eventual defeat but you cannot deny that America had no place in that war. Kennedy himself realised that they needed to get out, but was killed before he had any chance to do so.

It's wrong of your teachers to place the blame solely on the French, but blame truly lies with, in my opinion, Lyndon B. Johnson. He threw America into the war with little idea on tactics or how it was to be conducted, the US armed forces had [/B]no[/B] idea how to fight an insurgency whatsoever; the killing of civilians by US personnel for whatever reason did little to win the hearts and minds of the people, regardless of why or how it happened.

That's not right either. He certainly deserves his share of blame, but hardly enough to say that he's "the guy." In reality, he made his decisions based upon what came before, and no one wanted to be another Truman (lowest approval rating of any president in American history). On the other hand, he didn't want to escalate the war too quickly because he didn't want to provoke an all out war with Russia. And not everything was his doing in any case. He wasn't the one that pushed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, even if he did take advantage of it afterward. At the very least, most of the Wise Men [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wise_Men] deserve their fair share of blame, since most of them contributed significantly to the shaping of foreign policy at the time.

 

[A-D.]

If one takes any War in History, not just those fought by the US, as a mere Statistic on who won/lost then i believe alot of "Outcomes" might end up differently.

Statistically, the US won the Vietnam War. They had less casualties, caused more damage, expended more Ammunition and Bombs and generally fucked everything up, yet the VC could not bomb America in revenge for example, well they probably could have with some Help from bigger Powers up north but they were busy with their own little Wars.

So from that Point of View, the US won, in literal Terms, they didnt. They came in, sort of fucked up, fucked up alot more, made a whole Mess and ran home before anyone noticed, which ironically everyone did anyway.

What i find rather ironic now is that, if one takes Star Wars now, and looks at more recent "Wars" i.e. the Clone Wars stuff. There are some strange similarities. For example, if you are in the Mind of looking it up, compare the First and Second Battle of Jabiim (Star Wars) to the real Vietnam War. You find similar Similarities with other Wars that are basicly "ported over" into Fiction.

 

[BrownGaijin]

it's not taught all that much, since it was a left over war from the French. Asked us to come in right about they time they left completely.


And it seems everyone loves to ignore that little fact...

here is a snippet

The basic answer is that the U.S. was asked by France, via NATO, to keep the communists from "taking over" the French Territory. We sent troops over only to advise, and from there WE were in it and it just went "to hell in a handbasket" to quote a friend of mine. We left over 58,000 Brothers and Sisters there.

Hope this helps, if not, check your local veterans, VFW,or American Legion Halls and ask really nice, you may find out more.


Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_did_the_Vietnam_War_start#ixzz1NrXrkO3q


So first get the dirty handed nasty US soldier idea out of your minds. Wars are not won by fighting fair, or limiting your targets. They are won by doing what needs to be done. The NVC used the Geneva convention just like Muslim fighters do today.

Hide supplies in villages, threatening the civilians.
Hide weapons in churches, schools, and other targets off limits

And surround said targets with civilians so if they are attacked they get heart sting tugs from their own and make the enemy look bad in public light...


So for the Vietnam war...thank the french.

But how is it taught? Oddly, teachers here magically twist it to just be all our fault and never mention the french.

This is pretty much how it was taught to us in college. Another reason was if we lose Vietnam to the communists, it will cause a "domino effect", which would lead to more countries to make an alliance with the USSR.

 

[Pandalisk]

In Ireland the vietnamn war is pretty well covered, im planning my history project on the history of vietnamn in general, should be pretty interesting. Its pretty neutral but you get an air of "MERICA' bombing innocents because of the policy of containment and paranoia about McCarthyism and therefore mistaking freedom fighters in vietnamn, who happen to be communist, as Russia's attempts to spread communism"

Im wondering OP how do they teach the WoI in GB? i missed the thread, got a link?

