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Get access to files anywhere through secure cloud storage and file backup for your photos, videos, files and more with Google Drive.

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Ethics is a system of moral principles. They are used in society for individuals to alter the way that they behave. The definition of principle is the truth that serves as a foundation for reasoning of belief.

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Nixon's speech was to address the nation on issues that the American people of that time did not fully understand. As well as to reassure them in the governments decisions.

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President Richard Nixon - Address to the Nation on the War in Vietnam

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You can view the full speech here: http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3873 President Nixon assures the American people that he is taking all necessary measures to push towards peace and end the Vietnam War. He does not advocate withdrawing troops but instead negotiating peace.

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HO CHI MINH CITY - This bustling city of 8 million that is still called Saigon by many is going all out to celebrate Thursday's 40th anniversary of its fall - the day North Vietnam's Communist army captured South Vietnam's capital.

Propaganda posters and billboards marking Liberation Day blanket a downtown brimming with construction cranes and new high-rise buildings. City landmarks such as the old French colonial city hall and post office have gotten fresh coats of paint. A massive military parade is in the works and a shiny new statue of the North's iconic leader, Ho Chi Minh, waits to be unveiled on a renovated central square.

Yet even as the now-united country trumpets the North's victory over American invaders during a devastating conflict that left more than 3 million Vietnamese and nearly 60,000 American troops dead, bitter rifts over the civil war remain deep and unresolved.

For journalist and author Huy Duc, the first step towards reconciliation is to acknowledge the very different perspectives on why the war was fought. That has yet to take place.

"Vietnamese people from both sides have to agree on what happened," he said. "People who were sent from the North believed that they fought against the invading Americans and were liberating the South. And many people from the South ... believe it was a civil war, that the South was invaded by the North."

Architect Nguyen Huu Thai, 75, had a front-row seat for the last moments of the war. A student leader in Saigon in the 1960s, he later secretly worked for the North as a member of the National Liberation Front, or Viet Cong, that fought U.S. troops in South Vietnam.

"The reconciliation clock stopped in 1975," said Thai . "Even 40 years later, I still search for real reconciliation."

At noon on April 30, 1975, Thai was at Independence Palace, home to the South Vietnamese president, as the first North Vietnamese tank came crashing through the front gate - an image memorialized on banners all over the city. He helped a soldier find his way to the roof of the building to hang the NLF flag.

A U.S. military helicopter lifts off from the U.S. Embassy in Saigon during the evacuation of authorized personnel and civilians on April 29, 1975. (Photo: AP file photo)

"When we raised the flag, I thought: 'This is not only 30 years of fighting ending, but 117 years,'" he said, counting back to the arrival of French colonial troops in 1858. "Tears were running down my face. It was so emotional, so important."

Afterwards, Thai helped organize the radio broadcast in which South Vietnamese President Duong Van Minh announced his surrender over the airwaves. As the day came to a close, he recalled it being the quietest night he had ever experienced: "All of my life, there were no peaceful times," he said. "Until the night of the 30th. It was such a strange thing for me. In the sky, no more planes, no more flares. On the street, no more military cars racing around."

The tranquil early moments after the end of the war did not last long, however, as the new regime quickly began a period of harsh crackdowns and waves of desperate Vietnamese fled the country. "The winners still had the mentality of war," said Thai.

D.M. Thanh, a lieutenant in the South Vietnamese army, faced the morning of April 30 with dread. "The bright side was that the war had ended, and there wouldn't be any more fighting," he said. "On the other hand, I was very worried. I didn't know what my future would be."

Thanh, like thousands of other South Vietnamese officers, was sent to a re-education camp, where he spent 12 years subject to backbreaking labor, extreme deprivation and Marxist indoctrination. His wife was pregnant with their son when he was sent away and Thanh only saw them twice during his confinement. After he was released, he took over a flower shop his parents owned and has lived quietly since.

Thanh said he doesn't talk about the past with his son, but the memories haunt him. "I forgive, but I can never forget," Thanh said, his eyes welling up.

Vietnam's lack of reconciliation is a theme Duc addresses in his book, The Winning Side, a far more frank and open look at the final days of the war and its aftermath than is found in official Vietnamese literature. The book has not been published in tightly censored Vietnam, but it has been widely read around the country online and in bootleg editions.

"After the war, the winning side did nothing to reconcile the people," Duc said. "They dug the divisions deeper and deeper, even inside the families of the losers of the war. So reconciliation has now become more difficult than on the day of April 30."

One reason the divisions persist is that the ruling Communist Party keeps tight control over the news media so there is no free discussion of the country's past. A recent report by the Committee to Protect Journalists ranked Vietnam the sixth most censored country in the world, worse than China, Iran and Cuba.

Many born after the fall of Saigon pay little attention to the anniversary or the lasting political wounds. They are more focused on enjoying the country's new found prosperity.
A GROWING ECONOMY
The Communists may have won the war, but the capitalists have won this cosmopolitan city that buzzes with entrepreneurial energy. Alongside the hammer-and-sickle flags are Chanel and Cartier boutiques. Young Vietnamese are as selfie- and Facebook-obsessed as peers around the world, and their focus is on how to take advantage of a growing economy.

