Vietnam's lost lessons (Not taught in American Schools)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05119/496477.stm

Perhaps fittingly for a war as controversial as that in Vietnam, the last iconic images from the bitter conflict show the chaos, fear and confusion as helicopters evacuate Americans and South Vietnamese from the rooftop of the U.S. Embassy and other locations in Saigon.

Four hours after the last evacuees were lifted to safety offshore, the South Vietnamese government announced its unconditional surrender to the Viet Cong. The long, costly war had ended.

That was 30 years ago tomorrow, but it is understandable that such an ignominious end to such a divisive war won't be marked with large-scale remembrances.

Less comprehensible, some educators say, is why the lessons of a war that had profound political, societal and cultural effects on America aren't being examined enough, if at all, in the nation's schools.

And, they say, that lack of knowledge among America's young about the sacrifices, successes and mistakes in Vietnam could make them vulnerable.

[bluestateguy]

1. I talk about Vietnam in my class

Mostly concerning the long-term political fallout.

[frogbison]

2. I have never forgotten.

I'll ask my kids (both out of high school now) what they were taught about this terrible waste of a war.

[Bigmack]

3. The Right will not...

admit we lost. They blame everybody from the Hippies to Jane Fonda, rather than deal with a complex, difficult to understand struggle.

They haven't read McNamara, when he said he knew in 1965 that the Viet war was unwinnable.

They've convinced the gullible... vets and non-vets - that the war was winnable. To do that, they've invented lies like the one about Jane Fonda handing the notes to the N. Viets that got US prisoners beaten.

Most of the Right fought the war like Bush and Rush and Cheney did.

I tought 20th Century History in High School for 30 years, and my kids got the full picture. I got jumped by a few parents, but as I told them..."I'm grateful to the Marine Corps and Vietnam.... they made me immune to rousts by people like you."

[MisterP]

4. I can just imagine them squawking, "Es war ein Dolchstoß im Rücken!"

(Stab in the back, Hitler's name for the Versailles Treaty and the liberals)

[RobinA]

21. This Kills Me

I've read sporadically about Vietnam over the past decade, took a whole class in it, and have recently begun reading about it more frequently. I encounter rightie web sites that do just what you say, blame Jane Fonda, hippies, the librul media, John Kerry, etc., etc., etc. Have these people read one single book on this debacle?

The more you read about the decision-making involved and what was going on in government around the decisonmaking, the more appalling it becomes. If they don't want to read liberal New York Times reporter Neil Sheehan or Halberstam, they can read ex-Cold Warrior Daniel Ellsberg. Not one of these authors ever met up with Jane Fonda at a Pentagon policy meeting, no one reports about hippies advising the President(s), no one saw John Kerry fighting for the North Vietnamese. Yet somehow these modern day Vietnam hawks are able to totally ignore pounds of information subsequently released that spell out in horrifying detail the many mistakes that lead to this misadventure. I can only hope that these numerous tales of Vietnam era decision making are being studies by the current people making decisions. Although all evidence points to the fact that they are not, or that the wrong lessons are being learned.

[Journeyman]

5. I think Danziger got this one right. . .

[onager]

6. "You've missed the point..."

A few years ago, former US and North Vietnamese officers had a conference in Vietnam.

One retired American officer, talking to a Vietnamese counterpart, repeated a line often heard about that war: "I still don't understand how you won the war. You never beat us on the battlefied. We won every single battle."

The Vietnamese responded: "You've missed the point completely. We were never interested in winning battles. Our goal was to unify our country. You never understood that. We would have never given up, not until every last one of us was dead."

That's eerily similar to what an American general said during our Revolution. I think it was Nathanael Greene: "We can lose every battle and still win this war. The side that wins the people will win the war." (I have the quote here somewhere, but don't feel like looking for it.)

[wickerwoman]

7. I never talked about Vietnam in a classroom until grad school.

I had American history probably about five or six times from grade school to college and they always ended with 1945. The textbooks didn't even go past that (and they were published in the early 80s.)

It's actually kind of funny. I guess for many American history ended in 1945.

[RobinA]

22. Don't Know When You Were In School

but I graduated from high school in 1975. We didn't do VN in school except in current events, which was kind of to be expected. We, too, ended at 1945 every single year. I was 30 before I realized that the Cuban Missle Crisis and Bay of Pigs were not the same thing - and I was somebody who paid attention to history ib. Same thing in college.

I finally took a class in Vietnam at the local community college and it was well worth it. Even today, nobody knows anything about this war unless they take it upon themselves to learn. You'd have thought it would have made it's way into history books by now, but apparently it hasn't.

[Justitia]

8. Iraq War Resolution (WMD) = Gulf of Tonkin Incident

When the Bush Admin and Congress was rushing to war in Iraq, I was screaming like a crazy person to anyone who would listen "This is the Gulf of Tonkin incident all over again! Have we learned nothing?!?!"

