Countless Americans lack education of the Vietnam War and what treatment the Vietnamese population received during the war. Many times the behavior conducted towards the Vietnamese portrayed American soldiers mistreating the noncombatants. James W. Loewen’s chapter nine of Lies My Teacher Told Me leads readers through the occurrences in the Vietnam War by elaborating the war crimes enacted by American soldiers, examining the intervention of America in the war, and describing pictures that were taken during the war. One subject Loewen uncovers is the analysis of the war crimes throughout the Vietnam War.
The most disgusting part being that numerous soldiers didn't know why they were fighting. " Things I cannot understand. Things I never will understand. How they can fight so hard, them johnnies, and all for slavery. " They fought for pride, manhood, duty, and for the their country.
In A Viet Cong Memoir, we receive excellent first hands accounts of events that unfolded in Vietnam during the Vietnam War from the author of this autobiography: Truong Nhu Tang. Truong was Vietnamese at heart, growing up in Saigon, but he studied in Paris for a time where he met and learned from the future leader Ho Chi Minh. Truong was able to learn from Ho Chi Minh’s revolutionary ideas and gain a great political perspective of the conflicts arising in Vietnam during the war. His autobiography shows the readers the perspective of the average Vietnamese citizen (especially those involved with the NLF) and the attitudes towards war with the United States. In the book, Truong exclaims that although many people may say the Americans never lost on the battlefield in Vietnam — it is irrelevant.
In the Iliad, Achilles is faced with two choices which he learned of through his mother, Thetis, which are kleos,”fame,” and nostos, “homecoming.” If Achilles decides to return home, he will lose his kleos, but will have more time at home and an unchallenging death. Though if he stays in Troy and fights his nostos will be lost, but he will obtain kleos. Achilles understands that living would be an extension of time, but that just time itself has no value. At first he chose nostos and after the shift in his anger towards Agamemnon he chose kleos.
It also shows the effect the war has on soldiers. In one scene you see people ask a wounded man if they can take his boots, showing how important the little things are for these soldier. There is another scene while they are all inside the bunker, there are some new recruits and they pan the camera to show a boy who is covering
Imagine yourself on the side of a mountain 15,000 feet in the air and the only thing that is keeping you from falling off of that mountain is a piece of rope you tied. It’s scary to imagine, isn’t it? To some people that’s what they dream about doing, they love mountain climbing. Two of these people, who love mountain climbing, are Jon Krakauer and Erik Weihenmayer. Jon Krakauer was just a man from Mobile, Alabama who dreamed of doing something that had never been done before; climbing the great north wall of The Devil’s Thumb.
Introduction In the early 1960’s, the United States had sent combat troops to South Vietnam for the purpose of defending South Vietnam against the communist North Vietnam and to spread Democracy. The Vietnamese War was the longest war in the history of the United States and it costed 58,000 American lives, as well as almost two million Vietnamese deaths. According to the digital history article, the war, among others, damaged the economy, weakened the military morale, and brought distrust in the government. It was also estimated that 830,000 veterans suffered from PTSD, of which almost half of them were deeply affected to the point of being labeled disabled.
One of the reasons Americans began losing trust in the military and government was because the Vietnam War resulted in a huge number of deaths, both among American soldiers and Vietnamese citizens. The death toll and violent visuals displayed on television pushed the brutal reality of war into people's living rooms. The scale of the deaths caused doubts about the purpose of the war. The progress of the war was “not measured by cities won or territory taken but by body counts and kill ratios” (Locke and Wright 328). Towards the end of the Platoon, there was a major battle that cost the lives of thousands of men from both sides.
These guys saw each other at their weakest and their strongest. They would form a lifetime bond that is unforgettable Sometimes you take what you have for granted, and you don’t know what you have until you lose it. When soldiers lost their friends on the field, it was life changing. The person they told everything to was lying in their arms dead. You think about what they lost and the family and girlfriend they had.
What has distinguished Vietnam veterans from most of their predecessors is that the public 's detestation of the war seemed to be directed onto them, as if it was their fault. Thus they did not return as heroes, but as men suspected in participating in shocking cruelty and wickedness or feared to be drug addicts. The combination of society rejecting them, the government ignoring them, and their families not understanding to them, caused Vietnam veterans to self-destruct both mentally and sometimes physically.
In Book Nine of The Iliad, the focus is of the story is on the character of Achilles, the desperation the Achaeans suffer in their need for this great warrior as well as his refusal to return into the fighting to assist his comrades, due to his rage with Agamemnon. In particular, one of the most important scenes of Book Nine is from approximately line 443 through line 473, in which Achilles bluntly refuses the gifts offered to him by Agamemnon in recompense for stealing away Achilles’ war-prize Briseis. This passage demonstrates the depth of the rage of Achilles as well as his sense of pride, as he chooses to remain absent from the fighting, even in the Achaeans’ moment of sheer desperation, due to his deep hatred for Agamemnon. As
The Iliad is a riveting tale of violence and rage amongst heartbreak and tragedy, where a range of emotions are evoked through various events and decisions made by the characters throughout. Some of these characters act on impulse, while others think over with others and themselves to find the best course of action and do what they feel would be the best, be it for their families or their people, or for themselves alone. Through such feelings, certain events play out that either work out to the favor of the characters, or the exact opposite. Characters like Achilles and Agamemnon act on their anger, often going beyond what would be deemed reasonable and even affecting the events following. Achilles’ anger was triggered by Agamemnon’s arrogance
Thousands of people join our military and risk their lives to fight for their country. After many years of fighting in war, soldiers are no longer who they used to be. Upon their return home, they are looked down upon, treated badly, and aren’t given the treatment needed to recover. The struggles and obstacles these veterans face on their journey home and once they arrive forever face. In the epic poem, Odyssey by Homer, it shows the obstacles a soldier has to face on their journey.
In the Iliad, Achilles is responding to Odysseus’s speech attempting to convince him to return to the war. Achilles’ main argument against returning is his incalculable rage against Agamemnon for “the prize of honor / The warlord Agamemnon gave me / And in his insulting arrogance took back” which is not only an insult to Achilles’ status, but also to his honor as a warrior (Il. 9.378-379). In addition to focusing on the main argument of Achilles’ speech, it is worth noting the contradictions present within his speech as well.
In Homer’s The Iliad, epic hero Achilles serves as an example of how rage, when unchecked, leads to disastrous repercussions. Achilles, though nearly superhuman in his physical abilities, struggles repeatedly to contain his anger. Throughout The Iliad, as Achilles’ fury compounds, the consequences of his actions become catastrophic, eventually leading to the death of his best friend, Patroclus. Although Achilles ultimately chooses to avenge Patroclus’ death and achieve his own kleos, or honor, his rage-driven actions lead to the death of many Achaean soldiers, and change the course of his fate.
