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The effects of WW 2 propaganda
Impact of propaganda in ww2
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The Vietnam War changed the life of Americans because it turned them against each other. Many people were against the Vietnam War because they thought United state should not be involved. Also, they were blaming the soldiers without having the knowledge that the soldiers were only following the orders that were given by the government. Therefore, the soldiers suffered when they came back due to the poor treatment from the protesters. The worst thing about the Vietnam War was soldiers losing their humanity. The majority of soldiers in Vietnam were between 18 and 21 years old, and starting to kill at a young age could make them unsympathetic. In the Things They Carried, O’Brien talked about how one of his companion Azar, was making …show more content…
- Oral Histories from NJ Vietnam Veterans,” during the Vietnam War, soldiers thought they did a great job but when they came back home it was “coming home to a different country.” They were expecting a warm hug and kisses from their people just like the World War II but instead they were called names like “Baby killers” and protesters threw tomatoes and spit on them. They were even told to go back to the plane. Those veterans were surprised about what was going on because they were not aware of the protests. One of the veterans exemplifies how it was a huge turn off if you mentioned that you were a Vietnam veteran when one approaching girls. Furthermore the Vietnam Veterans were discriminated in many ways. For instance, Dan Edwards shares a story about how a bank teller hurled a check book at him while opening a bank account after he mentioned that he got back from Vietnam. Therefore, those veterans threw their uniforms in the garbage because they did not wanted to be abused by the …show more content…
Many people lost their lives for nothing because the people they thought they were protecting were their greatest enemy when the one who survived came back. I do not blame the citizens for their actions because some of those vets killed innocent people in Vietnam but not all of them killed innocent people. However, those vets were only following orders from their superior who happens to be the government, and no one wanted to disobey their superior because they could have faced serious criminal charges. The people should have blamed the government instead of blaming the
The Vietnam War was the most publicized war during its era; moreover, this was the most unpopular war to hit the United States. All over the country riots began to rise, anti-war movement spread all over the states begging to stop the war and chaos overseas. This truly was a failure on the political side of things. For the public, all they saw was a failed attempt in a far away country. Events such as the Tet Offensive where the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong established an all out attack on key locations around Vietnam, and although the Viet Cong was virtually wiped out, this still had a large affect psychologically on the troops as well as the populist back in the United States.
The Vietnam War was one of many. One reason some people argue the US should have been in the Vietnam War is because of the belief the US was trying to help establish a democracy there. The Vietnam war helping America win the cold war was another reason people believe the US was justified in the Vietnam war. Others believe that the US should not have been there because they were supporting a corrupt government, another reason is that American warfare was excessive and abusively killed many innocent civilians and ruined the land. While it appeared that the US was trying to spread democracy and win the cold war, but in truth, the US was supporting a mini Hitler, and our strategy had little chance of
Tim O’Brien served in the Vietnam War, and his short story “The Things They Carried” presents the effects of the war on its young soldiers. The treatment of veterans after their return also affects them. The Vietnam War was different from other wars, because too many in the U.S. the soldiers did not return as heroes but as cruel, wicked, and drug addicted men. The public directs its distaste towards the war at the soldiers, as if they are to blame. The also Veterans had little support from the government who pulled them away from their families to fight through the draft. Some men were not able to receive the help they needed because the symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) did not show until a year
The origin of the myth of spat-upon Vietnam veterans lies in the propaganda campaign of the Nixon-Agnew administration to counter the credibility of the anti-war movement and prolong the war in Southeast Asia. Nixon had won election as peace candidate, but he was also committed to not being the first American president to lose a war. It was a contradictory agenda. When the Vietnaame...
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.
Tim O’Brien shows that the effects of the Vietnam War can differ depending on the person. For Rat, those effects meant loosing his innocence and his exposure to death sent him into a sad mental state. For Azar, it can be concluded that the effects of the war and his exposure to death made him realize that not everything was a joke and that it is not always best to be cruel and bitter. These soldiers experienced turning points, ultimately shaping them into different men with different personalities.
