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Jimenez, Teresa Moreno. "THE MEXICAN AMERICAN VIETNAM WAR SERVICEMAN: THE MISSING AMERICAN." DigitalCommons@CalPoly, 2015. https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/theses/1524.
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The Vietnam War brought many changes to society in that it soon became one of the most controversial wars in United States history. There was a tremendous loss of life as well as a rift in the nation with the rise of anti-war protest. Those drafted for the war primarily came from low-income and ethnic minority communities. While all who served deserve to be recognized, there is one group that has gone largely unrepresented in the history of the war. Mexican American serviceman served and died in large numbers when compared to their population. In addition, they also received high honors for their valor in the battlefield. Yet, the history of the war has been largely focused on the experience of the Anglo and Black soldier. This is due in part to the existing black-white paradigm of race that has existed in United States society, which places all other ethnic minority groups in the margins of major historical events. Biased Selective Service Boards contributed to the already existing race and class discrimination that existed among the elite class in society.
This study utilizes interviews, oral histories, autobiographies and anthologies as its main source of information of Mexican American Vietnam War servicemen. Due to the lack of historical material in this area, most information on participation and casualty rates are estimates conducted by professors such as Ralph Guzman, from the University of Santa Cruz. Guzman took the number of Spanish surnamed casualties in the southwestern states to calculate an approximate number of total casualties. The major aim is to highlight the contribution of the Mexican American serviceman in Vietnam and to emphasize the patriotism that existed in the Mexican American community as much as it did in the Black and Anglo communities. By providing information in the area of American identity, race relations, the draft and volunteerism as well as the sacrifice of Mexican American lives at the time of the Vietnam War, this study hopes to initiate the inclusion of Mexican Americans in the general history of the war.
Keywords: Mexican American, Chicano/a, Selective Service , draft boards, whiteness, New Standards Men, Project 100,000, Lyndon Johnson, League of United Latin-American Citizens (LULAC), Medal of Honor, sacrifice, patriotism.
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James, B. Violet. "American Protestant missions and the Vietnam War." Thesis, University of Aberdeen, 1989. http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk/R?func=search-advanced-go&find_code1=WSN&request1=AAIU026822.
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The thesis examines two American Protestant Missions - the Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA) and the Mennonites - in the light of the Vietnam War. The CMA was chosen because it was the oldest and largest Protestant Mission in Vietnam. It was a typical American evangelical mission which mentally divided the world into two spheres: the realm of the spirit and the realm of matter. Therefore it understood its primary task as spiritual: to verbalize the Christian message with the hope of establishing a Vietnamese Church. It accomplished this in the birth of the Evangelical Church of Vietnam in 1927. The missionaries assumed a role of non-involvement in politics but had no qualms about revering the American government and its policies, or in being patriotic citizens. This was a paradox. The Mennonites stood essentially in the evangelical tradition (Anabaptist) but stressed service to all people in need; suffering as an essential mark of a Christian and the necessity for a peace witness. They entered Vietnam in 1954, specifically to administer relief to the refugees who had fled from the North. The Mennonites did not compartmentalize the world into two neat spheres as they believed that the affairs and dictates of the state had implications for the Church. Thus it had to contend with any moral or ethical issue. The Vietnam War brought to light the differences of these two Missions. The CMA believed in the war and identified with the American war effort in order to pursue its spiritual task of preaching the gospel. The Mennonites believed that the CMA's close identification with the American war effort distorted the image of Christian missions. They boldly testified to the evils of the war but recognized their primary task as service to the suffering people. The tragedy of the American missions in Vietnam was the failure of both Missions to understand the other's beliefs and premise. The differences between the CMA and the Mennonites and the tensions that arose between them created the basis for a comparative study.
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Martini, Edwin Anton. "Invisible enemies the American war on Vietnam, 1975-2000 /." College Park, Md. : University of Maryland, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/1903/1669.
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Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Maryland, College Park, 2004.Thesis research directed by: American Studies. Title from t.p. of PDF. Includes bibliographical references. Published by UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, Mich. Also available in paper.
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Naito, Hiroaki. "Vietnam fought and imagined : the images of the mythic frontier in American Vietnam War literature." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2014. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/5101/.
