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Denial In The Vietnam War

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I do not completely agree with the idea that the incident at My Lai caused the Americans to enter the state of denial. However, I support the thought regarding the growing disbelief among the citizens of the United States that was a result of the cruel and terrible murder of civilians in Vietnam. Nevertheless, it is not surprising that the revealing of the truth about the events was met ambiguously. The supporters of the war spoke about the American soldiers as the heroes who die fighting for the high aims. The respective idea about the Americans in Vietnam expressed Johnson Lyndon spreading the idea that “Americans have gone to far lands to fight for freedom” and there is no other way to establish peace rather than war (Lyndon, Statement, 1). …show more content…

For example, even after the truth was revealed, only “one soldier, Lieutenant William Calley, was found guilty of directing the atrocity” (Foner, GML, 814). With respect to the discussed situation, the people considered it inappropriate for the authorities to refer to thousands of people who died in the war and thousands more who “have been crippled and scarred by war”, and justify the inhumane activities of American troops in Vietnam (Lyndon, Statement, 2). This contributed to the larger extent of division between the opposing sides as far as neither of them was ready to seek consensus and to take the position of the objective truth. In any case, the revealing of the information regarding the My Lai events was an event causing ambivalent reaction of the American

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