Veteran's History Project

      This project revolved around how war effects a soldier after he returns home. during this project we interviewed a veteran from the Vietnamese war. these videos where sent the Library of Congress to be archived and be viewed by anyone needing to research how the Vietnamese war affected the soldiers that served in the war. we also learned a lot about the Vietnamese war in general. this involves how it happened and how it ended.

Link Coming Soon

project reflection

• This project changed my opinion on the truth of war by showing me how a war can change some ones standing on the war and how it can effect there lives after they have returned home
•  I learned that there are almost always tragic things that happen in war 
• I could use the information in this interview to better judge the lifestyles in a military environment and how we could improve them in the future to prevent such an uncomfortable life 
• group work was very important because everybody had there specific skills that would best benefit the project when it is complete

Tonkin Writing

            Although the United States wanted to stop the spread of communism we should not have reacted so strongly to the Vietnamese retaliation on the USS Maddox

            The United States stood very strongly against the spread of communism, but going to war over something so small is almost immature. The US was trolling the Vietnamese waters which from the Vietnamese side could seem very threatening. It was said that the Vietnamese fired a torpedo at the USS Maddox, and this is not certain, “review of action makes mane reported contacts and torpedoes fired appear doubtful”(doc 7). After the supposed attack happened the United States decided to start moving more troops into Vietnam. From this point war was inevitable the Vietnamese believed that the US attacked first, and the US thought that the Vietnamese attacked first. Therefore both countries were retaliating

            The united states claim that the Vietnamese fired one torpedo at the USS Maddox as an act of hostility or aggression. This of course was taken as a disturbance in the peace. This claim was not entirely proven; there were many different suspicions onto whether or not the Vietnamese really did fire a torpedo. This claim was based on someone onboard the USS Maddox hearing the torpedo but never actually seeing it. No damage was done to the ship the torpedo was said to hit the perfect spot in witch little to no damage would be done. Captain Herrick the captain of this ship at this time sent cables back stating what is happening onboard the ship on the day this happened. One of these cables says “all subsequent Maddox torpedo reports are doubtful in that it is suspected the sonarman was hearing the ships own propeller beat” (doc 7). So overall the only evidence that the United States could base their claim off of was a sound that could have been the propeller.

            The motive that was decided for the for the Vietnamese to attack the USS Maddox was a retaliation to some of the things the United States were doing in their country as said by president Johnson. “There have been some covert operations in that aria that we have been carrying on- blowing up some bridges and things of that kind, roads and so forth so I imagine that they wanted to put a stop to it.”(Doc 3). This is why it was thought that the Vietnamese attacked the USS Maddox. And after this happened the United States attacked back with a lot more force as said by President Johnson “so they fired and we respond immediately with 5 inch [artillery shells] from the destroyer and with plains overhead.”( Doc 3) we also started to send more troops into the country. I think that the United States took that small unproven torpedo to seriously, and as a result the Vietnamese war started 

The Truth of War

Link coming soon

Flash movie 

Project Reflection

                This project revolved around the truth of war of a soldier and how war affects a soldier once he leaves the military. Our class read a book called All Quiet on the Western Front; this book was about the life a soldier in combat and went into extreme detail with all of the horrors of war. In our project and essay we had to represent what we thought about the truth of war for a soldier, and how these things affect his everyday life.  We learned about how war will change the truth of war of a soldier for a little while before we started this project

                During my project I perseverance in my project, I had to persevere learning adobe flash CS4 in order to complete my project. Adobe flash was a very hard program to operate and I struggled a lot with finishing my project on time. There were several times during this project where I wanted to give up and start working on a new project. This is when I became really far behind in my project. I kind of fell into a downward spiral. When I realized that that wasn’t helping me I decided to sit down and finished my project and eventually that happened and when it did I was very proud of how it turned out in the end

                One of the first things that I revised in my essay was to integrate more quotes into each individual paragraph the reason I did this was to make my essay have more evidence. This was surprisingly difficult for me because I struggle with all forms of evidence and especially when trying to incorporate it into an essay these revisions make my essay stronger by of course providing more evidence for my theses statement on the initial subject. The reason I need this evidence is to show where I am coming from, and why I chose to wright about what I wrote about.

