Good Morning, Vietnam: Not Historically Accurate

1250 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Vietnam during the Cold War

“Here’s a little riddle for you. What's the difference between the army and the Cub Scouts? Cub Scouts don't have heavy artillery!” Adrian Cronauer tried to bring a kind of relief to the people of the war through his radio show. Cronauer was a United States Air Force sergeant and radio broadcaster who inspired the movie Good Morning, Vietnam. The Vietnam War, which was by far the longest war the United States has participated in, went on from 1945 until 1975. Even though the United States was involved with the war since the 50’s, by aiding France, they did not send troops until 1965. The Vietnam War began because North Vietnam wanted to combine both parts of Vietnam into one big country, but South Vietnam did not want this. The United States helped South Vietnam from keeping the countries separate and keeping communism out of their country. The war seemed like it would never end so a cease-fire was arranged in January 1973; although the war did not officially end until April 30, 1975. In this war, almost 60,000 Americans died and about 2 million Vietnamese died. The United States only got involved because they wanted to prevent communism from spreading throughout the rest of the world. Good Morning, Vietnam is not historically accurate because it did not portray Adrian Cronauer or the Vietnam War in the correct way.

Adrian Cronauer, played by Robin Williams, is United States Air Force sergeant and a talented radio Disk Jockey. In 1965, General Taylor hears one of Cronauer’s shows over Armed Forces radio in the island of Crete, and requests that he transfers his show to Vietnam so that he could be a confidence booster to these people during the time of war. Hauk adheres to strict Army guidelines in terms of humor and music pr...

... middle of paper ...

...m>.

History.com staff, . "History.com." Vietnam War History. A E Networks, n.d. Web. 13 Feb 2014. .

Fellers, Carla. ""What a Wonderful World": The Rhetoric of the Official and the Unofficial in Good Morning, Vietnam." Musical Choices. (November 1, 2005): 235-236. Web. 5 Mar. 2014. .

Hopkins, Alexander E. "Protest and Rock n' Roll During the Vietnam War." Student Pulse 4.11 (2012). http://www.studentpulse.com/a?id=713

Fellers, Carla A. "What A Wonderful World": The Rhetoric Of The Official And The Unofficial In Good Morning, Vietnam." War, Literature & The Arts: An International Journal Of The Humanities 17.1/2 (2005): 232-241. Academic Search Premier. Web. 26 Mar. 2014.

Show More
Related

  • Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy and the Vietnam War

    857 Words  | 2 Pages

    Anderson, D. (2002). The Columbia guide to the Vietnam War. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Read More

  • Mark Atwood Lawrence´s The Vietnam War: A Concise International History

    1155 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Vietnam War: A Concise International History is a strong book that portrays a vivid picture of both sides of the war. By getting access to new information and using valid sources, Lawrence’s study deserves credibility. After reading this book, a new light and understanding of the Vietnam war exists.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Philip Caputo's A Rumor Of War

    954 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Vietnam War has become a focal point of the Sixties. Known as the first televised war, American citizens quickly became consumed with every aspect of the war. In a sense, they could not simply “turn off” the war. A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo is a firsthand account of this horrific war that tore our nation apart. Throughout this autobiography, there were several sections that grabbed my attention. I found Caputo’s use of stark comparisons and vivid imagery, particularly captivating in that, those scenes forced me to reflect on my own feelings about the war. These scenes also caused me to look at the Vietnam War from the perspective of a soldier, which is not a perspective I had previously considered. In particular, Caputo’s account of

    Read More

  • The Battle of Hamburger Hill “AKA” Hill 937

    1840 Words  | 4 Pages

    E-History (2012, N.d.). Retrieved March 25, 2012, from http://ehistory.osu.edu/vietnam/essays/battlecommand/index.cfm.

    Read More

  • Exposing the Truth in Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong

    2203 Words  | 5 Pages

    Fussell, Paul. "Vietnam." The Bloody Game: An Anthology of  Modern War. Ed. Paul Fussell. London: Scribners, 1991. 651-6.

    Read More

  • The Temptations' 1970 Hit 'Ball of Confusion'

    1227 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Vietnam War is one of the most controversial issues in American history. It is no secret that the American public was not in favor of this war, which is why the government’s decision to keep the US involved for over ten years created such a disconnect between America’s people and their government. In the third verse the Temptations sing, “People all over the world are shouting 'End the war.'” The Temptations bravely attack the government, addressing their continuation of a war no one wants. Although The Temptations avoid explicitly naming the war, or the government as the guilty party, it is evident that this is a criticism, or at least an acknowledgement of a predicament America found itself in.

