“We’re such a militaristic country, but we shy away from that, preferring instead to see ourselves as a republic, not as an empire,” he said. Children symbolically represent innocence, and we share a global ethic of caring for them. Vietnamese civilians killed by US Army soldiers during pursuit of Vietcong militia, as per order of Lieut. As we recognize the 50th anniversary of this tragic conflict, USC Dornsife scholars challenge this one-sided perspective, re-examining the legacy of what even the Vietnamese refer to as “The American War.”. Please explore selected contributions on this page. These stories from the Vietnam War will break your heart. HANOI, VIETNAM—Forty years ago, on April 30, 1975, Nguyen Dang Phat experienced the happiest day of his life. faculty research, alumni, usc dornsife magazine, general interest, topics: “To me it was just another movie, it didn’t have an impact on me either way,” he said. Please explore selected contributions on this page. At first, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, but looking closely, I saw stairs leading into the ground and realized he … If we maintain that the photograph of Kim Phuc resonated so deeply on so many levels that it had an impact on policy and indeed hastened the end of the war, what can we say about a more recent shocking photograph of another child tragically caught up in the consequences of war — that of Alan Kurdi, the 3-year-old Syrian refugee boy washed up on a Turkish beach in September 2015? “What we learned from Vietnam is not to show pictures of war,” Gustafson said. My 10-year-old mind had no way to make sense of drugs, psychedelic rock, murder, atrocity, massacre and Playboy bunnies. Get the skinny on ancient history. Ross agrees, noting that footage similar to that showing military coffins being unloaded from troop ships, which appeared on the nightly news during the Vietnam War and helped sway public opinion against the war, was banned by President George H. W. Bush — a ban that endured for 18 years during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. “That hurts even more than the sense of abandonment,” he said. The photograph, which became emblematic of the anti-war movement, dominated the front pages of the American press. I still remember the formation of marine helicopters coming in to rescue us. “I don’t want there to be any softening of the horror,” he said. Luong was 9 years old when he escaped the ravages of war-torn Vietnam with his family, just a day before Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese on April 30, 1975. “Although a huge amount of work had already been done about the Vietnam War, I felt that no one had yet tried to write a novel that dealt with all sides, and with the problem of looking at a war from all sides,” Nguyen said. Vietnam… For me, the seed of that came from Vietnam.”. In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, thousands of so-called "boat people" fled Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, often in small overcrowded ships that were barely seaworthy. In fact, he added, according to a secret CIA memo, 70 percent of America’s reason for fighting the Vietnam War was a face-saving exercise to avoid a humiliating defeat to the U.S. reputation as a guarantor. “So it’s very hard to recast it as a noble struggle between people with different ideologies because there was nothing noble about that war.”. Brig. The script is by Geoffrey Ward, and the series is narrated by Peter Coyote.This series is one of the few PBS series to carry a TV-MA rating. October 11, 2020 — 32 Comments. Yet we must not forget, Nguyen reminds us, that 6 million Jews and 20 million Russians died during World War II, and that 800,000 Rwandans were slaughtered during the Rwandan genocide. Vietnam War Stories from Vietcong Perspective. Standing on the deck of the Hancock, Luong said, he already knew he would serve in the U.S. military to give back to the nation that had saved him and his family from almost certain death. Escaping by boat, many found freedom in foreign land, many were captured and … The Vietnamese refugee success stories are plentiful, but let’s never forget about those who were not so fortunate. It was 1967 and Gustafson was 13 years old. Ngoc Minh Ngo says her father was a colonel in the South Vietnamese army, ‘caught up in a complicated war’: “The Vietnam War was far more complex from … “Amid all the Americana, high school students just a few years older than me were carrying a coffin in the parade to protest the Vietnam War. We sent a writer out to Vietnam to speak with Nguyen Hoa Giai. When such memos were revealed, the result, Ross said, was that Vietnam killed Americans’ confidence in the ability of American military power to fight the right wars. At first, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, but looking closely, I saw stairs leading into the ground and realized he … Before Vietnam, he argues, the U.S. saw