"Ho Chi Minh City pays more attention to the economy than political issues," said Nguyen Tuan Thanh amid the whir of blenders and espresso machines in Caztus Coffee, a small café he owns. The 25-year-old, with tattooed arms and a Bluetooth receiver in his ear, was inspired by books written by Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz to start a chain of cafés specializing in ice-blended drinks.

Nguyen Tuan Thanh prepares coffee at Caztus Coffee, a cafe he owns in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. (Photo: Thomas Maresca)

It would have been much more difficult to start his business - three shops so far - in the North, where personal connections and relationships still dominate the business landscape. "It's much easier to get things done here than Hanoi," he said.

Denise Thi, 30, founder and managing director of a 6-year-old digital marketing firm recently acquired by multinational giant Dentsu Aegis Network, said the anniversary should be a reason to look ahead, not at the past.

Denise Thi, managing director of Emerald Consulting, a digital marketing firm in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, says "In a way you feel so proud of your country for what we have achieved, for how we fought for liberty. But there's another way of celebrating. ... I mean, let's talk about the future, not the past anymore." (Photo: Thomas Maresca for USA TODAY)

"In a w ay y ou feel so pro ud of your country for what we have achieved, for how we fought for liberty," she said. "But there's another way of celebrating. ... I mean, let's talk about the future, not the past anymore."

Journalist Duc argues that the future won't be as bright if Vietnam fails to confront the past and address its long-lasting divisions.

"No matter how strong our economy is, the conflict among Vietnamese people on both sides is still very strong," he said. "So the thing we have to do is not only unify the different parts of the country, but also unify people's hearts."

Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1zkEUS7

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40 years later, Vietnam still deeply divided over war

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HO CHI MINH CITY - This bustling city of 8 million that is still called Saigon by many is going all out to celebrate Thursday's 40th anniversary of its fall - the day North Vietnam's Communist army captured South Vietnam's capital. Propaganda posters and billboards marking Liberation Day blanket a downtown brimming with construction cranes and new high-rise buildings.

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More than 40 years after the end of the Vietnam war, dozens of ageing former American soldiers have gone back to the country to live. Some had difficulty adapting to civilian life in the US. Others have gone back in the hope of atoning for wrongs they believe were committed during the war.

At the foot of one of Da Nang's Marble Mountains women with rice hats walk around selling souvenirs. A lift takes tourists to the top, where on one side they look out over the countryside of central Vietnam, on the other the South China Sea.

In 1968 David Edward Clark was camped behind these mountains, but then it was impossible to climb them, the 66-year-old says. Anyone doing so would be a sitting duck for the Vietcong camped nearby.

"We even had the rule that you would never leave the camp without a gun," says Clark. "So I walked around with an M16 all day. And I put that thing in the face of every Vietnamese I encountered. Men, women and children. I wanted them to be scared of me. That would give me a bigger chance to survive."

Forty years later Clark came back to Vietnam, this time not to fight Communists, but to build a new life. Clark is one of about 100 American veterans, maybe more, who have established themselves in Vietnam. Many of them live in and around Da Nang, the city where the US had its busiest military airfield during the war and where the first American troops arrived in 1965.

Back in the US, after the war, not a day went by without thinking of Vietnam, says Clark, who hides his eyes behind a big pair of sunglasses. "I often woke up, bathing in sweat. I saw people when they weren't there. Once I got up in the middle of the night, planning to place ambushes around my house, because I thought the Vietcong were coming to get me. The only way I could escape from these memories was by getting drunk. So I drank way, way too much."

I was so heavily brainwashed that before I went to war I wanted to kill Communists
Richard Parker, Veteran

In 2007, Clark finally managed to take a step back. For this he had go back to the mountain that separated his platoon from the enemy and for the first time in his life he climbed all the way up. "On the top I had a feeling of peace I never had before. There were no more bombs, there was no more fighting, there were no more jet fighters flying over. Then I realised the war is over."

It's estimated that tens of thousands of veterans have returned to Vietnam since the 1990s, mostly for short visits to the places where they once served. Decades after the fall of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) many former soldiers still wonder why they were fighting.

That goes for Richard Parker, also 66, who says he "lost the plot" after Vietnam, and for 20 years led a life of alcohol, drugs and sex.

"I was a vagabond who worked in restaurants and who went from town to town. It didn't matter to me if I was dead or alive," he says.

I have the feeling that we need to restore some things... we have done so many stupid things here
Larry Vetter, Veteran

Memories of destruction and death in Vietnam continuously haunted him. "I was so heavily brainwashed that before I went to war I wanted to kill Communists. But when I left Vietnam, I loved the people there," he says. "How were they dangerous? The only thing they wanted to do was grow rice and make babies."

For many years Parker suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, a disease that today affects 11% of Vietnam veterans. Tens of thousands have committed suicide.