The only more horrifying thing were all the completely blank stares I rec'd in response. You could just see the giant question mark hanging over their heads....

:crazy:

[Voltaire99]

9. All praise to Mr. Sundrum...

...the brilliant teacher at our midwestern US school who turned us on to authors such as Herr, Caputo, and Shawcross.

Thanks to him I learned early about the imperial nightmare of Vietnam, and so early on developed the only relationship to government that an American can afford: skepticism. And that's when you're in a generous mood.

In the stagnant mono-culture today, kids are being kept in the dark for the usual reason: as every general knows, it's best to keep your cannon fodder dry.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

10. Never forget or get over Vietnam. Never.

"...lack of knowledge among America's young about the sacrifices, successes and mistakes in Vietnam could make them vulnerable..."

Exactly.

In LA recently General Wesley Clark stated that Democrats need to "get over Vietnam" and this matches my opinion of him as a walking recruiting advertisement for permanent oil war.

As a 'last resort,' of course. eggh.

[Orangepeel]

11. My history classes just ran out of time.

In both high school and college. The semester ended before we got to Vietnam.

[jfs1000]

12. take it from a young fellow

28 yr old, and only in a special seiminar class in high school did we learned about vietnam.

History class in most schools end in World War II. They don't teach recent history, or explore it thoroughly at all in high school.

90 percent of hifg school kids fail to learn about anything that has happened since 1946.

Nothing on 1960s civil rights movement, Vietnam or watergate. All they know about vietnam is that hipppies spit on soldiers, and that is why we lost.

[bdot]

13. We had a unique history teacher.

I didn't learn anything in history as that was not a subject I was interested in but we had a teacher that taught US History in high school differently. He was the soccer coach and everyone liked him so he was able to communicate things well.
Instead of the class start at the beginning and make it to the end of WW II, he started with present day and went backwards. This way we got information on things you never hear about in classes.

[Maine-ah]

14. damn! I have been complaining about this for a long time

We were not taught the history of the VN war in school, and it really pissed me off. In fact, I don't remember getting past the Civil War. I graduated in '93. Everything I have learned about the wars after the Civil War, I learned on my own, and almost everything about the VN War, I learned from my parents.

If we don't start teaching our children about these wars, and more of the US history, we are bound to repeat past mistakes.

We (the US) just don't have the same respect about our country's history as many other countries do, and I find it really sad.

[moondust]

15. Don't forget the Powell Doctrine!

Oops! Already forgotten at the highest levels by Powell's own cronies.

Never mind.

[CWebster]

16. Well if you don't learn from it

No problem repeating it.

Always easier to manipulate a dumbed-down citizenry.

[Jacobin]

17. That would explain a lot

It's not 'history' to me and I remember the insanity well.

Too bad they don't teach it.

[Robworld]

19. Iraq = Vietnam

For this administration, Its best keeping the children ignorant on the history of Vietnam, and what it represented in our country. They want to gloss over Vietnam, because then that would lead to how it was a false 15 year war, inspired a whole movement, ended the draft, and enforced massive social change.

This current administration knows (well hopes) that Iraq won't mirror Vietnam's history because even most lower class kids (army recruitment prey) today can obtain cell phones, 24 hour cable news propaganda, DVDs, Play station 2, and I-pods. None of this stuff was around in the 60's and 70's, the people were not as pacified like the youth of today.

This makes it even more important that we teach the children about the history of Vietnam. It was not that long ago.

http://www.dumdumgoestothecircus.com/

[mbperrin]

18. I teach high school economics, and while

we teach the concept of voluntary choice as opposed to non-economic systems like war, I use "Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam" in its entirety.

This rich resource allows us to explore the impact of a non-economic tool (war) on the economy, always a waste (in one sentence, you can spend money building houses and schools and raising healthy children, or you can spend the same money bombing and burning houses and schools and maiming children: one builds a society - the goal of economics - the other destroys it.)

Never had a complaint yet in 9 years. (Fingers crossed).

But it's too true that too many get nothing...

[sweetheart]

20. If any of you teachers want to teach the subject well in 2 hours...

use the DVD: "the fog of war":
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0001L3LUE/qid=1114778660/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/002-3252813-7177606?v=glance&s=dvd&n=507846

You hear the story from macnamara in his own words, along with
the more recent stuff from vietnams generals and stuff.... one DVD
and the kids'll get a lesson they'll never forget, and be much wiser
for.

[bleedingheart]

23. At our high school one teacher taught history backwards...

he started with the modern era and worked his way back...

[Orangepeel]

24. good idea. how long has US history been divided into pre and post 1877?

as humanities get less and less focus in school curricula, there is less and less chance of it happening, but US history needs to be three basic semesters instead of two.