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This thesis seeks to examine how a particularly American ideological formation called the frontier myth has been re-enacted, challenged, and redefined in the literary works written by several American authors. Existing researches about the pervasiveness of the frontier mythology in American culture written by scholars such as Richard Slotkin, Richard Drinnon, and others demonstrate that, as the myth of the frontier–––the popular discourse that romanticizes early white settlers’ violent confrontation with American Indians in the New World wilderness–––has been deeply inscribed in America’s collective consciousness, when they faced with the war in a remote Southeast Asian country, many Americans have adopted its conventional narrative patterns, images, and vocabulary to narrate their experiences therein. The word, Indian Country–––a military jargon that US military officers commonly used to designate hostile terrains outside the control of the South Vietnamese government–––would aptly corroborate their argument. Drawing upon Edward Said’s exegesis of a structure of power that privileged Europeans assumed when they gazed at and wrote about the place and people categorized as “Oriental,” I contend that the images of the frontier frequently appearing in US Vietnam War accounts are America’s “imaginative geography” of Vietnam. By closely looking at the Vietnamese landscapes that American authors describe, I intend to investigate the extent to which the authors’ view of Vietnam are informed, or limited, by the cultural imperatives of the myth. At the same time, I will also look for instances in which the authors attempt to challenge the very discourse that they have internalized. I will read several novels and stories of American Vietnam War literature in a loosely chronological manner––from earlyier American Vietnam novels such as William Lederer’s and Eugene Burdick’s The Ugly American (1958), through three notable Vietnam–vet writers’ works published between the late ’70s and ’90s that include Tim O’Brien’s Going After Cacciato (1978) and The Things They Carried (1990), to Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke (2007), a recent novel produced after 9/11. Hereby, I aim to explain the larger cultural/political significances that underlie the images of the frontier appearing in American Vietnam War narratives, and their vicissitude through time. While the authors of early US Vietnam War narratives reproduced stereotypical representations of the land and people of Vietnam that largely reflected the colonial/racist ideologies embedded in the myth, the succeeding generations of authors, with varying degrees of success, have undermined what has conventionally been regarded as America’s master narrative, by, for instance, deliberately subverting the conventional narrative patterns of the frontier myth, or by incorporating into their narratives the Vietnamese points of view that have often been omitted in earlier US Vietnam War accounts.
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Tang, Chieu Giam. "The Vietnam War and Sino-American relations, 1966." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape17/PQDD_0005/MQ34917.pdf.
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Middleton, Alexis Turley. "A true war story : reality and fiction in the American literature and film of the Vietnam War /." Diss., CLICK HERE for online access, 2008. http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/ETD/image/etd2467.pdf.
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Quek, Ser Hwee. "Before Tet : American bombing and attempts at negotiation with North Vietnam, 1964-1968 /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 1995. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/10482.
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Ellis, Sylvia Ann. "Anglo-American relations and the Vietnam War, 1964-8." Thesis, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/10443/280.
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It is over thirty years since the U. S. became embroiled in the Vietnam war. Only recently, however, have scholars begun to assess how that involvement in South East Asia affected America's relations with other countries. This thesis examines the impact of the Vietnam war on the relationship between the United States and one of its key allies, Great Britain, during the height of the conflict. It assesses how far Vietnam was a factor in the cooling of transatlantic relations during the mid to late 1960s. Scholars have long noted the decline in importance of Anglo-American relations during the 1960s. It is the contention of this thesis that the Johnson administration's preoccupation with events in South East Asia made the inevitable loosening of ties between the two countries strained and uncomfortable. Although it was not the only problematic issue troubling Anglo-American relations during this period, Vietnam was the one area where there was clear and open conflict. Whereas tensions over sterling and the decision by the British Government to remove its troops from East of Suez prompted feelings of disappointment, sadness and frustration, Vietnam provoked disagreement, misunderstandings, annoyance and accusations of betrayal. At the beginning of their period in office, the British Labour Government desired a `closer' relationship with the United States but by 1968 it was apparent that the Johnson Administration was not amenable to this. This was partly because Britain was now, just one of a number of close allies in Europe; partly because the American President did not develop a personal friendship with the British Prime Minister; but also because the Vietnam conflict had proved an issue - important enough and emotive enough - to cause open and deep disagreement between the two countries.
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Twine, Christopher. "Anglo-American relations and the Vietnam War : 1964-1967." Thesis, Aberystwyth University, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.391246.
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Gilbert, Adam John. "Morality, soldier-poetry, and the American war in Vietnam." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.607787.
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Fenn, Jeffery W. "Culture under stress : American drama and the Vietnam War." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1988. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/28668.
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The dissertation undertakes an analysis of the dramatic literature engendered by the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s, and illustrates how the dramas of that period reflect the stresses and anxieties that assailed contemporary American society. It investigates the formative influences on the drama, the various styles in which it emerged, and the recurring themes and motifs. The thesis proceeds from the premise that the events of the 1960s fractured American society in a manner unknown since the Civil War. It demonstrates that the social, political, and intellectual divisiveness that characterized the society was interpreted in the theatre by dramatic metaphors of fragmentation of the individual and collective psyche, and that this fragmentation was reflected in characters who experienced a collective and individual sense of loss of cultural identity, cohesion and continuity.
Included in the examination of the drama is a description of how the social upheaval of the period influenced playwrights to undertake a reassessment of American values and ethics, and to interpret in dramatic form the nature of the trauma of Vietnam for American society. The study includes a discussion of how individual and collective reality is based on cultural conditioning, and how the challenging of cultural myth in an extra-cultural milieu.Arts, Faculty of
Theatre and Film, Department of
Graduate
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Dozier, Kimberly S. Hesse Douglas Dean. "Reading Vietnam teaching literature using historically-situated texts /." Normal, Ill. Illinois State University, 1998. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ilstu/fullcit?p9914567.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 1998.Title from title page screen, viewed July 10, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Douglas Hesse (chair), C. Anita Tarr, Charles Harris. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 232-241) and abstract. Also available in print.
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Whitt, Jacqueline Earline. "Conflict and compromise : American military chaplains and the Vietnam war /." Chapel Hill, N.C. : University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2008. http://dc.lib.unc.edu/u?/etd,1704.
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Proctor, Patrick E. "The Vietnam War debate and the Cold War consensus." Diss., Kansas State University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/2097/18665.
