Vietnam

I think that I have a unique perspective on the Vietnam War. My parents are older than most people my age so my dad is actually a Vietnam veteran. He served in the Navy during Vietnam. While he was never deployed to Vietnam, I still grew up listening to his stories about the political climate in the United States during this era.

I didn't learn a lot about the Vietnam War in high school (It wasn't on the AP US History exam, so it wasn't covered in class) but I always had the unique perspective of being the daughter of a Vietnam vet. My dad joined the Navy to avoid being drafted into the Army. He explained how tumultuous the debate on the draft was and how scary it was growing up during the time of the Vietnam War. He told me that there was a lot of tension between the young men who "manned up" and served their time in the military and those who were draft dodgers (which is why he HATES Bill Clinton). He always says that although the reasons that the war was fought to begin with were not honest, it was important to serve because it was required of the men in his age group.

There was a quote in the Streitmatter chapter about Vietnam that I thought to be especially interesting. "The first real step toward peace would be a realistic acceptance of the fact that our political ideals are perhaps to a great extent illusions and fictions to which we cling out of motives that are not entirely honest." I think this goes along with what my dad has always said. The United States had no business in Vietnam and it took people way too long to realize that.