A United States Commission Official would describe the battle as “utter devastation and ruin” where “For four miles in length, and nearly half a mile in width, the ground is strewn with . . . hats, caps, clothing, canteens, knapsacks, shells and shot.” The commonly asked question from many individuals after going over the Battle of Antietam is, why was this battle the most gruesome in American History? For the simple reason that it was “the event” that would decide “the fate of the American Civil War.”
A war between the two immediately broke out. In 1964, the USA entered the Vietnam War. The inconclusive war in Vietnam cost many American and Vietnamese lives, devastated the country, and achieved nothing but misery for anyone caught up in it; including the Cambodians. Cambodia had become part of the Vietnam battlefield. During the next four years, American B-52 bombers, using napalm and cluster-bombs, killed up to 750,000 Cambodians in their effort to destroy North Vietnamese supply lines.
Political leaders who might have been able to take charge of the situation and other high profile opponents of the Hutu extremist plans were killed immediately. Tutsi and people suspected of being Tutsi were killed in their homes and as they tried to flee at roadblocks set up across the country during the genocide. Entire families were killed at a time. Women were systematically and brutally raped. It is estimated that some 200,000 people participated in the perpetration of the Rwandan genocide.
Vietnam War Carrie E. Christ (McManus) DeVry University Contemporary History Professor Jones Fall 2013 Vietnam War Thesis The Vietnam War is significant to American History because the United States participated in this war, as allies, with South Vietnamese, against North Vietnam and their southern allies, the Viet Cong. This war began because of a dispute that began in 1954, and was the cause of over three million deaths, half of which were Vietnamese civilians, and included the deaths of 58,000 Americans (A&E History). American citizens, divided on their thoughts in regards to support of this war, did not give the respect, nor honor to the veterans that they deserved, many of them shamed. The government, whom gave resolution to enact the war, did not provide support for the wounded veterans, and many suffered physical, emotional, as well as psychological injuries. Many Vietnam Veterans still suffer today because of this war; many whom have never spoke about it since returning to America.
Controversy still exists about dropping the two atomic bombs on Japan. Killing 100,000 or more innocent people just to have an influence in war. The atomic bomb is considered the most powerful mass destructive weapon since the 1940’s. The Creation of the bomb took approximately 63 years ago. (Rodreyer, Smith) The creation of the bomb was considered by many scientists during the 1930’s and 1940’s.
College campuses were a new place of protest and freedom. Many college students became involved with the war because it was the people their age, and their friends who were being sent to war; going as one person, and coming back completely changed. In January of 1968 the TET Offensive changed the American view of the Vietnam War dramatically. The Vietcong attacked over a hundred cities including the US Embassy. Many of the cities were occupied by Vietcong for many hours, or days.
The Tet Offensive: The Beginning of the End On January 31, 1968, Viet Cong forces launched one of the most influential coordinated attacks against 36 of South Vietnam’s 44 capitals, and 70 other towns in the country (Hayward 2001, 21). Like other “surprise” military actions in history, the lack of action to prevent these rumored attacks caused for a much larger crisis on the U.S. front – something Army General Bruce Palmer later called "an allied intelligence failure ranking with Pearl Harbor in 1941" (Hayward 2001, 5). This rebel attack led by General Vo Nguyen Giap is considered by many historians to be the turning point in the Vietnam War. With the use of expert military tactics, the National Liberation Front (NLF) and the North Vietnam Army (NVA) gave a new meaning to the phrase “losing the battle but winning the war.” But in order for anyone to fully appreciate the severity of a historical event, one must know all of the history surrounding it. These series of attacks that singlehandedly changed the course of the war by planting seeds of unrest into the minds the American public are known today as the Tet Offensive.
Review of Foley, Michael S., Confronting the War Machine: Draft Resistance during the Vietnam War. H-Peace, H-Net Reviews. May, 2004. Retrieved from http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=9417. I found this to be a great review of the original book by Michael S. Foley regarding the draft resistance during the Vietnam War.
In his article, Meertens seems to be arguing the difference of violence towards different genders, how the violence towards males murders results in, many cases, families being forcibly displaced. There have been several waves of violence and displacements that Meerten has discussed in his article such as “The first period, from 1988 to 1992, was characterized by massacres: in the face of mass killings and the burning of homes, displacement was large scale, composed of entire extended families or of families now headed by widows and produced by the massacres”(p. 165-169). Before the destruction and uprooting “The majority of displaced families, all of
Trauma of War Trauma is a disordered behavioural state resulting from an experience that was shocking, severe, mental or emotionally stressful from a traumatic event. Throughout the documentary “Barbered Wire and Mandolins”, civilians suffer emotional and shocking stress in June 1940, where 700 men were seen as national threats to security, and therefore held up to three years in internment camps. In the short story “A Marker On The side Of the Boat” a soldier reflects on a shocking and severe trauma of a war that he encountered in the city of Hanoi. Both “A Marker on the Side of the Boat” and “Barbered wire on Mandolins” are equally effective in conveying all aspects of trauma of war. Ways that trauma of war is conveyed in both creative texts is through character insights, where in the documentary we get civilians who were apart of the event in 1940, and in the short story we get a soldiers insights on everything that’s happening during the war.