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Doctor of PhilosophyDepartment of History
Donald Mrozek
Both Presidents Johnson and Nixon used the ideology of military containment of Communism to justify U.S. military intervention in Vietnam. Until 1968, opponents of this intervention attacked the ideology of containment or its application to Vietnam. In 1968, opponents of the war switched tactics and began to focus instead on the President’s credibility. These arguments quickly became the dominant critique of the war through its end and were ultimately successful in ending it. The Gulf of Tonkin incident and the Tonkin Gulf Resolution were central to the change of opposition strategy in 1968. For Johnson, the Gulf of Tonkin incident had provided the political impetus to pass the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which the administration used as an insurance policy against Congressional dissent. For Congressional dissenters in 1968, inconsistencies in Johnson’s version of the Gulf of Tonkin incident allowed them to undermine the Resolution as a weapon against Congress. For the American people, revelations about the administration’s dishonesty during the incident simply added to grave doubts that Americans already had about Johnson’s credibility; the American people lost confidence in Johnson, ending his Presidency. The dramatic success of this new strategy—attacking the administration’s credibility—encouraged other opponents to follow suit, permanently altering the framework of debate over the war. This change in opposition strategy in 1968 had a number of important consequences. First, this change in rhetoric ultimately ended the war. To sustain his credibility against relentless attack, President Nixon repeatedly withdrew troops to prove to the American people he was ending the war. Nixon ran out of troops to withdraw and had to accept an unfavorable peace. Second, after the war, this framework for debate of military interventions established—between advocates using the ideology of containment and opponents attacking the administration’s credibility—would reemerge nearly every time an administration contemplated military intervention through the end of the Cold War. Finally, because opponents of military intervention stopped challenging containment in 1968, the American public continued to accept the precepts of containment and the Cold War consensus survived until the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.
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Ferguson, Laura Elizabeth. "Kicking the Vietnam syndrome? : collective memory of the Vietnam War in fictional American cinema following the 1991 Gulf War." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2011. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2672/.
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This thesis analyses the concept of the “Vietnam Syndrome” and its continuing manifestation in fictional American films produced after the 1991 Gulf War, with reference to depictions of the Vietnam, Gulf and Iraq Wars. Based on contemporary press reports as source material and critical analysis, it identifies the “Vietnam Syndrome” as a flexible and altering national psychological issue characterised initially as a simple aversion to military engagement, but which grew to include collective feelings of shame, guilt and a desire to rewrite history. The thesis argues that the “Syndrome” was not quashed by the victory of the Gulf War in 1991, as had been speculated at the time. Rather, the thesis argues that it was only temporarily displaced and continues to be an ingrained feature of the collective American psyche in current times. The argument is based on theories of collective memory, according to which social attitudes are expressed in cultural products such as films. The relationships between memory and history, and between memory and national identity are explored as two highly relevant branches of collective memory research. The first of these combines the theories of Bodnar (1992), Sturken (1997), Winter and Sivan (1999) and Wertsch (2002), among others, to define memory’s relationship with history and position in the present. The discussion of the relationship between memory and national identity describes the process by which memory is adopted into the national collective, based on the research of Schudson (1992) and Hall (1999). Consideration is given to the alternative theories of Comolli and Narboni (1992 [1969]), Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983) and Miller (2005) that propose a unified representation from a dominant ideology and of The Popular Memory Group (1982) who argue a counter-hegemonic popular memory. The thesis argues that both are insufficient to account for public memory, establishing a multi-sourced collective memory as the basis for its arguments, as described by Hynes (1999) and Wertsch (2002). Successive chapters provide a close analysis of films in relation to the “Vietnam Syndrome”. Each of the films shows the different approaches to the conflicts and ways the “Vietnam Syndrome” manifests itself. Chapter 3 provides a summary of Vietnam War films released prior to the main period focused upon in this thesis, in order to contextualise the post-Gulf War texts. Chapter 4 analyses Heaven and Earth (1993, Dir. Oliver Stone) as a revolutionary depiction of the Vietnam War from a Vietnamese depiction. Chapter 5 discusses The War (1994, Dir. Jon Avnet) as a late revisionist text. The focus of Chapter 6 is Apocalypse Now Redux (2001, Dir. Francis Ford Coppola), a revision of a vision, in which the additional scenes are analysed for their contribution to this later, more reflective version of the 1970s text Apocalypse Now. The last Vietnam film analysed, We Were Soldiers (2002, Dir. Randall Wallace), is the subject of Chapter 7 and is discussed with reference to post-September 11 American society and the dormant period of the “Vietnam Syndrome.” Chapter 8 brings the previous Vietnam War film analysis chapters together to form intermediate conclusions prior to the progression to Gulf War films. Chapter 9 provides a break in the film analysis chapters to consider the press coverage of the Gulf War, compared to that of Vietnam, paving the way for the following discussion of Gulf War films. Press coverage of the Gulf War influences the visual depiction of the Gulf War in both Three Kings (1999, Dir. David O’Russell) in Chapter 10 and Jarhead (2005, Dir. Sam Mendes) in Chapter 11. The reading of Three Kings also analyses the narrative as a metaphor for American concerns over the American-led coalition’s conduct during the conflict, while Chapter 11 argues the use of Vietnam War films as media templates (Kitzinger, 2000) in Jarhead. Finally, Chapter 13 brings the film analysis to a close by discussing the early representations of the Iraq War that have emerged in recent years, including: American Soldiers: A Day in Iraq (2005, Dir. Sidney J. Furie), Home of The Brave (2006, Dir. Irwin Winkler), Stop-Loss (2008, Dir. Kimberley Peirce), Lions For Lambs (2007, Dir. Robert Redford) Redacted (2008, Dir. Brian de Palma) and The Hurt Locker (2008, Dir. Kathryn Bigelow). The main, but not exclusive, features typifying the “Vietnam Syndrome” expressed through the films include: a reluctance to engage in or support foreign military intervention; use of “good war” and “bad war” discourse; signs of a collective national trauma of defeat; expressions of guilt for the consequences of American actions and failings of policy; attempts to restore the national self-image. This thesis concludes that the “Vietnam Syndrome” is still relevant to American society and that it is expressed through films in a variety of ways. It argues that the Vietnam War and the “Vietnam Syndrome” have become frames of reference for the discussion and representation of conflict and that the American collective psyche suffers a mixture of syndromes, some mutually enforcing and some contradictory, that are triggered by a variety of circumstances. The “Vietnam Syndrome” is identified as the most prolific of these and through its construction and circulation in media products, including cinema, this thesis argues it has become an umbrella term for the remnants of angst over Vietnam and new concerns over other conflicts.
