When I ask my cousin what he knows about the Vietnam War he usually has a condescending look on his face and says “A long war that the United States won.” Being only 10 years old, I know that he doesn’t really have a total grasp of the magnitude that Vietnam had on this country. One main thing that he doesn’t know is that we didn’t win the war, we just stopped attacking. There are many facts that my cousin, and US citizens for that matter, don’t know about involving Vietnam. Many of these facts surrounding the realities and policies of war are what many US citizens are often deprived of. Today these citizens are opening their eyes and learning what really went on behind the red curtain in Vietnam.
The policies of war are not something that many Americans are familiar with. Policies often involve the course of attack and the age old of question of why we were at war for such a long time. Many of these policies of war are discussed in I.F. Stones “A Reply to the White Paper.” The original State Departments “White Paper” provided much evidence to Hanoi’s program to support the South Vietnamese with weapons and ammunition that came from France and the Czech Republic. The report contained evidence tha
In comparison to the policies of war, many personal experiences can often tell a different story of war. The realities of war are often vague and undefined. What happened over there? How come we don’t know all the facts? Americans often have an obstructed view of wars because some, if not most, of the information is held back from them. Realities of war are often discovered through movies and articles written by war veterans that portray a very different world than what was reported on the nightly news. In one such excerpt from his Oral History, Harold “Light Bulb” Bryant provides his insights to the harsh realities of Vietnam. He describes many instances in which the soldiers would mutilate and disrespect Vietnamese soldiers during battle and even when they were dead. “These white guys would sometimes take their dog-tag chain and fill them up with ears.”(917) Apparently this was done to make sure that the Viet Cong (VC) was dead and to confirm a kill. Probably one of the most gruesome acts that Bryant described was one that involved the removal of another body part. “Then this guy- one of the white guys- cut off the VC’s dick and stuck it in his mouth as a reminder that the 1st Cavs had been through there.”(918) Insights such as these were often not reported to the public. Why? This type of information is irrelevant to the general public during war and the news would rather keep this on the hush. But America has a right to know w
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