                If I had another weak to work on this project I would first start writing more drafts on my essay. When I first wrote my essay I only wrote one draft and I kind of think that that isn’t smart. Writing multiple drafts gives you more room to make revisions and even find more places to write these revisions. This is important because revisions almost always make your essay better. The second thing that I would do If I had another week to work on this would to add more scenes to my flash movie and maybe to spend more time on YouTube trying to figure out more things that I could add to my movie. I feel like in the end of this project that my movie was too short overall but it still got out what I was planning to say.

The truth of war for a soldier

            The difference in the opinion of war between a soldier and a civilian can be surprising. This is because a soldier experiences all the physical parts of war were as a civilian can only watch from the sidelines. A civilian gets all of his/her information about the war from the media or propaganda. This is significant is because the media is not always correct and even if it is it can be interpreted differently between different people, therefor causing incorrect assumptions about what is really happening. The benefit of being a civilian over being a soldier in the war is that a civilian gets to see the overall picture of the war, they get to see build their opinions of war off the ability to have a neutral stance in the beginning, they are not told what to believe or what to fight for but only to follow their country. A soldier needs to know what’s he is fighting for or he will have no incentive to continue on. This limits a soldiers freedom to make his/her own opinions.

            No matter what is said, a soldier witnesses more about the war than someone who is not there in person. A soldier has to personally see all the horrors of war.

All Quiet On The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque chapter 7 page 239

 When a man has seen so many dead he cannot understand any longer why there should be so much anguish over a single individual." when a person dies in a civilized aria such as a city for all the people treat it as something that doesn't happen every day. They treat the death of that person much more severe. But in war a soldier witnesses death all the time, they are surrounded with death. They may even be the cause of the death. When a soldier is in war he has to desensitize himself to prevent him from going crazy

            All a civilian has to base his/her opinion of war off of the media and the words of other people. And the media can skate around some important things, things that may or may not be large enough to change someone’s idea of war. But these things are usually inhuman or bad.

All Quiet On The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque chapter 7 page 239

            The wisest were just the poor and simple people. They knew the war to be a misfortune, whereas those who were better off, and should have been able to see more clearly what the consequences would be, were beside themselves with joy. This quote states that people with the wealth to keep up with the media are able to put war aside in their lives. Because they don't know about all the bad things in war

            Someone outside of the war can never really understand what a soldier has to go through and what a soldiers true thoughts about war are.

 All Quiet On The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque chapter 10 page 263

"I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another." A soldier is going to witness things that brings him to the same spot at Paul was in. Thinking back on all the slaughter that's taken place during the time he was there, And why the conflict was there in the first place. It is much more unlikely that a civilian will go through the same thought process. Because they were not there risking their lives for someone else’s conflict and told that they were doing it for the country

            Most things witnessed in war can be unforgettable; they can be haunting or scary for the rest of the soldier’s life. This makes a huge difference between veterans and people that never served in the war because they didn’t have the same things happen to them

Slaughterhouse five By Kurt Vonnegut chapter 3 page 75

‘Billy was under doctor’s orders to take a nap every day. The doctor hoped that this would relieve a complaint that Billy had: Every so often, for no apparent reason, Billy Pilgrim would find himself weeping. Nobody had ever caught Billy doing it. Only the doctor knew. It was an extremely quiet thing Billy did, and not very moist.’’ This quote suggests that the war has done something to Billy that the war has changed him in a negative way. Billy was had to experience horrible things when he was n the war and he didn’t end up coming out of the war unaffected

            In conclusion people in the war have completely different beliefs about war than someone outside of war. Soldiers can never be completely understood by civilians because war is an entirely different situation for anyone outside of the war. The things that a soldier has to go through cannot be 100% correctly portrayed because everyone understands things differently. Different soldiers witness and are told different things therefor allowing them to have different conclusions. A civilian rarely ever knows all the facts about the war because the media and surrounding propaganda only offers certain pieces of the war to the public

Slaughterhouse Five

Seminar reflections

                One of the main things that we discussed that stood out to me was the idea that Billy was just a crazy old man. For example whenever he travled in time, or go visit the tralfamadorians he was dreaming instead of doing it in person. I found this interesting because the author (Kurt Vonnegut) wrote the book in a way that makes this a possibility. The book clearly states that Billy is not crazy or senile, however it gives examples of him doing things that only a crazy or senile person would do. I believe that this book was written in a way that no specific opinion is expressed. The book allows the reader to make and develop their own opinions. I personally believe that Billy’s character is not crazy and what was happening to him was really happening to him. This is not an expected point of view because the book offers more evidence towards Billy being crazy than not.