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Ngo, Lập Tu McLaughlin Robert L. "Literature as allusion processing and teaching Vietnam-American war literature." Normal, Ill. : Illinois State University, 2006. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=0&did=1225141141&SrchMode=1&sid=6&Fmt=2&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1177941823&clientId=43838.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 2006.Title from title page screen, viewed on April 30, 2007. Dissertation Committee: Robert L. McLaughlin (chair), Ronald Strickland, Aaron Smith. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 196-207) and abstract. Also available in print.
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Whitt, Jacqueline Earline Kohn Richard H. "Conflict and compromise American military chaplains and the Vietnam war /." Chapel Hill, N.C. : University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2008. http://dc.lib.unc.edu/u?/etd,1704.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2008.Title from electronic title page (viewed Sep. 16, 2008). "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History." Discipline: History; Department/School: History.
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Boyd, Joan. "From realism to magical realism : the American Vietnam War novel." Thesis, University of Ulster, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.551596.
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This thesis argues that changes in the form of the novel in post Second World War America, particularly certain novelists' considerations of realism as a viable mode of expression, have had a profound and lasting effect on Vietnam War literature and have been sustained into the twenty first century by a new generation of writers from ethnic minority groups. It examines prior criticism and points of view concerning the work of a number of established authors and considers the recent opinions on contemporary writers addressing the Vietnam experience for the first time. Where necessary the work will be contextualized with social history. The contribution to knowledge is fulfilled by the inclusion of Mexican- American writing within the past decade and by explaining its place in the overall literary contribution to the American Vietnam War novel. The method of investigation is literary critical analysis of selected novels from 1968 to 2002 as applied to examples of the authors' use of realism and magical realism, their imaginative language, the effect of trauma on literary expression and the manifestation of trauma in memory. When necessary, reference is made to myth criticism. The thesis outlines the tendency to go beyond realism and the forces which contributed to it, and argues that the more recent evolution from realism to magical realism, within the wide range of the Vietnam narrative, has facilitated a potentially more powerful and valid means of expression. The investigation concludes that despite being overtaken by other theatres of war, the conflict in Vietnam still maintains its place in American consciousness and that the recent examples of magical realism offered by ethnic minority writers have made a significant contribution to ensuring that the voices from a wider cultural mix are being added to the literary representations of the Vietnam experience.
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Hofmann, Bettina. "Ahead of survival : American women writers narrate the Vietnam war /." Frankfurt am Main ; Berlin ; Paris [etc.] : P. Lang, 1995. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb37511875r.
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Wilson, Kevin Arthur. "From memory to history American cultural memory of the Vietnam War /." Oxford, Ohio : Miami University, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=miami1153500782.
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McMullan, Paloma. "Corporeal territories : the body in American narratives of the Vietnam War." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2004. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/13216/.
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Focusing upon American veterans' depictions of the US intervention in Vietnam and its aftermath, this thesis argues that bodies and issues concerning embodiment form the epicentre of these representations. Chapter One uses narratives by Ron Kovic, John Ketwig, Philip Caputo and others to illustrate that military training is a transformative process wherein the recruit's body serves both as index of, and vehicle for, his metamorphosis into a soldier. As these authors suggest, training inculcates a utilitarian attitude towards embodiment: the soldier's body is, primarily, a disciplined body whose value- and masculinity- resides in 'its' power to inflict injury upon the 'enemy'. As Chapter Two demonstrates, however, such machine-bodies (and the conceptualisation of embodiment which engendered them) were 'out of place' in-country. Veterans like W.O. Ehrhart, Nathaniel Tripp, Robert Mason, and Tim O'Brien portray the Vietnam environment as inherently threatening to the US soldier's corporeal integrity. Viet Cong and NVA strategies also disempowered the American soldier, challenging his faith in the innate superiority of the machine-body. Confronting injury further undermined the soldier's sense of corporeal invulnerability. Chapter Three considers the wounding, and treatment, of American casualties of Vietnam, arguing that narratives by Caputo, Kovic, and (ex-Navy surgeon) John Parrish 'recover' aspects of injury excluded from officially-sanctioned discourse. Chapter Four extends this scrutiny of wounding, exploring its interpretation both in-country and 'back home', and highlighting Kovic's depiction of injury and its consequences in Born on the Fourth of July (1976). Chapter Five demonstrates that encounters with irreparable corporeal damage are imbued with a sense of crisis: such wounding simultaneously demands and resists representation. Texts by O'Brien, Kovic and others are considered as 'trauma narratives' here, and a connection is made between writing-as-retrieval, and the potential of narrativisation to promote psychical recuperation, both for veterans themselves and also, perhaps, for US society generally.
