Question Home

Position:Home>History> What's an interesting topic during the Vietnam War?


Question: What's an interesting topic during the Vietnam War!?
I have to write a research paper and I'm trying to find an interesting topic to write about!. We can write about anything as long as it incorporates the Vietnam War era!.
I was thinking:
1) Latino's in America during the VIetnam War Era
2)Crime during the VIetnam War Era
3)Veterans and their treatment during this era
4)Drugs during the Vietnam War era

My first choice was Latino's but it's too hard!. I can't find any academic journals that have the info I need so I'm looking for an easier one!.

Do you have any interesting ideas!?Www@QuestionHome@Com


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
~Why not have some real fun with this one and take it back to the beginning (of US involvement - the war began long before the US stuck its nose in)!?

Write about FDR's constant violations of neutrality causing Germany and Japan to sign the Tripartite Act!. Write about how Germany defeated France and the Vichy French took over Indochina, allowing Japan to use Vietnam as a staging area to prosecute the Second Sino-Japanese War!. That was followed by FDR sending aid to Vietnamese freedom fighters, patriots and nationalists (as FDR called them) like Ho Chi Minh, Vo Nguyen Giap, and the Viet Minh!.

Then write about how that aid was one of the last straws that led Tojo believe he had no recourse but to bomb Pearl Harbor in an effort to prevent further US interference in the region, and how FDR promised Ho freedom and independence after the war!. Then you can touch on how FDR, Churchill and Stalin agreed at Yalta that Vietnam would be partitioned after the war, with the North to be occupied by the Nationalist Chinese and the South by Great Britain!.

Follow that with the chagrin felt by the Vietnamese when they learned of FDR's treachery at Tokyo Bay in August 45 when Truman kept FDR's promise to Stalin and Vietnam was partitioned!. That was followed by the British giving Nam back to the French in '46, with HST's blessings!. The Viet Minh beat the French in '54!. The Geneva Accords guaranteed internationally supervised elections in 56 to re-unify the country!. The French warned Eisenhower to stay out!. Knowing Ike wasn't going to heed the warnings (he didn't - by then Ike was playing with his dominoes and his CIA had already toppled the democratically elected reform governments in Guatemala and Iran, replacing them with tyrannical dictators more friendly to the United Fruit Company and Anglo-Iran Oil) they warned Ike to avoid Ngo Dinh Diem because he was a corrupt, incompetent madman!. Ike ordered CIA to make sure Diem got elected!. Diem went on a killing spree the likes of which would have made Himmler and William Tecumseh Sherman proud!. Of course, Diem doesn't get full credit for all of his dead meat!. Ike told us the commies were doing it!. The Vietnamese knew better!. When '56 rolled around Diem refused to allow the elections!. In fair elections, Ho would have won in a landslide and the entire world knew it!. Ike backed Diem and the elections weren't held!. You can imagine the outpouring of affection for the US!. Let's count stabs in the the back so far: Yalta, Tokyo Bay, 1946, 1954, 1956!. Only five in a decade!. Yes, to be sure the Vietnamese War was a communist inspired plot and anti-Americanism in Southeast Asia was the result of communist propaganda, while Uncle Sam with his lily white hands was trying to preserve freedom and democracy - by refusing to allow elections and by keeping a homicidal maniac in power!.

Kennedy saw the light!. He figure out that folks in Nam didn't like wondering if Diem's hit squads were coming for them because they objected to paying taxes of 110%, if they complained that Diem's elections didn't seem quite fair (especially when he carried some districts by 150% or more of the registered vote)!. So JFK authorized the assassination of Diem, who was murdered on November 2, 1963 by a CIA backed team!. In a lovely twist of irony, JFK went to Dallas 20 days later!.

Enter the "hippies" and the pinko traitors who knew about all of this stuff!. It wasn't secret after all!. The documentation wasn't classified then and is available for you now!. The early anti-war movement was based on the fact that, but for American treachery in the region, there would be peace in the far east!. It might not be the world that Ike was trying to force down the throats of the citizenry, but it would be a region at peace!. If you follow the exploits of CIA in the 50s and 60s, you will readily see that world peace was not a very high US priority!. If you really want to write about what was going on during Nam, start in the 50s and write about how the US put the Shah in power and created SAVAK, which leads in a straight line 25 years later to the embassy hostages and 22 years after that to the World Trade Center!. Write about the CIA sponsored coups in Greece, Guatemala, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, or the CIA initiated wars in Angola and Ghana and Zaire!.

Then write about how folks on the home front took a lesson from guys like Tom Jefferson and actually exercised their right to read and learn and speak out and how they were branded as unpatriotic traitors and gunned down in the streets for their efforts!. Then ask yourself why people aren't in the streets today and why the likes of John McCain and Sarah Palin are not only not laughed off the ballot but actually have a chance of winning and doing it all again!.

Or, you could write about disco, elephant bells, day-glo and the pet rock!. And the sacrifice of American freedom in return for Nintendo and Play Station II!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

why don't you write about Agent Orange, Blue and White, produced by Dow Chemical and their ilk, ordered to sprayed by Admiral Zumwalt!. The damage and high mortality it has cause to the US veterans!. The birth defects that Nam Vet's children suffer from Agent Orange!. The Moon Babies, and illnesses still in Viet Nam from Agent Orange!.The flooding, because of the loss of the forests and jungles in Viet Nam!. Because of this every month Veterans have died from complications of illnesses cause by Agent Orange!. Where the Nam vet, who was killed in Viet Nam, but hasn't laid down yet to die from Agent orange!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

how about :
''average life limit of a green lt!?''
( 7 minutes)
yes, trueWww@QuestionHome@Com

Well I'm certainly biased as I'm a Viet Nam veteran, so 3 looks like an excellent subject to me!Www@QuestionHome@Com

I would go along with the Vet's opinion and go with number 3!. I was against the war at the time, and registered as a conscientious objector (I had 53 in the lottery and I was 1-A-O on my draft card), but the way soldiers were treated on their return was shameful!.

We may have had differing political opinions, but people spitting on soldiers was just plain rude!.

Believe it or not, but the Veterans of Foreign Wars turned Viet Nam Vets away when they went to join up!. I was absolutely shocked, when we were kids, the VFW was where we went for Easter Egg hunts, both my sisters had their wedding receptions there, and they were turning away guys my age because they lost, now come on!

I still get a little worked up when I see veterans treated badly!. Dick Durbin is my US Senator and I sent him an e-mail about Guardsmen coming home from Iraq (not to Illinois, but another state) and being denied medical care for battle wounds because of budget problems!. I got pretty worked up, I think I said it was appalling that someone coming home with an empty sleeve, after serving his country was denied the care he deserved!. Anyway, the Senator reports back to me regularly now on what's going on in terms of Veterans!. And he does this even when he isn't running for re-election, which is a pretty good quality in an elected official in my opinion!.

Www@QuestionHome@Com