For Parker the only way to put his demons to rest was to return to Vietnam. "Here I found, more or less, peace with myself. Sometimes I go to a place where we used to fight. What was chaos and destruction at the time, is now a hopeful place full of life."

Another veteran, Larry Vetter works for Child of War Vietnam, a website that aims to tell people about the legacy of the Vietnam War. Both American and Vietnamese flags hang in his spacious house. Above the sofa there is a wedding portrait - this summer, the 73-year-old married his Vietnamese girlfriend, Doan Ha.

When Vetter came to Da Nang in November 2012 he only intended to stay three months to help a family care for two sick boys apparently suffering from the effects of Agent Orange, a chemical herbicide used by the US military to kill trees and shrubs, which is still causing cancer, deformities and paralysis today.

Back in the US everything felt meaningless - I was like a piece of the puzzle that didn't fit in
Chas Lehman, Veteran

"I have the feeling that we need to restore some things," says Vetter, who is known to his friends as Captain Larry. "The US government refuses to do that, so I'm here to do my part."

It was partly a sense of guilt that led Vetter to stay in Vietnam after the three months were over.

"There's a closet in my head that I don't want to open, because I fear of what comes out of it. I don't know exactly what's in there, but every now and then the door opens a bit and I get bad dreams. Maybe this closet is the reason I'm in Vietnam. We have done so many stupid things here."

Chas Lehman, a man in his 70s with a white beard and dark sunglasses, describes his return to Vietnam as the will of God. It was conversion to Christianity, he says, that saved him from falling into a black hole of depression, disillusion and post-traumatic stress disorder.

"When I was sent to Vietnam, the mission seemed simple: I had to prevent the free South Vietnam from becoming a slave of the Communist North. But from the time I arrived on Vietnamese soil, I knew this wasn't right and that I had to get out of here," he says. "Back in the US everything felt meaningless. I was like a piece of the puzzle that didn't fit in. Then Jesus saved me and gave meaning to my life."

I know this is where I have to be - the war is over, and I will die here
David Edward Clark, Veteran

Together with other volunteers Lehman distributes food, drinks, clothing and blankets to needy minority groups in Vietnam's Central Highlands. On a single trip they can assist 65 to 300 families. "During the war, I felt sorry for the people in Vietnam, but I couldn't trust them. Now I feel affection for them," he says.

Returning to Vietnam is a way to end frozen memories, says Richard Parker. "As long as you don't return, you will remember Vietnam as the country of the war."

Although he sometimes teaches English, most of the former vagabond's days are a simple pattern of reading, walking, talking with friends and enjoying Vietnamese cuisine.

His eyes light up when he explains how Vietnam has made him a happy man again. He laughs a lot these days. "And the Vietnamese show respect for me, even more respect than I get as a veteran in the US," he says.

David Clark would like to see more veterans coming back to Vietnam. He himself came back several times after his first trip. During a motor bike journey from north of the country to the south something else happened that he would never have expected in 1968 - he fell in love with a Vietnamese woman. They married two years ago.

The veteran takes a deep breath. He takes off his sunglasses, wipes away a tear. His voice breaks. "I used to think the Vietnamese were the dirtiest, lowest scumbags in the world. But now I feel blessed for living here. I know this is where I have to be. The war is over, and I will die here."

In his living room Larry Vetter shows me a picture on his laptop. There he is, a young twenty-something man in a helicopter, at the end of the 1960s. Beneath him is the Vietnamese jungle, next to him a soldier with a machine gun. "After the war I had a lot of questions, but there was no-one who gave me answers," says Vetter. "So I went to study myself. And the more I read, the less I understood about why we were sent to Vietnam. I found out how much they lied to us and thought to myself: 'If I were Vietnamese, I would have fought with the Vietcong.'"

From the kitchen his wife, Doan Ha, looks at him lovingly. Captain Larry may be much older and may have memories of Vietnam that she will never fully understand, but she loves him. "He has a good heart," she says. "Not just for me, but for everyone."

More from the Magazine

A tall, thin American wearing a straw hat wanders through the narrow streets of Ho Chi Minh City, clutching a photo album. At his side is a Vietnamese interpreter and fixer, Hung Phan, who has helped dozens of former American soldiers locate their long-lost children over the last 20 years. His latest client, the American under the straw hat, is Jerry Quinn. He has come to Vietnam to find his son.

Read: A US soldier searches for his Vietnamese son
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The US veterans going back to live in Vietnam

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More than 40 years after the end of the Vietnam war, dozens of ageing former American soldiers have gone back to the country to live. Some had difficulty adapting to civilian life in the US. Others have gone back in the hope of atoning for wrongs they believe were committed during the war.

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Boats and boating--Equipment and supplies

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WHY WAS THE FIGHTING ON THE RUSSIAN FRONT SO FIERCE DURING WW2?

It is difficult to distinguish between the quality of both the German and Russian soldiers. Both were motivated by their love for their motherland. But there were others factors that drove the two sides to such desperate fighting.

One, both sides knew that this was a no-holds bar war. Not fighting was thus not an option.

