Summary: An Irony Of History

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Browsing the Newsweek and New York Times archive in the LRC, I came across this series of news stories which drew my attention immediately. They were the documentations, midnight updates, maps and stories, all refer to one event: the final battles in Vietnam. This article on Newsweek, Apr 18, 1975 displays many characteristics of those news. The article was one page and a half long, with one big image occupied half of the first page. Below it was the title of straight, flat Arial font saying “An Irony of History”. There was no subtitle, like the other articles on this event. The image had a huge effect on me. In the image, three ARVN soldiers, bruised and battered, no one holding his rifle. They didn’t even look like soldiers in this picture.…show more content…
It described the event as something odd, something alien to American history. I could see that the author was trying to damp the shock. He tried to keep his tone as flat as possible, while adding some slight humor as he made the comparisons between how American was preparing for its Bicentennial of independence and how it was in Southern Vietnam. And, to my own surprise, each time he mentioned the situation of the ARVN, I kept looked up at the image, instinctively, and felt sorry for them. For me once, they were only “puppets” of Nixon. As I read the article, they became more human. A reader of that time would easily be convinced that the story ends there. Yet there are other things going on. They wouldn’t find the role of the US anywhere. People seemed to forget that it was the US who initiated the conflict. It was the US who backed the Southern Vietnam Government with 16300 military advisors, money and half a million troops so that they could refuse to hold the unification election (“Digital History”). The US also sent 193 B-52 Stratofortress aided with 48 F111 "Aardvark", lots of F4 and graphite noise generator bombs to crush Hanoi (Head 73). And then they withdrew. Yet all the news associated the fail of Southern Vietnam to the weaknesses of Saigon’s…show more content…
Some of them are hidden. This, combined with the way the story is told, created the news that makes the reader think and act as the press intended. And this happens everywhere, on both sides. People often say that the Internet and cheaper, more accessible equipments would allow more people to promote their ideas, thus negating the effect of biased information. But in the meantime, we should be able to distinguish the true fact from what is presented. I feel, as I am aware that there is a selection process to what is shown and an unbiased view cannot yet exist, as a viewer I am somewhat less susceptible to the message than others may be. We should have independent news sources to get the most facts out of the news. The immense power of the media especially the news should be carefully welded. Works Cited Head, William P. War From Above The Clouds: B-52 Operations during the Second Indochina War and the Effects of the Air War on Theory and Doctrine. Diss. Air University Library, 2002. Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 2002. Digital History 21 Apr. 2007. Department of History. 22 Apr. 2007 <http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/vietnam/index.cfm > “An Irony Of History.” Newsweek. 28 Apr 1975:
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