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Moyar, Mark. "American entry into the Vietnam War, 1964-65 : a re-evaluation." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.619882.
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Wilson, Kevin A. "From Memory to History: American Cultural Memory of the Vietnam War." Miami University / OhioLINK, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1153500782.
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Chattarji, Subarno. "'Memories of a lost war' : a study of American poetic responses to the Vietnam War." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.297326.
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Wood, John A. "Veteran Narratives and the Collective Memory of the Vietnam War." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2011. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/153677.
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HistoryPh.D.
This dissertation is a comprehensive study of the content, author demographics, publishing history, and media representation of the most prominent Vietnam veteran memoirs published between 1967 and 2005. These personal narratives are important because they have affected the collective memory of the Vietnam War for decades. The primary focus of this study is an analysis of how veterans' memoirs depict seven important topics: the demographics of American soldiers, combat, the Vietnamese people, race relations among U.S. troops, male-female relationships, veterans' postwar lives, and war-related political issues. The central theme that runs through these analyses is that these seven topics are depicted in ways that show veteran narratives represent constructed memories of the past, not infallible records of historical events. One reoccurring indication of this is that while memoirists' portrayals are sometimes supported by other sources and reflect historical reality, other times they clash with facts and misrepresent what actually happened. Another concern of this dissertation is the relationship of veteran memoirs to broader trends in public remembrance of the Vietnam War, and how and why some books, but not others, were able to achieve recognition and influence. These issues are explored by charting the publishing history of veteran narratives over a thirty-eight year period, and by analyzing media coverage of these books. This research indicates that mainstream editors and reviewers selected memoirs that portrayed the war in a negative manner, but rejected those that espoused either unambiguous anti- or pro-war views. By giving some types of narratives preference over others, the media and the publishing industry helped shape the public's collective understanding of the war.
Temple University--Theses
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Boyle, Brenda Marie. "Prisoners of war formations of masculinities in Vietnam war fiction and film /." Connect to this title online, 2003. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1060873937.
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Rudham, Gretchen Bourland. "Lost Soldiers from Lost War : a comparative study of the collective experience of soldiers of the Vietnam War and the Angolan/Namibian border war." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/7962.
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Summary in English.|Incudes bibliographical references.I explore the Vietnam War and the Border War of South Africa through the analysis of the oral histories of the soldiers who fought in these wars. Considering the scarcity of oral histories about the Border War, I conducted several personal interviews with Border War soldiers to add to the oral histories representing that conflict. In this dissertation, I frame the accounts of South African conscripts and Vietnam soldiers within the appropriate historical, social and ideological contexts of both wars. This comparison further focuses on the soldiers' perspective with relation to the physical and psychological conditions endemic to fighting guerilla wars, issues of race, class, ethnicity or regional affiliation in combat, as well as the return home from lost wars of intervention. My evaluation discovers significant common ground between the physical demands of warfare, the social and political environment, and most importantly, similar expressions of mental and emotional strain both during guerilla warfare and upon returning home. In conclusion, this is an endeavor to contribute to the breaking of the silence that has pervaded and enclosed the Border War by using, as a comparative point of departure, the vast experiences of Vietnam veterans who were more readily allowed the space to voice their accounts.
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McWha, Matthew. "Voices of Vietnam : a monumental poetry of trauma." Thesis, McGill University, 1997. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=20448.
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The poetry written by combat veterans and other witnesses to the Vietnam War is a testament to what they saw and felt in Southeast Asia. Through their poetry they build 'monuments' to their traumatic experience, piecing together memories in order to heal themselves and teach future generations about the horrors of Vietnam. These poems function in much the same way as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., both poem and Memorial requiring the effort of the 'reader' in order to propagate the legacy of the Vietnam War. By bearing witness to the Vietnam experience, the poem and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial facilitate questions; questions through which the reader and the visitor are able to construct their own imaginary monuments to the Vietnam War.
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Cordulack, Evan. "Consumer Under Fire: The Military Consumer and the Vietnam War." W&M ScholarWorks, 2005. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539626481.
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Kinsella, Timothy Patrick. "A world of hurt : art music and the American war in Vietnam /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/11209.
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Tarnowska, E. H. "Passing from the night : myth in American narratives of the Vietnam War." Thesis, Swansea University, 1995. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.639163.