Second, both Hitler and Stalin had squads that killed any deserter. Turning away from fighting was just not possible.

Thus was seen some of the most bitter, brutal and desperate fighting on the WW2 eastern (Russian) Front.

"Be polite; write diplomatically; even in a declaration of war one observes the rules of politeness." --Otto von Bismarck

"When the enemy advances, withdraw; when he stops, harass; when he tires, strike; when he retreats, pursue. '
--Mao Zedong

"The main thing is to make history, not to write it."
--Otto von Bismarck

"When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite."
--Winston Churchill

"In time of war the loudest patriots are the greatest profiteers."
--August Bebel

"God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best."
--Voltaire

"Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war."
---Otto von Bismarck

"Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
--Hermann Goering

"To conquer the enemy without resorting to war is the most desirable. The highest form of generalship is to conquer the enemy by strategy." --Tzu Sun

"All men are brothers, like the seas throughout the world; So why do winds and waves clash so fiercely everywhere?"
--Emperor Hirohito

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Some Rarely Seen Images Of The Vietnam War

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WHY WAS THE FIGHTING ON THE RUSSIAN FRONT SO FIERCE DURING WW2? It is difficult to distinguish between the quality of both the German and Russian soldiers. Both were motivated by their love for their motherland. But there were others factors that drove the two sides to such desperate fighting.

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Pop culture fetishization of war and violence of video games are explored with vivid watercolor-based animation in Eddo Stern's Vietnam Romance, on view at Postmasters gallery in Tribeca. Artist and game designer Stern's multichannel game stretches 36 feet across four screens, where visitors can interact with environments set in both 2015 and 1965.

Three preview levels were showcased in this past February's Indiecade East at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, and components were also projected outdoors at last month's Northern Spark in Minneapolis. However the experience of the game at Postmasters is really stunning, with the wide panorama enhancing the color and depth of the animation, all based on hand-painted illustrations. Unless you have a lot of time on your hands, it's not possible to play through all nine "scenes" while in the gallery, but there's an option to watch a non-playable version. Each scene is named for some cultural relics associated with the Vietnam War era, such as "Fortunate Son" and "The Deer Hunter," and through the play various other elements emerge, like a statue homage to Willem Dafoe's arms-outstretched death in Platoon and Private Pyle's bathroom suicide in Full Metal Jacket, even MIDI versions of the Mamas And The Papas and Jefferson Airplane appear as a soundtrack.

As Vietnam Romance's tagline goes: "If you hated the war, but liked the movies, you'll love this game!" One scene has a bow-weilding Sylvester Stallone from Rambo III hunting in a fictional nature park that transplants deer from Pennsylvania to Vietnam - a reference to The Deer Hunter, which was partly filmed in the wilds of Pennsylvania. Much of the imagery is cobbled together in this way, with Stern culling material from film, comics, music, online tourist data, and eBay listings for war memorabilia. The game starts with the purchase of a "Passage to Vietnam" deal, where four seats are available on an exclusive nostalgia trip:

The Vietnam Romance company has recently acquired a wooden casket found buried under Hoa Lo prison. The contexts of which will be revealed only to the four winning travelers who may bid in person for ownership in situ.

This Vietnam Romance eBay store is a main source for the game's literal and figurative ammunition, with an ear from a Việt Cộng soldier offered alongside gun cartridges and a Jefferson Airplane cassette. Whether Vietnam, or the US Civil War and World War II, war memorabilia has this tangible, obsessive role in the ongoing interpretation of war memory. Vietnam in particular may be better known through its movies, which tell the stories of fictional soldiers more vividly to a greater number of people, than its real hell. And as Stern's game shows, this melding of historical fact and narrative fiction makes for an imperfect collective memory.

Eddo Stern: Vietnam Romance continues through July 18 at Postmasters (54 Franklin Street, Tribeca, Manhattan).

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Gaming the Pop Culture Fantasy of the Vietnam War

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Pop culture fetishization of war and violence of video games are explored with vivid watercolor-based animation in Eddo Stern's Vietnam Romance , on view at Postmasters gallery in Tribeca. Artist and game designer Stern's multichannel game stretches 36 feet across four screens, where visitors can interact with environments set in both 2015 and 1965.

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A peace sign printed on the American Flag is raised during an anti-war protest in Washington, D.C. Due, in part, to the strong anti-war sentiments, Nixon announced the end of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia in January 1973.

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peace-flag-at-an-antiwar-protest-4 - Vietnam: Anti-War Protests Pictures - Vietnam War - HISTORY.com

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A peace sign printed on the American Flag is raised during an anti-war protest in Washington, D.C. Due, in part, to the strong anti-war sentiments, Nixon announced the end of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia in January 1973.

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Updated August 18, 2016 11:50:38

Few conflicts have spawned as many film, music and TV spin-offs as the Vietnam War - and few have divided the pop culture world as much.

Long before Robin Williams shouted "Gooooood morning, Vietnam!" into the microphone, the pop culture industry had latched on to the Vietnam War to shape a compelling, if conflicting, narrative.