Most schools just kinda gloss over it, they instead focus on the Home Issues at the time, and not the fact that technically the US won the Vietnam War

That is pretty dam funny, they actually teach you that bullshit?

What bullshit are you referring to?

That you won i gather.

Woah dude, leaving the project a tad late don't cha think? =P

What happened to your old avatar? i had gotten used to that thing, now everything is new and strange.

haha i know right? i only have like what? minus 14 days? There's still time damnit! i have a Delorean! Naw, my Project work shall begin after the summer is out, thats when the serious work begins so this summer im going to tear the country a new one

Dude I changed that like, before Easter on my American Psycho buzz =P
More to the point I'm recognised around here? :L
Are you in fifth or sixth year, dude?

Well i noticed you during your..I think it was a thread asking about the troubles and the IRA and such? and your name just stuck with me

Fifth right now man, i reckon you've just graduated yeah? Ha im studying for my tests before i enter 6th year right now, well not really, im on the escapist avoiding study like the plague

 

[natster43]

In High School, for my class I don't think at all. We spent too much time on other stuff before the class ended. I think we did talk about it in Middle School though. I think most on how we went there to try and stop the spread of communism in Vietnam and fucked up, and the side effects of Napalm and Agent Orange on our troops. That is pretty much what I remember.

 

[shitoutonme]

It basically went like this for me and my fellow students:

Teacher: "That was a terrible, terrible blemish on American history."

Students: "No shit. We knew this already."

Teacher: "... Well, then... anyone have a good slice of pie recently?... No? Okay, on to the flourishing 90's."

 

[Breaker deGodot]

I actually go to a Christian High School, and we go VERY in-depth about why it failed, what we've learned since, and how the country turned on it's government. So yeah.

 

[Chris^^]

Oddly, teachers here magically twist it to just be all our fault and never mention the french.

may I mention the US international policy of containment?
you can't lay the blame solely on the French, in fact America supported and even funded Ho Chi Minh in pushing for independance during and immediately after WW2. May I also point out that America prevented the free and fair elections promised in the Geneva Accords of 1954.

I certainly agree that wars are only won by doing what needs to be done and that the 'media war' was pivotal in Americas eventual defeat but you cannot deny that America had no place in that war. Kennedy himself realised that they needed to get out, but was killed before he had any chance to do so.

It's wrong of your teachers to place the blame solely on the French, but blame truly lies with, in my opinion, Lyndon B. Johnson. He threw America into the war with little idea on tactics or how it was to be conducted, the US armed forces had [/B]no[/B] idea how to fight an insurgency whatsoever; the killing of civilians by US personnel for whatever reason did little to win the hearts and minds of the people, regardless of why or how it happened.

That's not right either. He certainly deserves his share of blame, but hardly enough to say that he's "the guy." In reality, he made his decisions based upon what came before, and no one wanted to be another Truman (lowest approval rating of any president in American history). On the other hand, he didn't want to escalate the war too quickly because he didn't want to provoke an all out war with Russia. And not everything was his doing in any case. He wasn't the one that pushed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, even if he did take advantage of it afterward. At the very least, most of the Wise Men [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wise_Men] deserve their fair share of blame, since most of them contributed significantly to the shaping of foreign policy at the time.

I just have absolutely no respect for the man, I'll admit he didn't make all the decisions (indeed often being manipulated by advisors) but had he been stronger there were several alternative paths he could have taken that could have radically altered the outcome of the war.
Perhaps I was too rash with my first statement, you're right that blame can't be thrown at the feet of one person alone, and the 'wise men' had slipped my mind when I posted.

 

[spartan231490]

Inspired by the topic asking how the War of Independence is taught in the UK.

Basically, I ask because, generally, it's held that the US entered Vietnam (amongst other countries during the Cold War, like Korea) for what can be described as less than noble reasons, and then making a bit of a mess of it. For example, at my school, we shortly studied the 'Search and Destroy' tactics, which as far as I understand, was basically US soldiers walking into Vietnam villages and wiping them clean out, regardless of whether the inhabitants were innocent or not. That's one small part of a part of the course on US foreign policy we did.

