Perception of The Vietnam War - Essay Example

? Perceptions of the Vietnam War Days/Times The Vietnam War occurred between North and South Vietnam, with the North Vietnamese being inferior in terms of firepower, and instead balanced the tables through the use of guerrilla tactics. America’s involvement in the war was not related to right and wrong, but connected to their hatred of communism, and pledge to prevent its expansion1. Lasting for twenty-five years, the Vietnam War was a painful time for both sides of the conflict, and many of those that survived bear deep physical and emotional wounds2. However, America’s involvement in Vietnam began long before the decision to send troops into the region. Near the beginning of 1950, the Ho Chi Minh regime in Vietnam had been recognized as the governing body by Communist China, and the Soviet Union3. Thus, the Truman administration was faced with the decision of whether to allow communism to extend throughout Vietnam, or to attempt to fight it. Three key sources will be examined as part of this discussion, which take different perspectives and approaches to discussion on the war. These are, Vietnam Wars 1945-1990, A Rumor of War and the movie Platoon. This article focuses on the perceptions of the Vietnam War as portrayed in these three sources and argues that to understand the way that the Vietnam War occurred, and its true cost, it is important to examine many different perspectives. The first aspect of this argument is to understand the way that Vietnam veterans were treated, and the attitudes of the country to war. Because of the high controversy that surrounded the Vietnam War, many veterans felt ostracized and mistreated on their return to America. To help mitigate this, some books and movies, such as the ones being discussed in this article, attempted to portray the Vietnam War in a different light. Platoon attempted this by showing harsh reality of the war from the American perspective, without glamorizing the events through propaganda. The film tells the story of a young, naive soldier, Chris Taylor, who enters the war full of high hopes and the desire to serve his country. The director uses the experiences of Chris to enlighten the audience about the confusion that soldiers felt during the war, and to create a connection between the people that viewed the movie, and the soldiers. The approach of personalizing the soldier that was used in Platoon, was also used in the book A Rumor of War, which is a war memoir written by Philip Caputo about his own experiences in the war. Both of these sources take a highly personal and emotionally charged approach to explain the difficulties that soldiers faced during the war. In addition, this perspective helps viewers to sympathize with the soldiers, and to better understand the role that they played in the war. One of the biggest contentions about Vietnam is the politics, specifically, whether the United States should ever have become involved in the war. This approach is considered differently in the sources. In Platoon, Stone does not address the morality of the presence of Americans in Vietnam. His characters do discuss the desire to go home, it is not because of the morality of the war, but because of how bad it is for them. As Chris comments “Someone once wrote: “Hell is the impossibility of reason.” That’s what this place feels like. Hell.” Thus, for the soldiers, the politics of the war matter little; they are all involved in their own personal, and deadly, hell. In A Rumor of War, the author expressly states “This book does not pretend to be a history. It has nothing to do with politics, power, strategy, influence, national interests or foreign policy”4. In contrast, The Vietnam Wars 1945-1990 focuses almost exclusively on the political aspect. This is indicated by the fact that the author opens the introduction with the question “Why are we in Vietnam?”5 This question suggests a very different focus to the book, one that is expanded on throughout the introduction and then the rest of the book. The author approaches this question by examining the way that the war progressed and the reasoning that occurred. The book argues that the justifications that were used changed as the war progressed. However, regardless of the intended story, all three sources give the same impression, that the Vietnam War should not have happened, or at least, that it should not have occurred in the way that it did. A Rumor of War and Platoon are both told from the perspective of the soldier, with focus on one particular soldier. In A Rumor of War, this was the author himself, while in Platoon the character was Chris Taylor, who was based in part off the director. Because of this, the accounts in these two sources exhibit a tension between glorifying the war and condemning it. An example of this is in A Rumor of War, when the author talks of the “lofty idealism” that the soldiers had experienced when they joined the war, and the willingness to kill people for a little free time and some beer6. This shows the degradation of morale and hope that occurred as the war