Films, music and TV shows - mostly coming out of the US - have tackled the war in different ways and told stories that in the years since may have shaped our perception of history.

Films like Apocalypse Now, Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July have become cultural icons.

Credence Clearwater Revival's Fortunate Son and Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA have found a similar spot in the musical canon.

Closer to home, Cold Chisel's Khe Sanh is in high rotation in any Australian pub and Redgum's I Was Only Nineteen still stirs emotions.

So how have these pop culture depictions affected our view of the Vietnam War, and does the US story risk skewing the Australian interpretation of the conflict?

The first shot

In the early days of Western involvement in the Vietnam War the champions of film and music were notably split on how to spin the conflict.

"Hollywood has made a significant effort to portray America's Vietnam experience," Professor of cinema studies David Desser wrote in Inventing Vietnam: The War in Film and Television.

"Yet the films ... hardly present a unified, coherent vision.

"If we take these films as a group, we find contradictions and ambiguities throughout, while many individual works are similarly conflicted in what they are trying to say about the Vietnam War and America's involvement in it."

John Wayne's The Green Berets (1968) was a staunchly pro-US military film that told the story of a journalist who was cynical about the war but came to support it after travelling to Vietnam with US troops.

The film was released at the height of the war and was panned by critics - partly for its quality, but also because of reports of heavy US government involvement in the editing and production of the film.

Its pro-military message was in stark contrast to the growing public protests back home in the US that musicians were starting to tap into.

The 1967 song I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag was satirical and anti-war and received widespread attention after it was performed at the now famous 1969 Woodstock festival. Fortunate Son wasn't explicit in its criticism of the war, but it tapped into the counterculture that was starting to be seen in the pop culture material of the time.

And while Sergeant Barry Sadler's Ballad of the Green Berets (1966) was a pro-military song, it became the outlier in the collection of songs from the era.

The aftermath of the war

When the war officially ended in 1975 there was not a rush from Hollywood to create the epic dramas many might associate with the conflict.

Instead, many productions dealt with the issue by proxy and focussed on the effect the war had on returned soldiers.

Taxi Driver (1976) and The Deer Hunter (1978) both looked at former soldiers who were prone to violence and were struggling to return to normal life after the war.

After these two films were met with critical acclaim and Academy Award nominations, the "tortured Vietnam vet" become a stock character in many films over the years, including Jacknife (1989) Forrest Gump (1994) and Dead Presidents (1995).

In the music scene, Khe Sanh (1978), I was Only Nineteen (1983) and Born in the USA (1984) picked up on the theme of returned soldiers and ran with it.

I Was Only Nineteen is a first-person narrative about a soldier who goes to fight in Vietnam and comes home disillusioned and scarred.

The song's writer and performer, John Schumann, told ABC News Breakfast it encapsulated how many Australians felt about the war.

"It was a pretty accurate and compelling insight into the lives, minds and bodies, as it turned out, of the young men who went off to fight and came back to a society that did not value or respect their service as it had their fathers in WWII and grandfathers in WWI," he said.

"I've had so many stories from veterans about when they first heard the song, but I think the most telling one for me, the one that grabbed me the most was a veteran from Queensland who had tried to slip back into his life in rural Queensland and he heard the song and he pulled over to the side of the road ... and he listened and his first thoughts he told me were, 'those bastards were lying to me'.

"All the symptoms I talked in the song, he had. He then realised that if somebody else had those symptoms, then he was not alone."

The action '80s

Slow-burn dramas about traumatised soldiers were soon on a collision course with the desire for action films that came in the 1980s.

The success of the epic Apocalypse Now (1979) arguably helped steer films about the Vietnam War in this direction and they hit their stride with Rambo in 1982 - an action-packed feature film about a Vietnam veteran who had to survive while being chased through the American wilderness.

By the mid '80s films and TV were starting to base their stories back in Vietnam itself, rather than dealing with the aftermath and soldiers coming home.

Rambo returned to the Vietnamese jungle in the second film of the series in 1985, and Platoon (1986) and Full Metal Jacket (1987) quickly followed.

Television - a relative latecomer to the Vietnam War story - did eventually join the action/adventure narrative in with The A-Team, a story of Vietnam vets-turned-mercenaries. The 1987 series Tour of Duty - a story of US troops fighting in Vietnam - followed soon after.

Towards the end of the decade, cinemagoers watched Good Morning Vietnam (1987) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989) deal with the politics of the war both in Vietnam and back at home. In Born on the Fourth of July Tom Cruise plays a wounded veteran who becomes an anti-war political activist after feeling betrayed by his country.

Since the turn of the century there have been comparatively fewer depictions of the Vietnam War, with the political drama Quiet American (2002), the action-escape film Rescue Dawn (2006), and the musical Across the Universe (2007) being notable exceptions.

But by the time the '90s began almost every film was tapping into at least part of a now-established narrative: that the US should not have joined the Vietnam War; that soldiers were returning traumatised; and that the public had long protested against US involvement.

The Australian experience

Australia's contribution to the pop culture collection on the Vietnam War is relatively sparse compared to the US.