itself as a world benefactor, a strong country that had never lost a war. Here's another: They were a bunch of scared (mostly) young kids fighting in a massive conflict for very personal reasons. Escaping by boat, many found freedom in foreign land, many were captured and … Ross stresses that the film studios largely remained silent on Vietnam until after the war was over. It didn’t want to risk being accused of a lack of patriotism, so it avoided putting out films critical of the war until it was over,” Ross said. The … In it, the callous cruelty of war is stripped bare and the viewer is forced to confront America’s complicity in committing atrocities against the innocent. Ehrhart, left, in October 1967 near Quang Tri, Vietnam, and today. The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died in the war. Nov 4, 2020. Raised at the dead end of a dirt road in a small, conservative town in New Jersey, Gustafson first became aware that there was more than one perspective on the Vietnam War during his hometown’s Fourth of July parade. Calley Jr., March 16, 1968, in My Lai, South Vietnam. The rift Gustafson felt within himself that day was an echo, he realized, of the division he now knew existed within his country. Well, that's one side of the story. Gustafson, who is writing a memoir about the events of that parade, said growing up during the Vietnam War gave him his first lesson in what he calls “democratic thinking.”, “Tyranny tells people to learn from or respect one voice,” he said. “Vietnam was the wrong war at the wrong time in the wrong place.”. “Here that wasn’t clear to me, and what was worse, people like me were the ones being killed. One day, I saw my neighbor Jerry slowly climbing out from somewhere below his backyard. Vietnam War Story: How This Cellar Saved My Friend. She is naked because she tore off her burning clothes after a South Vietnamese napalm bomb attack on her village on June 8, 1972. Read stories from diverse points-of-view about how the Vietnam War era has affected our sense of self and our place in the world. Be the first to submit a tribute honoring a vet from the Vietnam War! They appeared, like images of angels from the sky.”. Three Vietnam War Veterans Share Their Stories W.D. October 4, 2020 — 11 Comments. One day, I saw my neighbor Jerry slowly climbing out from somewhere below his backyard. We have such trouble seeing the ugly sides of America. 4 Creepy Ghost Stories From the Vietnam War Saigon's haunted apartments. But in some ways we don’t want to learn; we don’t want to confront it. Of … Stories from Vietnam. One gets the impression that Nguyen wrote this book primarily to commemorate and memorialise her interviewees, and the RVNAF more broadly. Around 300,000 troops joined American forces in 1964. My Worst Day in Vietnam. Pham Thi Phuc married Tran Huu Naghi, a decorated North Vietnamese soldier who was shot through the neck and sprayed with Agent Orange during the Tet offensive. Luong was 9 years old when he escaped the ravages of war-torn Vietnam with his family, just a day before Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese on April 30, 1975. The birth of his oldest daughter in 1983 added another perspective — one of empathy. However, like Gustafson, he says he has been deeply moved by some of the documentaries made about Vietnam. “Looking at the last years of that conflict and talking to some of the very few remaining U.S. advisers in Vietnam, we learn that the South Vietnamese fought for the most part heroically. If you are a veteran, know a veteran, or are related to a veteran, and would like to place a personal story on the Online Veterans Tribute, please mail it to: American Veterans Center 1100 N. Glebe Rd. We and our partners use cookies to better understand your needs, improve performance and provide you with personalised content and advertisements. Wm. Here's what he told us. An American soldier guides U.S. Army helicopters in to land through a haze of purple smoke. “This means the possibility of capturing and seeing horrific images like the napalm girl, which played a role in bringing American involvement in the Vietnam War to an end, is now reduced for the U.S. population.”. Thompson’s Hill (April 9-10, 1968), by Richard Dieterle. “Our war, our horror, is more unique than other peoples’ and that’s actually not true.”. A Vietnam War Story. A Vietnam War Story. Viet Thanh Nguyen as a small child in Vietnam with his mother, Linda Kim Nguyen, at a rubber plantation in Ban Me Thuot in 1973. Referred to as Biêt-Dông-Quân or BDQ, a significant number of Ranger-qualified officers and NCOs served as advisors to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Ranger units throughout the duration of the war…nearly in 2,000 total. A Vietnam War Story. The image of the napalm girl fleeing in terror, the way she is robbed of her innocence in that moment, captured the deplorable longstanding involvement of the U.S. military in the region.”