Process History » Vietnam War
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Process - the blog of the Organization of American Historians, The Journal of American History, and The American Historian - strives to engage professional historians and general readers in a better understanding of U.S. history. On the following page, you can read articles and stories about the Vietnam War.
Process History » Vietnam War
7M ago
During the early years of the “global war on terror,” the call to “support the troops” was ubiquitous in the United States. The yellow ribbon associated with “supporting the troops” adorned all sorts of material culture, from front-yard trees to magnets to credit cards; professional sporting events regularly featured tributes to the military; military charities ..read more
Process History » Vietnam War
10M ago
The June issue of the Journal of American History is now available online and in print. Included are articles by William S. Kiser, Cooper Wingert, Wendell Nii Laryea Adjetey, and Mia Martin Hobbs’s Editor’s Choice article, “Healing Journeys’: Veterans, Trauma and the Return to Vietnam.” The pieces explore topics ranging from Native American genocide in the ..read more
Process History » Vietnam War
11M ago
April 30, 1975 is commonly understood to be the dramatic endpoint of the Vietnam War. For the victorious Vietnamese, what they called the liberation of Saigon marked a “total victory after thirty years of grim and bloody sacrifice.”[1] For those Vietnamese who lost, the events of late April evoke the collapse of their country, the ..read more
Process History » Vietnam War
11M ago
Perhaps more than any other publication, the Life magazine that went to war in the 1940s helped mold Americans’ opinions of a global conflict that ultimately would propel the United States to superpower status during the Cold War years that followed. A pioneer in photojournalism, Life also helped to solidify the “good war” narrative in ..read more
Process History » Vietnam War
11M ago
Many Americans spent the last hours of Thanksgiving weekend glued to the television. They were not watching football, however. They were watching footage of migrants at the United States–Mexico border fleeing from tear gas. Although this incident near San Diego was not the first time such chemical weapons have been used at the border, the ..read more
Process History » Vietnam War
11M ago
As we cross the finish line of The Vietnam War marathon, I want to offer some thoughts about the documentary as a whole. First, despite all the Vietnamese voices it includes, this is a remarkably American film. The soundtrack, for example, is loaded with dozens of familiar and well-amplified 1960s rock songs while the music ..read more
Process History » Vietnam War
11M ago
Midway through Episode 7 of The Vietnam War, Karl Marlantes, a Vietnam veteran in his early seventies, reads an extraordinary letter. He had written it a half century ago from Oxford, England, where he was beginning his studies as a Rhodes Scholar, to let his parents know that he had decided to give up his ..read more
Process History » Vietnam War
11M ago
Halfway through The Vietnam War marathon, now may be a good time to ask ourselves how the film affects the way we think about the present. Consider the impact of its many pieces: its use of music, photography, archival film footage, and recent interviews, its narration, and its countless editorial decisions. Do they blend together ..read more
Process History » Vietnam War
11M ago
Episodes 3 and 4 take us from the early days of Lyndon Johnson’s presidency in 1964, when there were 20,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam, to June 1967, when American forces soared to 450,000 with no end in sight, despite Washington’s ritual reassurances that the enemy was steadily growing weaker. Matt Harrison, a West Point graduate ..read more
Process History » Vietnam War
11M ago
In this episode, the documentary focuses on a two-year period (1961–1963). First, however, Burns and Novick take us to 1967 and the terrifying experience of U.S. Marine John Musgrave who was sent out with two other soldiers from his base at Con Thien to set up an all-night “listening post.” Enemy soldiers came so close ..read more