The only major attempt at film was The Odd Angry Shot in 1979, which mostly steered clear of any political ideology and showed little action compared to US films.

Some historians have suggested this could be explained by the fact the Australian experience of the war does not gel with the narrative coming from the US, and the racial and political upheaval that existed in America at the time.

Professor John Murphy from Melbourne University said Australians were not opposed to the war from the beginning and that not all soldiers were shell-shocked on return.

"The opinion polls show the war had majority support until 1969," he told ABC News Breakfast.

"There's a strong myth that [soldiers] were maligned and stigmatised, and there certainly were some incidents where the anti-war movement condemned returning troops, but how widespread it was is hard to say."

For his part, Schumann said there had been a "bit of revisionism" of the Vietnam War story over the years and it was risky for Australians to let US film depictions influence their understanding of Australia's involvement.

"To try to overlay, as we always do in this country, our experience with the American one is [folly]," he said.

In 2005 Australian hip-hop group The Herd did a cover of I was Only Nineteen that made the Triple J Hottest 100 list for the year and brought the song and its themes to a new generation.

"I was very pleased that they did it [and] I was pleased that they did it the way they did," Schumann said.

Topics: history, unrest-conflict-and-war, arts-and-entertainment, film-movies, music, vietnam

First posted August 18, 2016 09:22:57

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Updated August 18, 2016 11:50:38 Few conflicts have spawned as many film, music and TV spin-offs as the Vietnam War - and few have divided the pop culture world as much. Long before Robin Williams shouted "Gooooood morning, Vietnam!" into the microphone, the pop culture industry had latched on to the Vietnam War to shape a compelling, if conflicting, narrative.

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Crispy Critters= burn victim
Dew= marijuana
Funny Papers= topographic maps
Honky= african american vernacular term for white people
Hook= radio
Kool-Aid= killed in action

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Vietnam War: Soul, Gospel, & Funk Records: https://rateyourmusic.com/list/JBrummer/vietnam_war__soul__gospel__and_funk_records/ In the song "Bring the Boys Home" (Invictus Records # 9092, US issue), Freda Payne emotionally pleaded with the politicians to end the war and send back the soldiers, noting the fathers and mothers left on the home front.

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Tom Paxton - Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation

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Vietnam War songs: https://rateyourmusic.com/list/JBrummer/vietnam_war_song_project/ The song "Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation" (Elektra Records # EKL 298) was one of the key tracks of the anti-war movement, and an important representation of the "credibility gap"- that the US executive / president mislead the public about the growing US military commitment to the region.

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Covered Wagon Musicians - Napalm Sticks to Kids

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1972 Vietnam War Song: https://rateyourmusic.com/list/JBrummer/vietnam_war_song_project/ Another "GI movement" anti-war record (Paredon Records # P-1015), released on the label founded by Barbara Dane and Irwin Silber - all the songs were written and sung by active-duty GIs at the Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho.

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Errors or Inaccuracy Continue reading

December 4, 2016 · 4:21 pm

Print by Joe Kline
498th Air Ambulance Platoon

Vietnam medevac missions
by Williams S. Phillips

In April of 1962, the 57th Medical Detachment (Helicopter Ambulance) arrived in Vietnam with five UH-1 "Huey" helicopters. They took the call sign Dustoff. Over time the number of medevac detachments grew in Vietnam until the entire country had coverage and Dustoff became the universal call sign for all medevac missions.

A Dustoff crew consisted of four people: two pilots, a medic and a crew chief. Usually, one pilot would fly the helicopter while the other acted as the aircraft commander. The commander would navigate, monitor all of the radio transmissions, talk to the unit requesting the medevac and would take over flying if the pilot were injured. The medic kept the helicopter stocked with the necessary medical supplies and the crew chief would maintain the helicopter in top working condition. They would both load the patients onto the helicopter and the medic would administer any necessary medical treatment on the way to the hospital, often with the help of the crew chief. The medic and crew chief would stay with a particular helicopter while the pilots were interchangeable between helicopters. These crews saved many lives and were universally respected by all of the soldiers in the war.

Evac Hospital 93rd, Long Bình, 1966
List of Medical Units in Vietnam
December 30, 2015 · 11:02 pm

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

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The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 75,000 times in 2015. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 3 days for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

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Errors or Inaccuracy Continue reading December 4, 2016 · 4:21 pm Print by Joe Kline 498th Air Ambulance Platoon Vietnam medevac missions by Williams S. Phillips In April of 1962, the 57th Medical Detachment (Helicopter Ambulance) arrived in Vietnam with five UH-1 "Huey" helicopters. They took the call sign Dustoff.

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People who were against the bombing were hypocrites because they were doing the same thing they didn't want to be done in Vietnam in America.

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United States involvement in the Vietnam Conflict (1964 - 1973) was one of the most controversial events in American history. Many people disagreed with the motives and rationale for the war, and with the institution of the draft, people resented the heavy death toll the war had on young men sent to combat.

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This cartoon shows that what really happened during Vietnam was covered up by higher ranked officials in the war.