. I would like to say a special thanks to everyone who helped me turn this documentary into a reality, from the people who graciously shared their stories, pictures, and poetry; to the friends who helped me translate. For the young Vietnamese-American boy, watching Apocalypse Now opened the door onto a very different view of a very different war, one that was to have major personal and professional repercussions. It’s the story of Vietnam’s destruction and self-destruction, as seen through the eyes of a woman who was once a girl growing up in a community and family corrupted by war, who, as a teenager, became a refugee in Saigon living among both American and South Vietnamese soldiers. In 1974, with … My Worst Day in Vietnam. The Incredible Story Behind a Haunting Picture of a POW in Vietnam Captured U.S. pilot major Dewey Waddell is guarded by a militiawoman with a gun and a bayonet on a rice field. Trip to Vietnam I heard during my tour the difference between a fairy tale and a war story is that one starts with “Once upon a time” and the other with “This is no shit!” I’m not sure these were the exact words, but it hits a central truth, which will be central to you while you read my book. A Vietnam War Story. One gets the impression that Nguyen wrote this book primarily to commemorate and memorialise her interviewees, and the RVNAF more broadly. Protests against racial injustice. The question of perspective lies at the heart of Nguyen’s novel and is a vital one for anyone seeking to establish a more balanced, less-biased truth about the 20-year conflict. A Vietnamese Refugee Tells Her Story. Follow Us We asked viewers how they experienced the events of the Vietnam era. Vietnam Stories. The Chinese dubbed the American unit, “Golden Dragons,” because of their fierce fighting spirit. “The fact that 6 million people died during a war was actually not unique during the 20th century. The Golden dragons also fought in the Iraqi war, a war of similar consequences of Vietnam. We try to learn some wisdom from the suffering caused by the tragedies of history. A Vietnam War Story. It was only later, after he developed a political conscience at college, that fury also entered the picture. Vietnam, Past Is Prologue, probes the legacies of the Vietnam War and its aftermath through maps, videos, and paintings that highlight the voices and stories of former Vietnamese refugees. There Was No Rules At All. For Nguyen, winning the Pulitzer was a personal victory, a validation of his long-term project to force Americans and Vietnamese to reconsider the history of the war and their involvement in it. August 23, 2020 | Featured, Reflections, Vietnamese Voices. “Bill” Ehrhart joined the U.S. Marines when he was 17. “We want to cover up how we began and developed as an empire. He fought as a Viet Cong from the late 1950s to the end of the war in the mid-'70s. It also went a step further, explicitly describing the war as one of “noble sacrifice” — a perspective on the war that has also found favor among Republicans. The traditional historiography of the Vietnam War often avoids reckoning with the postwar history of the Hanoi regime and its human consequences, and Nguyen’s stories are a useful corrective. The headline reads “First American Photograph in North Vietnam Under Siege.” Photo by Lee Lockwood/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images. Ehrhart, left, in October 1967 near Quang Tri, Vietnam, and today. Today, despite our perception that we are more knowledgeable about current events thanks to 24/7 internet news access, Nguyen says censorship of war-zone images has increased, leaving us paradoxically sometimes less well informed than we were during the Vietnam era. We try to get students to listen to those voices, even when it’s challenging.”. But that’s what we do in the humanities. Vietnam War Story: How This Cellar Saved My Friend. War Stories on DVD as told at the 2006 VHPA Reunion. A Vietnam War Story. “That’s the ethos I was raised with — that as ugly as war is, it’s important to sign up to defend your country.”. Although the Kurdi image went viral, it did not have the impact of the napalm girl in mobilizing people and governments to find a solution to the refugee crisis, or to end the conflict that is causing such suffering, argues Sarah Gualtieri, associate professor of American studies and ethnicity, history and Middle East studies. Steve, California, 1970. Even when such images do emerge, their impact is diminished, Nguyen said. That is the most horrific thing about it.”, Read more stories from USC Dornsife Magazine’s Fall 2016-Spring 2017 issue >>, categories: Between 1975 to 1992, almost two million Vietnamese risked their lives to flee oppression and hardship after the Vietnam War, in one of the largest mass exoduses in modern history. Art Jacobs in Vietnam 1967-1970 video. It was a war movie that was horrific, and that placed me at the center of