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This thesis analyses mythology as expressed in selected American narratives of the Vietnam War. Myth not only manifests itself in literature, but also impinges on interpretations of history, and on political rhetorics. I distinguish, therefore, between primary, national (historical), and political myths as three interlocking levels within the mythological system. The narrative structure of the primary myth combines Campbell's pattern of the universal hero-myth and the symbology of Jung's archetypes. This constitutes the virtually universal foundation of all myths, including national myths, and their contemporary offspring - political myths. The appeal of political and national mythologies depends on the universal message of the primary narrative. The archetypal hero-tale with its quest-journey and initiation sequence remains valid as a paradigm for war literature. This is also the structural frame of Vietnam narratives which reiterate the hero-myth pattern in concrete historical circumstances. Literature rewrites and mythologises the war. Vietnam authors tend to go away from the tenets of political and national myth, and turn towards the universal themes of the initiation of a warrior, or of atonement and redemption. The writing of Mailer, Herr, and O'Brien involves a quest for the hidden meaning of conflict (chapters 1, 3). Other authors also seek to determine whether the combat experience is an ultimate test for potentially glorious warriors, or a spiritual descent of fallen heroes (chapters 4, 5).
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Stitt, Orrin G. "The soldier's dilemma using decision theory to explain American War crimes /." Monterey, Calif. : Naval Postgraduate School, 2007. http://bosun.nps.edu/uhtbin/hyperion-image.exe/07Dec%5FStitt%5FMBA.pdf.
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"Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Administration from the Naval Postgraduate School, December 2007."Advisor(s): Franck, Raymond ; Gates, Bill ; Coughlan, Pete. "December 2007." "MBA professional report"--Cover. Description based on title screen as viewed on January 10, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 49-50). Also available in print.
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Middleton, Alexis Turley. "A True War Story: Reality and Simulation in the American Literature and Film of the Vietnam War." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2008. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/1492.
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The Vietnam War has become an important symbol and signifier in contemporary American culture and politics. The word "Vietnam" contains many meanings and narratives, including both the real events of the American War in Vietnam and the fictional representations of that war. Because we live in a reality that is composed of both lived experience and simulacra, defined by Baudrillard as a hyperreality, fiction and simulation are capable of representing particular realities. Vietnam was shaped by simulacra of Vietnam itself as well as simulacra of previous American conflicts, especially World War II; however, the hyperreality of Vietnam differed largely from that of World War II. Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now and Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried are highly fictionalized texts that accurately portray particular realities of Vietnam. These texts are capable of presenting truth about Vietnam through their use of specific metafictional techniques, which continually remind readers and viewers that the story being told is not reality but a story. By emphasizing the fictional elements of their narratives, Apocalypse Now and The Things They Carried point to the constructed nature of reality and empower readers to recognize the possibility of truth in different, even conflicting, narratives.
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Norcross, Baxter. "War, Race, and Gender in American Presidential Elections in 1964 and 1972." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2010. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/80.
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This paper examines the partisan shift that took place in American Presidential elections during the Vietnam War. Specifically, I examine the landslide elections of 1964 and 1972 and how race, gender, and American casualties played a part in the shift.
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Garrett, Dave L. "The Power of One: Bonnie Singleton and American Prisoners of War in Vietnam." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1999. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc279240/.
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Bonnie Singleton, wife of United States Air Force helicopter rescue pilot Jerry Singleton, saw her world turned upside down when her husband was shot down while making a rescue in North Vietnam in 1965. At first, the United States government advised her to say very little publicly concerning her husband, and she complied. After the capture of the American spy ship, the U.S.S. Pueblo by North Korea, and the apparent success in freeing the naval prisoners when Mrs. Rose Bucher, the ship captain's wife, spoke out, Mrs. Singleton changed her opinion and embarked upon a campaign to raise public awareness about American prisoners of war held by the Communist forces in Southeast Asia. Mrs. Singleton, along with other Dallas-area family members, formed local grass-roots organizations to notify people around the world about the plight of American POWs. They enlisted the aid of influential congressmen, such as Olin "Tiger" Teague of College Station, Texas; President Richard M. Nixon and his administration; millionaire Dallas businessman Ross Perot; WFAA television in Dallas; and other news media outlets worldwide. In time, Bonnie Singleton, other family members, and the focus groups they helped start encouraged North Vietnam to release the names of prisoners, allow mail and packages to be sent to the POWs, and afford better treatment for prisoners of war.
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Goodhart, Andrew T. "The Goldwater Nichols Act of 1986 and American Counterinsurgency: Comparing Afghanistan and Vietnam." Ohio : Ohio University, 2008. http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/view.cgi?ohiou1219627255.
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Turner, Charles A. P. "American leadership and decision-making failures in the Tet Offensive /." Fort Leavenworth, Kan. : [U.S. Army Command and General Staff College], 2003. http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA416144.
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Stewart, Eric. "The ‘My Lai Massacre’ Narrative in American History and Memory: A Story of American Conservatism." Thesis, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/32099.
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This thesis uses the referent “My Lai Massacre” to refer to the mythic memory of what happened in Son My on 16 March, 1968. It argues that it is a fitting name for the way it captures the ethnocentrism of the memory in the name by perpetuating an American misnomer rooted in ignorance. It also singularizes the scope of horrors of the day, and fails to differentiate ‘the massacre’ from the domestic turmoil with which it was conflated. The My Lai Massacre narrative as it currently exists in American history and memory is ‘exceptionalist’ in that it incorporates and excludes story elements in such a way that casts it as a highly exceptional occurrence.