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The Fortnightly Rant for February 11, 2011, from The New Hampshire Gazette, Volume 255, No. 10, posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011.

What's that you say? You thought the Vietnam War was over? Far from it - it's just getting its second wind!

Yes, incredible but true: die-hard conservatives* are itching to fight America's most divisive Twentieth Century war all over again. And this time, by God, they're planning to win!
Ancient History
Since a generation or two of our readers were born after it ended, let's have a little refresher. The Vietnam War was the Great Patriotic Struggle that came before ... let's see ... you have to go back so far ... so many Great Patriotic Struggles ....

Before Iraq, before Afghanistan, before Kosovo, before Somalia, before the Persian Gulf, before Panama, before Grenada, and before Lebanon, there was Vietnam ....

Ah, plucky little Vietnam, that lonely outpost of capitalism democracy, that brave bulwark against the dreaded Red China and the Godless Global Communist Conspiracy.

Vietnam - South Vietnam, that is - was led by the wise and kind Ngo Dinh Diem. Our own then-Vice President, Lyndon B. Johnson, called Diem "the Churchill of Asia."

Diem himself, unfortunately, was led by his creepy younger brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu. An opium-addict and admirer of Adolf Hitler, Nhu was the head of Vietnam's secret police, and he ran his operation accordingly. His wife bore the nickname "The Dragon Lady," and she earned it.

This cozy arrangement began in 1955, when the U.S. stepped in, contrary to the Geneva Accords of 1954, which the Eisenhower Administration had been too canny to sign, and installed Diem as President. Diem's eligibility was established in a referendum which he won with 98 percent of the nationwide vote. And if that sounds suspiciously high, in Saigon he won by 133 percent.

All was well - if you overlook the bloodshed and corruption - until 1963. In the spring of that year in Hué, Buddhists, who made up about 90 percent of the population, defied an edict of Diem's (himself a celibate lay Catholic) that prohibited the display of Buddhist flags on Phật Đản, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. Nine Buddhists in Hué were shot dead by police and soldiers, and the country descended further into chaos.

That fall, U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge gave General Duong Van Minh ("Big Minh") the green light to overthrow "Churchill" in a coup. Diem and Nhu were both shot in the head during that regime change, but the Dragon Lady, true to form, got away.

Seymour Hersh, in his book The Dark Side of Camelot, makes a compelling case that President Kennedy was fully aware that the Vietnamese generals were going to kill Diem.

Further, Hersh reveals evidence showing that the coup was approved because Diem was negotiating a possible political settlement with Communist North Vietnam. According to Hersh, Kennedy was desperate to prevent any negotiated settlement until after his own re-election. If he failed, the Republicans would be sure to crush him with the charge that he had "lost Vietnam."
Tet and Paris
President Johnson, elected in his own right in 1964 as the "peace candidate," set about escalating the war for the same reason that Kennedy green-lighted the Diem coup - anything less and he'd have been hounded from office by hard-line anti-Communists.

But on January 31st, 1968, the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army put the kibosh on Johnson's presidency by launching coordinated attacks "from the Delta to the DMZ." It's hard to argue you're winning a war when your embassy personnel are defending themselves by firing pistols out the windows. Eight weeks later, after peace candidate Sen. Gene McCarthy (D-MN) came within 7 points of beating him in New Hampshire's Democratic Primary, Johnson announced he would not run for another term.

But the real shocker of '68 was not revealed until forty years later. In December of 2008, tapes from the Johnson White House confirmed what some had long suspected. Emissaries of the Republican Presidential candidate, Richard Nixon, had been communicating with the North Vietnamese Communists [South Vietnamese delegation] at the Paris peace talks.

There, the Communists [Thieu regime's negotiators] were told that if they refused to settle until after the 1968 Presidential election, they'd get a better deal from Nixon - and deprive the Democrats of a potentially huge political advantage. As Johnson said on the recordings, that was treason. And it worked: Nixon beat Humphrey.

"The direct U.S. role in the Vietnam War would continue for more than four years," Robert Parry summarized in 2008, "during which American casualty lists swelled by an additional 20,763 dead and 111,230 wounded. Meanwhile, the bitterness over the war deeply divided the country, in many cases turning children against their parents."
Let's Party Like It's 1968
Fast forward to January 14, 2011: the Defense Department announces that in accordance with the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act, it is inaugurating a Vietnam War 50th Anniversary Commemoration Program which will:

"Thank and honor veterans of the Vietnam War, including ... prisoners of war or ... missing ... and to thank and honor the families .... Highlight the service of the armed forces ... the contributions of federal agencies and governmental and non-governmental organizations .... Pay tribute to the contributions made on the home front .... Highlight the advances in technology, science, and medicine .... Recognize the contributions and sacrifices made by the allies of the United States during the Vietnam War."

This being the 21st Century, naturally the Commemoration is centered around a website, vietnamwar50th.com, and has its own official logo, seen here.