that horror. It was 1981, and unbeknownst to his parents — refugees from Vietnam who fled to the U.S. six years earlier with their then 4-year-old son when Saigon fell to the communists — Nguyen had rented Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now to while away a solitary weekend while his mom and dad worked long hours at their neighborhood grocery store in San Jose. “My baseball coach, who was also chief of the fire department, made them stand and respect the flag. October 18, 2020 — 24 Comments. Iraq like Vietnam was a war of so many contradictions… “a war with no boundaries or indications of friend or foe. An important outlet for these efforts is The Conversation, an independent source for informed commentary and analysis written by the…, To test her students’ knowledge of history in a more social, casual setting, USC Dornsife’s Lindsay O’Neill hosts an online pub trivia-style competition pitting Trojans against Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish. I would like to say a special thanks to everyone who helped me turn this documentary into a reality, from the people who graciously shared their stories, pictures, and poetry; to the friends who helped me translate. The long shadow of the Vietnam War continues to hang over every American foreign policy venture, even today.”. Vietnam War Books: Nonfiction An Intimate History of Killing by Joanna Bourke. ... 1964 in a bloody battle along with three other brave American advisors serving with the Vietnamese … “My sisters and I were scared to death. This photograph of terrified children fleeing from a South Vietnamese napalm bomb attack on their village on June 8, 1972, became an iconic image of the anti-war movement. Podcast: Mother Nature and the Infantry Soldier. The Vietnamese refugee success stories are plentiful, but let’s never forget about those who were not so fortunate. It’s a shame, because although there are many excellent books written by American authors about the conflict, they don’t give you an idea of how a Vietnamese person saw the war. Twenty years later, that anger was the catalyst that drove Nguyen to write his Pulitzer Prize–winning first novel, The Sympathizer (Grove Press, 2015), which explores the Vietnam War from multiple perspectives through the lens of his conflicted protagonist, an American-educated spy for the Viet Cong. Here's what he told us. When they landed on the USS Hancock the ship was so big, Luong remembers, that he and his siblings were disoriented. The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now — these films changed our post-war view of Vietnam, recasting it as our very own personal horror story. Refugees often encountered pirates while sailing the dangerous South China Sea. At university, his first politics course had him reading the Pentagon Papers. Not a single punch is … Photo courtesy of Viet Thanh Nguyen. October 4, 2020 — 11 Comments. In one single battle in Quang Tri – the border between North and South Vietnam and the most attacked city during the war – the bombs used had the destructive power of 7 nuclear bombs in Hiroshima. “That was going to be my subject, not just the war itself, but how the war was regarded.”. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for 1972 VIETNAM WAR VIETNAMESE TROOPS ON DUTY DURING THE CONFLICT ORG VTG Photo Y34 at the best online prices at eBay! As the first hypnotic notes of The Doors’ “The End” played over a lush, idyllic Vietnamese jungle, 10-year-old Viet Thanh Nguyen’s eyes widened as the peaceful green palm trees erupted into a fiery, orange inferno. For many, the horrors of the Vietnam War were — and still are — unforgettably distilled in one unbearable image: that of Phan Thi Kim Phuc, the 9-year-old Vietnamese girl running naked in the collective eternity of our imaginations down a road, wailing in agony. My father... Jack V Sturiano describes his ‘Forrest Gump moment’:. “When that image of Kim Phuc came out it was 1972. Saigon’s haunted apartments. The Vietnam War was the prolonged struggle between nationalist forces attempting to unify the country of Vietnam under a communist government and the United States (with the aid of the South Vietnamese) attempting to prevent the spread of communism. While such images fueled the anti-war movement in the U.S., they served to reinforce Luong’s determination to continue his family’s legacy of military service. “What that means is that we’re personally invested in it,” he said. The Incredible Story Behind a Haunting Picture of a POW in Vietnam Captured U.S. pilot major Dewey Waddell is guarded by a militiawoman with a gun and a bayonet on a rice field. The Vietnam War (Vietnamese: Chiến tranh Việt Nam), also known as the Second Indochina War, and in Vietnam as the Resistance War Against America (Vietnamese: Kháng chiến chống Mỹ) or simply the American War, was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. They were young, half a world away from