            Did billy pilgrim really get kidnapped by aliens and travel in time or was it all a dream or even a hallucination. I think that this book emphasizes this question very well. There is tons of evidence showing both sides. Parts of the book point to billy being a complete crazy person and others that claim him to be sane.  In the seventh chapter billy experiences a plain crash where he is the only survivor that alone is enough to make someone crazy. Also almost every time billy time travels he closes his eyes almost as if her was going to sleep. At one point in the book billy wakes up after his time traveling which means that he was asleep.

            I believe that billy is doing all these things and that he is not crazy. I believe this because at the end of the book he is famous. He is famous for being right about time and the aliens. And for knowing it before everyone else. He also goes in extreme detail when he travels in time. Another reason is that when he does time travel he goes into extreme detail and he always remembers what he did and how he did it. Normally this is hard when waking up from a dream. He also thoroughly  believes that they are true. Wouldn't you think him to realize that he is waking up every time he gets back. Or that he is sitting in his bed.

            This book reminded me of some sort of political comedy. When I read this book I kept thinking about how it connected humor with a stronger message.  If Vonnegut wants to make a point he shows it through a joke ore through irony. At one point when reading the book I started to think about the show The Colbert report . I was reminded of this because on this show most of his points are hidden in humor same as in slaughterhouse 5

            Slaughterhouse 5 was a lot more humorous than AQOTWF and had more of an uplifting tone at most times. Where as AQOTWF was way more serious and on topic. In AQOTWF was depressing throughout the book. It focused on the bad things rather than the good ones. There was a lot more bad things as well. I think that slaughterhouse 5 was a much more fun book than AQOTWF.

All Quite on the Western Front

       Seminar reflections

       There was a lot that was talked about but the thing the stood out the most for me was the conversation about why didn’t Paul just leave and forget about the war. My reaction to this was that he didn’t know what he would do if he did run away. He had nowhere to go and nothing to live for. His life was the war, nothing else existed to him. I think that it would have been very hard to transition back to normal life; having experienced what he already had in war he will always have those memories. He may not believe in the cause of the war but he was still loyal to his country and his friends. There is also the thought of what would he eat, where would he stay.

            When all the horses were screaming the men couldn’t stand it.  This is odd because these men see death of real live humans all around them every day. These men have taught themselves to think in a way that death doesn’t bother them as much. They experience horrible things that may make other people sick. And this is unbearable for them. In the book they start talking about it not being as bad if only they could see the animals. The reason this is affecting the soldiers; is that horses didn’t do anything wrong they were innocent. The horses were in extreme pain and the soldiers could not do anything about it. And because they could not see the horses they could not shoot them witch at that moment was the best thing for them. On page 64 the book goes into detail about how a horses guts trail out and snag on the ground yet the horse still gets back up and keeps running away, screaming. This must be a disgusting horrifying sight

            I think that the biggest cause of there extreme discomfort was the fact that the horses could not have done anything to prevent it. It wasn’t their fault and they did not deserve that kind of pain and death. It also probably seemed to have been the Britons fault to have brought the horses into the war in the first place. As said by Detering pg 64 “I tell you it is the vilest baseness using horses in the war”

            One thing that we spoke about during the session was the horrors that are experiences during war. I have read previously in articles books newspapers ect. About some really sick stuff that happens in world war 1 for example in history last year we read about the medic rooms of world war one and how they treated certain things like infected bullet wounds, this usually meant amputation. I can’t imagine losing my leg because of a small piece of lead.

            When I think of the truth of war I think of the hard times all the people have to go through to live, and when I think of that I think of the lack of recourses. I chose this quote

Pg 37 “Now we might sleep if we weren’t so terrible hungry “. I think this represents the truth of war for each soldier who is actually in the war and not watching from the sidelines. Food and recourses are very important for a soldier’s actions in war and how they feel about the overall subject.

 If I had to represent this in some other form I would put it on a poster. I would do this because I feel a poster is the best way to get this point across. With a poster you can see the poor environment that the soldiers need to live in and what they have to improve with, and it’s not much