Anyhow, back to the point. What sort of stance is taken when the Vietnam war is taught to US students? Under what light do they relay the information to you? How is the Vietnam War taught in the US education system?

It basically isn't. We had like 2 weeks on it, and for most of that we talked about the draft and the reaction to it, as well as the protests and how poorly the veterans were treated.

As far as High School goes, it's kinda glossed over. We cover up until WWII usually, and by then the year's over. I can tell you that a lot of us aren't proud of what we did over there and would probably rather forget it.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" - George Santanaya, 1905

The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.
-- Hegel

 

[Scars Unseen]

Well, in US history class I was shown the Vietnam war engagement by engagement and given approximate body counts for both sides, starting with the attempted French occupation. I was also shown videos of Presidential speeches, senate meetings, protests, et cetera, and I was tested on who took what positions. Generally the gory details of engagements were glossed over with numbers, but political motivations were laid out starkly for students to make their own values judgements on.

The class tended to agree that we were an entity of bad guys fighting another entity of bad guys, while the soldiers involved on both sides and the people of Vietnam were both victim and patsy to our country's ham-handed attempt to stave off a non-existent threat.

Ironically, we weren't fighting bad guys at all. The people we were fighting were themselves fighting for independence from brutal French rule and had been since long before America stepped in. In fact, the only reason that North Vietnam turned communist was because we backed France's oppression in order to gain their support against Russia. Russia and China agreed to help Ho Chi Minh, but only if he would go full communist. He was more of a nationalist before that. Of course, once NVN did turn communist, they were suddenly part of the "international communist conspiracy" and had to be stopped at all costs.

So really, we brought it on ourselves.

On a global scale, I agree with you... but when you look at the tactics used by the VC and condoned by their commanders and political figures... well, you've got some gross human rights violations going on there. They were even further from "good guys" than us, on the battlefield.

Read up on the My Lai Massacre. Also asymmetric warfare. We were the invaders. They were fighting off our aggression. Did you expect them to just surrender? Obviously our government at the time did. Not saying that their methods were good, but that we didn't really give them many options, and that if there was a good guy in Vietnam, it certainly wasn't us.

 

[loc978]

Spoiler: snipped for space

Well, in US history class I was shown the Vietnam war engagement by engagement and given approximate body counts for both sides, starting with the attempted French occupation. I was also shown videos of Presidential speeches, senate meetings, protests, et cetera, and I was tested on who took what positions. Generally the gory details of engagements were glossed over with numbers, but political motivations were laid out starkly for students to make their own values judgements on.

The class tended to agree that we were an entity of bad guys fighting another entity of bad guys, while the soldiers involved on both sides and the people of Vietnam were both victim and patsy to our country's ham-handed attempt to stave off a non-existent threat.

Ironically, we weren't fighting bad guys at all. The people we were fighting were themselves fighting for independence from brutal French rule and had been since long before America stepped in. In fact, the only reason that North Vietnam turned communist was because we backed France's oppression in order to gain their support against Russia. Russia and China agreed to help Ho Chi Minh, but only if he would go full communist. He was more of a nationalist before that. Of course, once NVN did turn communist, they were suddenly part of the "international communist conspiracy" and had to be stopped at all costs.

So really, we brought it on ourselves.

On a global scale, I agree with you... but when you look at the tactics used by the VC and condoned by their commanders and political figures... well, you've got some gross human rights violations going on there. They were even further from "good guys" than us, on the battlefield.

Read up on the My Lai Massacre. Also asymmetric warfare. We were the invaders. They were fighting off our aggression. Did you expect them to just surrender? Obviously our government at the time did. Not saying that their methods were good, but that we didn't really give them many options, and that if there was a good guy in Vietnam, it certainly wasn't us.

That's pretty much my point. There was no good guy. Just patsies and victims.