Vietnam War Opposition

Using your knowledge gained from previous readings in the Vietnam War reading, complete the following.


Title: Vietnam War Opposition Labels: Vietnam_War, Vietcong, Tet_Offensive, My_Lai_Massacre, Vietnam_War_Protest, 1968


The assignment is due by at the beginning of class on Friday.


You are an opponent of American involvement in Vietnam. Use the evidence in this chapter to begin formulating ideas to make a poster or a leaflet putting forward your views. You will work on this in class on Friday. You can include stories and images from pages 353-61. However, you must also include an explanation that will convince the supporters of containment that the policy is not working in Vietnam. OPTIONAL: Instead of opposing the war, you can support it. Feel free to make a COUNTER-ARGUMENT that the war is necessary to contain Communism.

1. Note all of the reasons why you feel the war in Vietnam is wrong.

-The My Lai Massacre (the general issue of brutal civillian deaths)
-use of chemical weapons like agent orange
-the US is not making a lot of progress against the Vietcong guerilla army
-methods like bombing (operation rolling thunder) are costly and only slow down the viet cong


2. Note what you re trying to achieve with this poster. (e.g. to convince people to write to their Congressmen to get the troops out.)

With this poster I will try to convince to publicly protest against the Vietnam War.

3. List possible images for your poster. Think about: background (e.g. destroyed villages); the central image (e.g. picture of a young soldier); whether you will need words to explain your image.

Possible images for the poster:

-A soldier (with his head facing down) in the midst of a destroyed village
-Politicians (portrayed unflatteringly) dump money and american soldiers into a giant hold labled "Vietnam"
-Vietnamese civillians running away from chemical weapons
-a group of american protesters

4. List some possible slogans for your poster.
Possible solgans

"Protest the war; stop the waste of lives"
"No one wins in a war like this"
"Show some humanity. Protest the Vietnam War"

Vietnam War Turning Points

Using your knowledge gained from previous readings in the Vietnam War reading, answer the following questions.

Title: Vietnam War Turning Points Labels: Vietnam_War, Vietcong, Tet_Offensive, My_Lai_Massacre

The assignment is due by 3:10 on Wednesday.

1. Why was the Tet Offensive a turning point? Explain your answer.
The Tet Offensive was a turning point because after it, the American side began losing support for the war.


2. Are Sources 51 and 52 making the same point about the My Lai Massacre?
No, source 51 emphasizes the horror of the soldiers involved the the My Lai Massacre and compares the actions of it to the actions of Nazis. Source 51 defends the massacre saying that the objective was not to kill the people and that the massacre was just another way to kill the ideology of communism.


3. Why do you think it took 12 months for
anyone to do anything about the massacre?
I think that people were probably afraid to report Calley. Also, many soldiers may to have wanted to come to terms with what had actually happened at My Lai, preferring to forget what had happened.


4. Why was the massacre so shocking to
the American public?
The massacre was so shocking to the american public because it was very clear evidence that the war in vietnam had gone horribly wrong. Before the massacre, it still seemed like maybe everything the US was doing was for the bigger cause of defeating communism, but the massacre seemed to prove that this was not the case; civilians including women child and old men were all killed at the massacre for no reason except viciousness and that shocked the american public deeply.