The main argument of this thesis is that American history and memory of the ‘My Lai Massacre’ have, to a large degree, been defined and shaped by conservative influences. In the time since the news of the atrocities became public this has manifested itself in a number of way and is not confined to conservative histories of the war. Despite the hold liberal orthodox scholarship has on the history of the war, there remains within it, this thesis argues, a conservative trend regarding the massacres in Son My. Reactions, explanations, and rationalizations that appeared in early conservative responses to news of the massacres have survived into a wider ideological spectrum of Vietnam scholarship and memory than that from which it came.
Although it seems at first consideration an unlikely event from which a usable past might be constructed, the My Lai Massacre does get used in a didactic manner. This thesis examines some of the most prevalent ways the memory of My Lai functions as a usable past. The My Lai Massacre has been incorporated into a number of ‘lessons of the past’ that tend to be derived from conservative narratives of the war.
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Nguyen, Thach Hong Politics Australian Defence Force Academy UNSW. "Vietnam between China & the United States (1950-1995)." Awarded by:University of New South Wales - Australian Defence Force Academy. School of Politics, 2001. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/38753.
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Vietnam is a tragic land, which has witnessed three successive wars since it won independence in 1945. The purpose of this dissertation is to seek answers to the question of why so many tragedies struck the Vietnamese people, and in particular to examine the contribution made by Sino-American competition to this tragic history. Analysing the IMPACT of Sino-American relations on Chinese and American policies towards Vietnam, the study finds that Vietnam never was the primary subject of American foreign policy, though America was deeply involved in Vietnam during the twenty-five years between 1950 and 1975. Washington???s Vietnam policy was largely based on its perception of China. Likewise, Beijing???s policy towards Vietnam was greatly affected by the state of its relations with Washington. Vietnam was a victim of their confrontation. The analysis shows that the increase in American involvement during the last stage of the first Vietnam War and the start of the second Vietnam War was due to enmity between China and the United States. US neglect was a result of Sino-American rapprochement while US isolation of Vietnam resulted from Sino-American strategic co-operation. Though the third Vietnam War was a consequence of Sino-Soviet competition, Washington also indirectly encouraged Beijing to be tough with Vietnam, as it needed Chinese support in its relations with Moscow. Analysing changes in Chinese and American polices towards Vietnam, the study observes that when a small state is caught in an intra-power struggle, bug powers will always try to use the small state as a tool in their rivalry. The main lesson for small states is to avoid being caught in such big-power competition. Politicians in small states should also avoid taking sides with big powers lest this create opportunities for big power interference and draw the small state into big power competition. This needs the political acumen and flexibility to distinguish national interest from self-interest.
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Kittle, Lindsay. "Gentle Warriors: U.S. Marines and Humanitarian Action during the Vietnam War." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1338439456.
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Nagl, John A. "British and American army counterinsurgency learning during the Malayan Emergency and the Vietnam War." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.339868.
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Marquis, Jefferson P. "The "Other War": An Intellectual History of American Nationbuilding in South Vietnam, 1954-1975." The Ohio State University, 1997. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1392821650.
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Page, Caroline. "The strategic manipulation of American official propaganda during the Vietnam War, 1965-1966, and British opinion on the war." Thesis, University of Reading, 1989. http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/8296/.
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This thesis examines the American official propaganda campaign on the Vietnam war, and its impact on both the British Government, America's main non-combatant ally, and British public opinion, from the time of the escalation of the war, in February 1965, to mid-1966. Concentrating on Administration statements, the study assesses the Administration's knowledge of events in South Vietnam and its secret planning on the war, compares this knowledge and planning with its propaganda, and evaluates the truth and accuracy of Administration propaganda. An assessment is also made of U.S. propaganda techniques and the utility of American official propaganda themes. The thesis then examines the information on the war that was available to the British public on a daily basis in the British press. The role of the press during the war is assessed both as an information medium, and as an audience for American official propaganda - an audience which then disseminated its own analyses of the war and U.S. propaganda. The British Labour Government's reaction and opinion on the war is traced in relation to its own policy of support for its U.S. ally, and the domestic political difficulties that this policy caused. British public opinion on the war during this period is evaluated through public opinion polls, and press accounts of opposition to the war, including accounts of demonstrations. The theme of this thesis is that when the war began escalating in February 1965, the British Government, the public, and much of the press, supported 135. involvement in Vietnam. But by mid-1966, the British Government had dissociated from the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam's oil storage depots, henceforth offering qualified support to its ally; the British public no longer supported U.S. action in Vietnam; and sections of the British press opposed U.S. involvement. The British Government's dissociation was a blow to the U.S. Administration, and thus the American official propaganda campaign had failed to retain the desired degree of support from its British ally.
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Liu, Zhaoxi. "Assessing objectivity : an ideological criticism of the coverage of the Spanish-American War and the Vietnam War in the New York Times /." free to MU campus, to others for purchase, 2004. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/mo/fullcit?p1420937.
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Davis, Ginger. ""Being Vietnamese": The Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the United States during the Early Cold War." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2012. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/214107.
