American Involvement In The Vietnam War

1095 Words5 Pages
The rise of communism ifn the Southeast Asian nation of Vietnam led the United States get involved in the country’s policy. From November 1955 to the fall of the largest city of the country, Saigon, in April 1973, the Vietnam War pitted North Vietnam, supported by the Soviet Union, to South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States of America. This costly and deadly war led to bitter divisions among the American society. These divisions caused the plurality of the Vietnam War memories. Indeed, the war is remembered differently depending on whether they are personal memories of veterans or civilians, or the official memory on how the nation commemorates the war. However, memories are not faithful reproductions of the past, they are rather…show more content…
Therefore, the Americans tried their best to forget about this shameful event. The whole country refused to remember or even talk about the war. The conflict is often described as a “television war” as the media played a major role in shaping the public opinion. Indeed, iconic photographs such as the picture of a monk setting himself on fire or the picture of the little Vietnamese girl running naked from a napalm attack, portrayed the American veterans as cruel, immoral and inhuman. These images symbolized the war and portrayed the Vietnamese as the victims of the soldiers. Some scandals like the My Lai Massacre in March 1968, where mostly women, children and elderly were brutally killed, emphasized this image and profoundly marked the American society. In opposite to the Second World War, the soldiers were not pictured as heroes and saviors but rather as cruel and senseless people. Consequently, when they returned from the war, the veterans were marginalized and mistreated. Indeed, Americans seemed to denigrate and reject the soldiers sent to Vietnam, who embodied the shameful war. The personal memories of the veterans could not be heard in this unfavorable context as no one wanted to listen to them. There was a gap between the American society and the veterans. Most of those who came back from Vietnam were traumatized and had PTSD. They experienced depression, loneliness and an inability to get close to…show more content…
Indeed, Hollywood movies had a big impact/influence on shaping the public memory. The veterans were no longer portrayed the veterans drug-crazed psychotic killers but as psychologically damaged people. Also, they were represented as the victims of the Vietnam War. These movies favored the soldier’s point of view, they put forward the ground level. Movies mentioned the Vietnamese people only as cruel, senseless people, like in the scene of The Deer Hunter where the Vietnamese were playing Russian roulette with the American soldier’s lives. This movie is one of the most popular movie of Vietnam as it criticizes openly the war, pointing out the horrors and the consequences of the war on the lives of young naïve men. The movie shows the importance of community and how it must handle the war. Hollywood movies put forward the cruel reality of the war, without mentioning the political reasons of the war. This allowed the public to focus only on the memories, the experience of the soldiers. The soldiers return as broken people, traumatized, inapt to live in society. It is impossible for them to forget about this horror and simply move on. However, this is what the veterans were facing: they had to move on as no one seemed or wanted to listen sympathize with them. This united the nation as they recognized themselves in the characters. These movies reflected the public own experiences as veterans, civilians and as a nation in a
Open Document