Inevitably, along with the logo, the website features photographs of grunts in jungles and rice paddies, helicopters, armored personnel carriers, and Swift boats. Nothing remarkable there. But the front page of the website also features the following quotation:

"No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now." - Richard Nixon, New York Times, March 28, 1985.
Enter the Revisionists?
For the average person, that quote might not seem inflammatory, but in the world of dog whistle politics,† it suggests that the Commemoration might be in the hands of Vietnam revisionists - those who maintain that we would have won the war, if it had not been for the lying liberal media, and/or the degenerate hippie protestors.

A discussion with a Pentagon spokesman [see "About This Cartoon," below] convinced us that revisionists aren't running the Commemoration. The website quoting Nixon is just a placeholder, to be replaced in a couple of months with a new one.
RADIX
Though not running the Commemoration, one group of revisionists is out there actively trying - The RADIX Foundation, which held a four-day John Kerry-bashing-fest in Boston during the Democratic Convention that nominated him for President. RADIX still maintains a website from that conference at www.viet-myths.net. Its front page features this quotation:

"The Vietnam War was mis-reported by the media, mis-recorded by the historians, mis-taught in our schools and mis-applied in addressing policy decisions ...." - Stephen Sherman.

Sounds vaguely familiar, doesn't it?

Sherman, the RADIX Foundation's Director, has now established a website [ vnmaps.net/VN50wiki] dedicated to influencing the Pentagon's Commemoration in the Right direction. For all its bluster, RADIX seems to be a modest, rather quixotic effort. But it surely won't be alone. Considering the commotion kicked up by the actual war, its Commemoration is bound to cause a stir.

A Note About This Cartoon - This cartoon implies that it is the Pentagon's intent on its 50th Anniversary Commemoration (www.vietnamwar50th.com) to actively obscure some essential truths about the Vietnam War. When our Alleged Editor requested the cartoon from our Starving Artiste, that appeared to be the case as discussed in "Enter the Revisionists," on this page.

The Editor subsequently spoke with Lt. Col. Hunter Holliday, the Public Affairs Officer for the Commemoration. He gave convincing assurances that this is not the case. The program's sole intent, he said, is to honor the service of those involved; all interpretations of the merits of the war will be left to others. We have no reason to doubt him.

In a perfect world, we would request a revised cartoon. The general shown above would be replaced by a historical revisionist. Alas, time is too short.

Why not pull it? We thought about that. Here's why we did not.

Having been charged by Congress with commemorating the war, the Pentagon is compelled to do exactly what it is doing - it is honoring those who served, without questioning the cause. It could not do otherwise. As it was during the war, the Pentagon is in an impossible position. Forced to honor the sacrifice of those who served, yet unable to acknowledge the unworthiness of their cause, it is compelled to do a disservice to the truth.

* By any rational measure they're reactionaries. Here, though, we'll use the term "conservative" to spare their tender feelings. We wouldn't want to get sued.

† Dog whistle politics - "A type of political speech using code words that appear to mean one thing to the general population but have a different meaning for a targeted part of the audience." - Taegan Goddard

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The New Hampshire Gazette " The Latest News on the Vietnam War

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The Fortnightly Rant for February 11, 2011, from The New Hampshire Gazette, Volume 255, No. 10, posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011. What's that you say? You thought the Vietnam War was over? Far from it - it's just getting its second wind!

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Kings Cross Whisper - Satirical Australian Newspaper of 1960s/1970s - History and Headlines

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Kings Cross Whisper aimed to shock the wowsers and other respectable citizens -- and it certainly succeeded in doing that. Max Cullen recalled his time with the newspaper: "The Kings Cross Whisper started up then - it was a gags, tits and bums rag sold on street corners.

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DA NANG, South Vietnam - More than 160 U.S. and Vietnamese Air Force planes hammered two targets in North Vietnam today [March 2] in the biggest air strike to date against the Communists in the North. The massive raid - described as a resounding success - was the first that has been launched as a purely offensive action. All previous U.S. air strikes on the North have been in retaliation for specific Communist attacks in the South. - New York Herald Tribune, European Edition, March 3, 1965

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DA NANG, South Vietnam - More than 160 U.S. and Vietnamese Air Force planes hammered two targets in North Vietnam today [March 2] in the biggest air strike to date against the Communists in the North. The massive raid - described as a resounding success - was the first that has been launched as a purely offensive action.

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250,000 War Protesters Stage Peaceful Rally In Washington; Militants Stir Clashes Later

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The crowds brought to Washington a sense of urgency about a Vietnam peace and impatience with President Nixon's policy of gradual withdrawal. This theme, which was repeated throughout the day in various forms, was expressed at the beginning of the march by Senator Eugene J.

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Veterans Day Parade liver interview with Vietnam Scout Sniper

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The Vietnam War pitted communist North Vietnam and the Viet Cong against South Vietnam and the United States. The war ended when U.S. forces withdrew in 1973 and Vietnam unified under Communist control two years later.

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The Vietnam War: Facts & Info About the Most Controversial U.S. Conflict

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All the facts and information you need to understand the Vietnam War, America’s most controversial conflict, which began in 1954.