Life of a Vietnam Soldier - 582 Words

Wars are fought for freedom and independence and usually when soldiers come home we receive them with open arms ready to praise them and thank them for putting their lives on the line. If you were asked to describe a soldier, you’d probably say heroic, brave, courageous, or honorable. After the Vietnam War, parades weren’t the welcoming soldiers got; instead, they were shunned and booed at. People’s opinion on the war was greatly influenced by the media. During the Vietnam War, the horrors that were happening on the battlefield were shown to Americans in their living rooms. There was no censorship meaning Americans back home saw dead bodies, Vietnamese children being shot and villages being burnt, all done by American Soldiers. Watching children, babies and old people being killed caused people to label soldiers as murderers and baby killers. Before Vietnam, soldiers had always been shown in a heroic way. But now, reporters would show only parts of a story, the parts that made soldiers look bad. In the Vietnam War, reporters could literally follow soldiers onto the battle fields and show it on television. Also, most photographers were interested in showing the bad aspects of the war such as the remaining destroyed village of Vietnamese or the suffering of soldiers. The media built stereotypes of soldiers at war as part of anti- war protests so photographers would show the parts that benefited anti-war protests and captured only half the story in his photograph. ForShow MoreRelated Sweetheart of the Song of Tra Bong as Metaphor Essay1150 Words   |  5 PagesSweetheart of the Song of Tra Bong as Metaphor  Ã‚   The Vietnam War is a strange and unexplainable event in American history. The controversies surrounding the American involvement in Vietnam and the need for Vietnam veterans to tell their stories of the war are prevalent in the post-Vietnam culture of America. 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Over this period, 9,087,000 men from United States were deployed, 58,220 were killed and more than 300,000 were wounded. The war also killed an estimated 2 million Vietnamese civilians, 1.1 million North Vietnamese troops, and 200,000 South Vietnamese troops. The Vietnam War was the first war America ever lost and this lost would lead to a heavy impact on theRead MoreWar in Films: Universal Soldier1320 Words   |  6 Pagesagainst the Vietnam War made their views known by many forms of protesting such as forming organizations, rallying, and anti-war protest music. Anti-war protest music was an opportunity to put people’s perspectives into song to hopefully spread their message. Buffy Sainte-Marie wrote the song â€Å"Universal Soldier† in 1962 and her message was that â€Å"Universal Soldier is about individual responsibility for w ar and how the old feudal thinking kills us all† (Boulanger). The song â€Å"Universal Soldier† was usedRead MoreThe Effect of Vietnam War on the Soldiers1679 Words   |  7 Pages The Vietnam War was the longest and the most unpopular American war of the twentieth century. The United States was involve in the Vietnam from 1944 to 1973, but it was only during the last years that the U.S deployed ground troops (Lawrence 1). For the first time the United states was the aggressor. Vietnam is situated thousands of miles from the United States, so Vietnam was not a direct threat to the United States’ safety. The Vietnam leader Ho Chi Minh seem to look up to the United States,Read MoreA Compare and Contrast Analysis of Experiences in the Iraq and Vietnam Wars832 Words   |  4 Pages COMPARE AND CONTRAST EXPERIENCES OF IRAQ VIETNAM: Thousands were killed, and many more were wounded in the Vietnam war, a war that many are to this day still living with the consequences. The Things They Carried, written by William Timothy OBrien. The story takes place in Vietnam, during the war, sometime in the 1960s. First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, and his unit are in Vietnam serving for the United States. Jimmy, is in love with a college woman named Martha from back home. Martha writes JimmyRead MoreReality of the Vietnam War843 Words   |  4 Pagesof the Vietnam War During the Vietnam War the reality of warfare brought many soldiers back to a home that didnt want them. Their feelings torn by atrocities, the loss of friends, and the condition of loneliness only made the experience worse. Did the issues on the home front affect the issues on the frontline? The novel Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers is a perfect example of the conflict and diversity among other soldiers during the Vietnam War. It shows the reality many soldiers faced and