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HistoryPh.D.
This dissertation examines the early U.S.-D.R.V. relationship by analyzing related myths and exploring Viet Minh policies. I go beyond the previous literature to examine the Viet Minh government's modernization and anti-imperialist projects, both of which proved critical to D.R.V. policy evolution and the evolution of a new national identity. During the French era, as Vietnamese thinkers rethought the meaning of "being Vietnamese," groups like the Viet Minh determined that modernization was the essential to Vietnam's independence and that imperialist states like the U.S. posed a serious threat to their revolution and their independence. I argue that D.R.V. officials dismissed all possibility of a real alliance with the U.S. long before 1950. Soviet and Chinese mentors later provided development aid to Hanoi, while the D.R.V. maintained its autonomy and avoided becoming a client state by seeking alliances with other decolonizing countries. In doing so, Vietnamese leaders gained their own chances to mentor others and improve their status on the world stage. After Geneva, Hanoi continued to advance modernization in the North using a variety of methods, but its officials also heightened their complaints against the U.S. In particular, the D.R.V. denounced America's invasion of South Vietnam and its "puppet" government in Saigon as evidence of an imperialist plot. In advocating an anti-imperialist line and modernized future, D.R.V. leaders elaborated a new national identity, tying modernization and anti-imperialism inextricably to "being Vietnamese." Yet modernization presented serious challenges and Hanoi's faith in anti-imperialism had its drawbacks, limiting their ability to critique and evaluate the U.S. threat fully.
Temple University--Theses
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Campbell, Matthew Alan. "Reel-to-Real: Intimate Audio Epistolarity During the Vietnam War." The Ohio State University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1555657052871048.
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Vo, Dang Thanh Thuy. "Anticommunism as cultural praxis South Vietnam, war, and refugee memories in the Vietnamese American community /." Diss., Connect to a 24 p. preview or request complete full text in PDF format. Access restricted to UC campuses, 2008. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ucsd/fullcit?p3307329.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2008.Title from first page of PDF file (viewed July 14, 2008). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 221-235).
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Olmsted, Chelsea Dawn. "The Battleground for the American Past: The Influence of the Vietnam War in Contemporary Memory." Thesis, North Dakota State University, 2020. https://hdl.handle.net/10365/31805.
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Commemorative programming for historic anniversaries reveals an interpretive and narrative evolution between public memory and history. The divisiveness of the war and the public’s ambivalence about its meaning allowed for broader interpretive perspectives compared to earlier war commemorations. Research on the evolving narratives considers how public memory informs identity and affects historical interpretations. Recent museum exhibits, historic sites, and films about the Vietnam War bring into focus the changing narrative of the Vietnam War. Case studies for this research are the Washington, D.C. National Archives and Records Administration Remembering Vietnam exhibit, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund’s plans for an education center, and Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s documentary The Vietnam War. The soldier’s experience narrative still dominates interpretations, but interpretations have expanded to include the Vietnamese and the protest perspective. The passage of time and the conflict’s complexity has opened the way for new perspectives in commemorative programming.
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Denehan, Kieran T. "Victory by proxy? : American air power, the secret war in Laos, and the future of the Global War on Terrorism /." Maxwell AFB, Ala. : School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, 2008. https://www.afresearch.org/skins/rims/display.aspx?moduleid=be0e99f3-fc56-4ccb-8dfe-670c0822a153&mode=user&action=downloadpaper&objectid=dd53c1a0-358d-4e44-9b7b-e54bd8d5f227&rs=PublishedSearch.
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Kinross, Stuart. ""War is an instrument of policy" : the influence of Clausewitz upon American strategic thought and practice from the Vietnam War to the Gulf War." Thesis, University of Aberdeen, 2001. http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk/R?func=search-advanced-go&find_code1=WSN&request1=AAIU485668.
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This work is a study in strategic thought. Its objective is to demonstrate how the analyses and arguments of Carl von Clausewitz influenced American strategic thinking between the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. In addressing the influence of Clausewitz, one is examining the way in which his thought has been adapted to contemporary conditions. Clausewitz's conception of the state may place him in the realist canon but his writings do not ignore the irrational factors that are at work an international relations and war. By separating the "historical" Clausewitz from the strategically significant Clausewitz of today, the major similarity between the two rests on the basic assumption that war is an instrument of policy serving the state's interests. Unravelling the threads that make up American strategic thought is a high task. The idealistic strain in American strategy does not mean that expediency in the shape of balance-of-power politics is alien to the United States. As the only superpower to have exited throughout the whole post-war period, America's policy choices have been the major factor behind the shifting balance of the international security environment. Military power, even more so than the making and breaking of alliances, has been at its heart. Clausewitz was the first strategic theorist to seriously study the phenomenon of people's war. Ironically, the Vietnamese communists, despite their "Eastern" culture, showed more awareness than did the Americans of Clausewitz's thought. Their armed struggle occurred in tandem with a political struggle. The Americans found it difficult to clarify, for the sake of domestic opinion, the identity of the enemy. Without the commitment of the American people, the American military struggled to successfully execute a prolonged campaign in Vietnam. The Vietnam War is a classic case of the lack of grasp of policy at the strategic level being mirrored at the operational level precisely because the United States was unsure as to exactly the kind of conflict in which it was engaged.