    Read More

  • The USA Should NOT Have Entered the Vietnam War

    945 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Vietnam War took place in between 1947- 1975. It consisted of North Vietnam trying to make South Vietnam a communism government. The United States later joined this conflict because of the stress North Vietnam was putting to South Vietnam to become a government that America did not want. The main reason why America joined was because of a theory called the Domino Effect. America and Russia were going through what has been dubbed the Cold War. The Domino Effect is the theory that communism will spread form one country to another. United states does not want this because our government is a democracy and communism opposes everything we stand for. America fearing communism was growing, stepped into Vietnam with America’s interest in mind, instead of Vietnam’s. There are several reason why American should have not gotten involved with this war. The most important reason was that America government officials made to much of a big deal about communism. This might sound cynical, but America to a certain degree did over react. Let it be said that it is much easier to say this after the fact. By looking back at McCarthyism, we can see the silliness of this fear. There is a serious side though. Thousands of people dies for a government that has no impact of their daily life. What regime Vietnam was going to change over to had no effect on the every day cycle of the United States. So truly, one can say, this can not one thing to do with America, its government and people.

    Read More

  • Romanticism in Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato

    1962 Words  | 4 Pages

    Raymond, Michael W.  "Imagined Responses to Vietnam: Tim    O'Brien's Going After Cacciato.  Critique 24 (Winter 1983).

    Read More

  • Nursing During the Vietnam War

    666 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hillstrom, Kevin and Hillstrom, L.C. (1998). The Vietnam Experience: a Concise Encyclopedia of American Literature, Songs and Films. Wesport, CT: Greenwood Press, Inc.

    Read More

  • The Things They Carried by Tim OBrien

    2258 Words  | 5 Pages

    "Overview of the Vietnam War." Digital History. Digital History, n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2014. .

    Read More

  • Vietnam War Research Paper

    740 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Vietnam War was the longest war in America's history of involvement. Twenty years of hell, land mines, cross-fire, and death. Vietnam was divided by the Geneva Accord. The north being communist run by Ho Chi Minh. The south being anti-Communist run by Ngo Dinh Diem. Before Vietnam was separated, it was run by France. France had ruled most of Indochina since the late 1800s. The Vietnamese were unhappy with the way the French were controlling, therefore, many of them took refuge in China. When in China, they began to follow the lead of Ho Chi Minh, who wanted to model the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence as that of the U.S. version. In the 1940s, Japan had taken over Vietnam which upset Ho Chi Minh and his revolutionaries when they had returned a year later.

    Read More

  • Creedence Clearwater and the Vietnam War

    2825 Words  | 6 Pages

    To the persistent individual, though, there is a body of music in existence that merits regard. It is powerful music written by the youth of America, youngsters who did have a stake in the Vietnam War. There can be little question about the origins of the power which American protest music conveyed: those who wrote such music lived each day with the real knowledge that they were losing friends in, and could possibly be forced themselves to go to, Vietnam. One such group, Creedence Clearwater Revival, made its contribution to this genre near the end of the Vietnam War.

    Read More

  • Good Morning, Vietnam

    929 Words  | 2 Pages

    The film ‘Good Morning, Vietnam' is made based on a true story. Set in Saigon in 1965, the movie introduces us to Adrian Cronauer (Robin Williams), an Air Force disc jockey who has been flown in from another assignment to a post at the center of the escalating conflict in Vietnam. The character is based on a real deejay who ran afoul of the military authorities in Saigon because of the on-air liberties he took with regard to matters of style and language and musical taste.

    Read More

  • Fear of Communism Caused the Vietnam War

    1616 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Vietnam war has been referred to by many names, one of the longer ones was 'the cornerstone of the free world southeast Asia'. It was called that by John F. Kennedy. He was talking about Vietnam being and essential country in a non-communist world. He believed that if Vietnam became a communist country, all of the surrounding countries would also become communists. This is the main reason America was involved in the Vietnam war. Another reason was that America wanted to spread their “political ideas around the globe”. They wanted to do this so that their anti-communism stance was clear. The public also wanted to keep communism from spreading. To soldiers, the war was like a crusade, a great journey to purge the communists from Vietnam. Sadly, this is not what happened. The Viet Cong (VC) had far better tactics than the US. The VC was told to 'nibble at the enemy' so that he could 'neither eat or sleep'. This worked very well. Another demoralizing tactic the VC used was their landmines; they were designed to blow the limbs off the soldiers without killing them. This tied up hospital beds and meant the soldiers had to carry the wounded back to the base.

    Read More

  • The Man I Killed, by Tim O'Brien

    1235 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Vietnam War was one of the longest and most expensive wars in American history. It started from 1955 till April 30, 1975. This war lasted for almost 20 years. According to the article "How the U.S Got Involved In Vietnam" by Jeff Drake the U.S attacked Vietman and this wasn't supposed to happen. This war could have been avoidable. The 58,000 Americans didn’t have to die, nor did the 2,000,000 Vietnamese. The U.S government was responsible for their deaths. What the government told the public from the very beginning was that they were going to war because they had to stop the communist menace in Vietnam or other countries would follow suit; that they had to defend the democratic South Vietnamese government against the gathering Red hordes. While other people say it was an attempt by the U.S to suppress a heroic Vietnamese national liberation movement that had driven French colonialism out of its country (Drake, 1993).

    Read More

More about Good Morning, Vietnam: Not Historically Accurate

Open Document