The violent nature that the soldiers acquired during their tour in Vietnam is one of O'Brien's predominant themes in his novel. By consciously selecting very descriptive details that reveal the drastic change in manner within the men, O'Brien creates within the reader an understanding of the effects of war on its participants. One of the soldiers, "Norman Bowler, otherwise a very gentle person, carried a Thumb. . .The Thumb was dark brown, rubbery to touch. . . It had been cut from a VC corpse, a boy of fifteen or sixteen"(O'Brien 13). Bowler had been a very good-natured person in civilian life, yet war makes him into a very hard-mannered, emotionally devoid soldier, carrying about a severed finger as a trophy, proud of his kill. The transformation shown through Bowler is an excellent indicator of the psychological and emotional change that most of the soldiers undergo. To bring an innocent young man from sensitive to apathetic, from caring to hateful, requires a great force; the war provides this force. However, frequently are the changes more drastic. A soldier named "Ted Lavender adopted an orphaned puppy. . .Azar strapped it to a Claymore antipersonnel mine and squeezed the firing device"(O'Brien 39). Azar has become demented; to kill a puppy that someone else has adopted is horrible. However, the infliction of violence has become the norm of behavior for these men; the fleeting moment of compassion shown by one man is instantly erased by another, setting order back within the group. O'Brien here shows a hint of sensitivity among the men to set up a startling contrast between the past and the present for these men. The effect produced on the reader by this contrast is one of horror; therefore fulfilling O'Brien's purpose, to convince the reader of war's severely negative effects.
Most of the soldiers did not know what the overall purpose was of fighting the Vietnamese (Tessein). The young men “carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place” (O’Brien 21). The soldiers did not go to war for glory or honor, but simply to avoid the “blush of dishonor” (21). In fact, O’Brien states “It was not courage, exactly; the object was not valor. Rather, they were to...
It was a very bloody war, with more than 58,000 American soldiers having perished in combat. Also, during the decade of direct U.S Military participation in Vietnam, during early times of the year, 1964 the U.S treasury spent over 140 billion dollars on this war. “This was enough money to fund urban projects in every major American city” (history.com). As this war affected the American’s, it affected the Vietnamese people too. This war affected both the American’s and the Vietnamese, because in the year 1973 the United States began withdrawing troops.
Engaging in the war in Vietnam brought a whole different set of "American Views" to the topic of war. This time the country did not support the war like we've seen in the past. Mostly by young people, the war effort was criticized and Americans staged massive protests. The Vietnam War's controversy spurred a great many sources of protest, against our government's use of power, how far we could stretch the rights of free expression, and primarily against the violence of the war itself.
The impact of the Vietnam War upon the soldiers who fought there was huge. The experience forever changed how they would think and act for the rest of their lives. One of the main reasons for this was there was little to no understanding by the soldiers as to why they were fighting this war. They felt they were killing innocent people, farmers, poor hard working people, women, and children were among their victims. Many of the returning soldiers could not fall back in to their old life styles. First they felt guilt for surviving many of their brothers in arms. Second they were haunted by the atrocities of war. Some soldiers could not go back to the mental state of peacetime. Then there were soldiers Tim O’Brien meant while in the war that he wrote the book “The Things They Carried,” that showed how important the role of story telling was to soldiers. The role of stories was important because it gave them an outlet and that outlet was needed both inside and outside the war in order to keep their metal state in check.
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.
...and their families, not all of the wounds are physical and they are not left behind in the cells upon return stateside. The Men who returned home from WWII were welcomed and more importantly celebrated by the entire nation as a whole, yet the efforts of those who returned home from Vietnam War did not reverberate as strongly within the country. The Vietnam POW was lightheartedly honored by our government, but the greater American populist struggled to separate their own personnel beliefs on their discontent with the war and unfairly placed the blame on those who had returned home after doing only what had been asked of them. The then President Nixon briefly spoke during his State of the Union speech saying along the lines that, they returned with honor and we can be proud of our courageous POWs for that they came home with their heads high, and not on their knees.
...nd innocent villagers of My Lai, it was a time when American’s questioned their own as being “bad guys” or “good guys”. Were America’s tortuous and cruel acts to be considered patriotic or dishonorable? Some Americans, with bitter feelings for all the American lives lost in the Vietnam War, gave credit to Lieutenant Calley for leading troops in participating in such an atrocious event. History shows that there is still much debate on some facts of the massacre and many stories and opinions, although we will never know the facts exactly, what we do know is that America will never forget this tragic event, it will be talked about in American History for many years to come, and the Vietminh hearts will always fill with sadness when they think of the many lives that were lost on that tragic day in history, their minds will always have unspeakable memories of that day.
As we got further and further into the Vietnam War, few lives were untouched by grief, anger and fear. The Vietnamese suffered the worst hardship; children lay dead in the street, villages remained nothing but charred ashes, and bombs destroyed thousands of innocent civilians. Soldiers were scarred emotionally as well as physically, as