Lessons from the War
So when I was in high school, when I learned about the Vietnam War, it was really, I think, somewhat distorted. It was mainly about Woodstock and people protesting and, you know, that this is something that we shouldn’t do and something we made the wrong decision on. We sent our men overseas and many, you know, died because of that. And then there isn’t really much about refugees so I think I’m really glad that your class is actually doing this; part of it is about bringing out the suffering of the war. You see images and stuff but it doesn’t really talk about it and it doesn’t really talk about the conflicts of, you know, it seems like it’s just the Vietnamese involved but there’s actually the Cambodians, the Laos and the Chinese who were involved as well. And I didn’t really learn that in the Vietnam War because later on I learned that the suffering in Laos and Cambodia was actually much worse than the setting in Vietnam. So there were other parts going on that was not covered.
I think part of it is that the U.S. thinks that they can easily go in and win the war, right. They didn’t think that with The Viet Cong, these jungle fighters, that they would be defeated. I think that part of it is, um, part of it is that it is hard that those are the people that know the land and you know they are fighting for their country. So I think in a sense, that when you actually send militaries in, they’re just doing a job. I don’t know whether that makes sense, instead of really actually fighting for your country or for your survivability and for your land.
Um, so in terms of going forward in the future I think war can be prevented. I think that I am a big believer that if you were just to understand, because I think that there is a very, I guess, mis-cultural perception of other countries by the U.S. in other countries. For example, Afghanistan, we only know one part of it and we never really get to see the other side and be able to, I guess, what is the word for that? What do the people in that country actually feel about the U.S. coming in and fighting a certain war? So I think part of it is really being able to communicate and talk about problems before you have to fight. I think it is similar to relationships as well right? If you want to prevent someone from a fistfight, both sides kind of have to sit and talk honestly and transparent with each other and figure out where the miscommunications and misunderstandings come from, then find a peaceful solution. I think the U.S. can be much more diplomatic in terms of reaching out to other countries and having that open communication with other countries and I guess, talk more I guess.