home, and at war. As an American soldier and a former Vietnamese refugee, seeing images of the war triggered conflicting emotions. The alumnus, who earned a degree in biological sciences in 1987, is the first Vietnamese-born general officer in the U.S. military. “Images of children resonate very deeply with us. Iraq like Vietnam was a war of so many contradictions… “a war with no boundaries or indications of friend or foe. The Fog of War: The Vietnamese View of the Ia Drang Battle: ... Navy flight training video during the Vietnam War. “Only 20 percent was to keep South Vietnam from falling into Red Chinese hands, while 10 percent of our war aims were committed to helping the South Vietnamese enjoy a better, freer democratic way of life,” he said. Yet, in movies and the media, they weren’t positively portrayed.” Luong feels the suggestion that somehow they didn’t do their part or were a bunch of cowards who didn’t defend their homeland, is very painful to his father’s generation. Former Vietnamese Soldier Shares His War Stories for Friendship. Vietnam war: 'In a weird way, it’s with me every day' Ngoc Minh Ngo says her father was a colonel in the South Vietnamese army, ‘caught up in a complicated war’:. “Watching that film made me feel like there was no place for me in American culture,” he said. The Vietnam War is a 10-part American television documentary series about the Vietnam War written by Geoffrey C. Ward and directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. Newsweek national security correspondent Jeff Stein is the author of A Murder in Wartime: The Untold Spy Story That Changed the Course of the Vietnam War (St. Martin's Press, 1992). But there are many, many more ghost stories throughout Vietnam, relevant to the war fought there. “When I saw parents visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., I imagined what it would be like to lose a child, and I broke down and cried. It happened in the early morning hours of December 27, 1966, Near T hôn Xuân Sơn, Vietnam. “Hollywood is in the money-making business not the consciousness-raising business. Communist forces had already started shelling the airport when U.S. marines flew Luong, his father — an officer in the South Vietnamese marine corps — mother and seven sisters to a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, the USS Hancock . Introduction to RE: Vietnam -- Stories Since the War. In 1960, counter-guerrilla forces of South Vietnamese Army light infantry Ranger companies were created. Photo by Nick Ut, courtesy of AP Photo. “Looking back, I realized that rage had rendered it impossible for me to be an American. “I was completely shaped by responding to Vietnam and it still affects how I teach today,” he said. “Our media is not as willing to show the ugly, tragic, atrocious side of war. One I particularly remember showed a woman weeping over the remains of her husband that were in a small garbage bag.”. Calley Jr., March 16, 1968, in My Lai, South Vietnam. Read stories from diverse points-of-view about how the Vietnam War era has affected our sense of self and our place in the world. Watching it changed the 10 year old’s destiny, setting him on the path to becoming a USC Dornsife professor and a Pulitzer Prize–winning author. The script is by Geoffrey Ward, and the series is narrated by Peter Coyote.This series is one of the few PBS series to carry a TV-MA rating. War Stories on DVD as told at the 2007 VHPA Reunion. Though it was a relatively short battle, it was by far the most intense fighting I saw during my tour. Haywood T. "The Kid" Kirkland from Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans (1984) In an article in the New York Times Magazine on March 24, 1968, reporter Sol Stern observed, "In Vietnam between 1961 and 1964, Negroes accounted for more than 20 percent of Army fatalities, even though they represented only 12.6 percent of Army … BROWSE STORIES. Was it a war of racism and atrocity, or a war of noble, failed intentions? I was confused because I wasn’t sure whether I should be rooting for the Americans who were doing the killing, who were committing all the horrors, or whether I should be identifying with the Vietnamese who had the horror being inflicted upon them and their voices taken away.”. This year will go down as one of the most troubled — and inspirational — in history. “Censorship is much more pervasive now so the media simply doesn’t have access to U.S. military operations in the same way American and foreign media did in Vietnam,” Nguyen said. “There were platitudes about caring for people in crisis, but the Kurdi image had limited resonance in American policy debates, despite the fact that it circulated so widely in the U.S.,” she said. Before The Sympathizer won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, many readers didn’t know any authors or books written from the Vietnamese perspective. 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