progressed, and was also shown in Platoon in a similar manner. In Platoon and A Rumor of War the main character begins the account as highly optimistic and idealistic, yet as the war progresses, the horrors became apparent and the men became disheartened and tired of the war. In many ways, these accounts exemplify the hopelessness of the war, and the lack of headway that was achieved. Men went from stable to unstable7 and learned the value of not thinking8, as it was the only method they had to survive the emotional turmoil that occurred during the war. The Vietnam Wars 1945-1990 shows this from another perspective. In this account, the historical events of the war are examined, looking at large trends rather than individual people. However, the message is even clearer in this account, as the contradictions in orders and justifications are considered. An important aspect of the Vietnam War that is ignored in many accounts is the pain and torture experienced by many Vietnamese villagers. In Platoon, this is addressed briefly in the My Lai scene, which shows the horrific nature of the conflict to the innocent civilians present in the Vietnamese villages. This scene shows soldiers executing, raping and torturing defenseless civilians in the town of My Lai. This scene is based on an actual event that occurred in My Lai during the war, and resulted in the deaths of up to 500 Vietnamese civilians, many of whom appeared to have been tortured9. This is also discussed in A Rumor of War and the author comments on how soldiers tend to be ordinary, but sometimes perform “extraordinary acts in the stress of combat, acts of bravery as well as cruelty.”10 This perspective helps to explain why the American soldiers were often cruel to the Vietnamese civilians as well as examining the passion that soldiers felt. In contrast, The Vietnam Wars 1945-1990 also reports on civilian casualties, but does so in a very dispassionate manner, such as the statement about the city of Nam Dinh, where there were “hundreds of civilian casualties and eighty-nine deaths”11. However, despite the attempt to include information on these tortures, all three of these accounts are exclusively from the American perspective, and do not consider other sides of the debate. For example, although Platoon was the most realistic movie of Vietnam produced in that time, it did not consider the number of atrocities that were committed against the Vietnamese or the effects that America’s invasion of Vietnam had. This is perhaps because it is difficult to examine multiple perceptions of the war, or it may be the result of the winners writing history. A final aspect to consider is the time period where the fighting occurred, this is not treated equally in all accounts, in fact most tend to only consider the American perspective. The war in Vietnam was not limited to the period where America was directly involved; instead it extended both before and after the years of American armed conflict in Vietnam, however most sources on the war focus only on the American involvement. In The Vietnam Wars 1945-1990, Marilyn Young considers the Vietnam War through to 1990, which includes the period following American involvement in the war. The title of the book refers to the war not as a single event, but as a series of three wars, known as the Indochina Wars, which are also known as the French, American and Chinese wars according to the order that they occurred in12. However, although this book does discuss these other aspects of the war, its primary focus remains on the American history, and the role of Western countries in Vietnam. The Vietnam War is treated differently depending on the individual author and medium. The three sources in this discussion show that two distinctive approaches to the Vietnam War that can be used are a historical discussion, taking into account facts and numbers, or a highly emotional personal account, which focuses on showing the war, rather than arguing a particular thesis. It is easy to take a strongly critical view of the war based on the arguments forwarded in The Vietnam Wars 1945-1990, and of the wartime atrocities, which all three sources give some indication of. However, on reading or watching the more personalized stories in A Rumor of War and Platoon, the soldiers’ perspectives can be more fully understood. Consequently, to fully understand the events that happened before, during and after the Vietnam War, it is essential to consider the war with an even-handed approach. This includes examining the perspectives not only of the American soldiers, but also of the Vietnamese civilians and people involved in every part of the decision-making process. Works Cited Caputo, P. A Rumor of War: Pimlico, 1977. Lewy, G. America in Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. Mann, R. A Grand Delusion: America's Descent into Vietnam. New York: Basic Books, 2001. Peers, W., J. Goldstein, M. Burke, and J. Schwartz. The My Lai Massacre and Its Cover-Up: Beyond the Reach of Law? New York: Free Press, 1976. Young, M. B. The Vietnam Wars 1945-1990. New York: Harper Collins, 1991. Read More