Project Reflection
1. This interview affirmed my perspective that there is good and positivity that comes out of war just as much as there is negativity. My veteran talked very little about his more negative experiences, instead deciding to focus more on the positive, his opinions and his points of view. He talked a lot about the friendships that he made and how, after he left Vietnam, he was able to teach at the air force academy. These were all, obviously, very positive things for him and his life. In parts of the interview, he did touch on the physiologically scarring aspects of Vietnam, such as the horror of flying burn victims out of the field to a hospital. However, for the most part, Mr. Tait told us about the happier of his experiences, therefore giving more proof to my thesis that this is both positivity and negativity that comes out of war.
2. The most interesting thing that I learned in my veteran interview was that there are people who have been to war and believe in the draft. Towards the end of the interview, I asked my veteran something about the draft, and to my great surprise, he claimed that he supported it. When I questioned him further, Mr. Tait state that the draft brought a level of diversity to the military that today we lack, that he learned a great deal from all of the people of different backgrounds. This was a fascinating point of view for me to hear, as I have always been rather anti-draft. In no way did what Mr. Tait said change my opinion of the validity of the draft, but it did open me up to the concept that there are, perhaps, positive aspects to it as well.
3. As a historian, there would be many ways that I could use my interview for information. I could use it for straight facts about the Vietnam War, either about specific battles that my veteran took place in or about the flying of a helicopter of that era. However, the most valuable information in that interview would be the descriptions of flying the injured back to hospitals and Mr. Tait’s person opinions on war. My veterans talk about how, when flying someone who was wounded, he would fly up and down trying to find somewhere where there was no turbulence, so as to make the ride as easy as possible for the soldier, would teach a lot to a historian. Perhaps the most useful piece of information for a historian that is in this interview is the opinions of Mr. Tait, for every person’s opinion is uniquely theirs, and reflects their experiences, in that way, the personal opinions of a veteran are a historical wealth that is unlike any straight fact.
4. The most valuable part of this project, at least for me, was the preparation. In that very beginning of the project I had to do research so as to be able to ask informative and relative questions during the interview and I learned a lot from that preparation. While from my veteran I learned about his opinions on the war, from my research I learned a lot about the factual happenings of the Vietnam War, which taught me a lot more that what he did. I also learned a lot more immediately from looking at his biographical data sheet than from what I heard from Mr. Tait during the actual interview. So, all in all, the preparation for the project was, for me, the most valuable and informative part of the Vietnam War section of study.
(Video Will be Added at a Later Date)
Gulf of Tonkin Writing
Thesis Statement:
Even though the United States Government insisted for years that the Gulf of Tonkin Incident was a brutal and unprovoked attack on the U.S., there is now a great amount of evidence that shows that if it did happen, the incident was, in fact, retaliation for our own secret operations in Vietnam.
Paragraph 1: Conceded Argument
After the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, the United States went to great pains to prove to itself and the world that they were victims of the cruelty of the Vietnamese. This is clearly shown in the outright denial that the government professed to the incident being any fault of our own, in both the media and in congress. On August 7, 1964, Congress passed a resolution that allowed LBJ to increase his involvement in Vietnam, just a few days after the alleged Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Within the resolution there is a passage that, basically, absolves the United States of any blame for the cause of the incident. It states: “Whereas the United States is assisting the peoples of southeast Asia to protect their freedom and has no territorial, military or political ambitions in that area, but desires only that these peoples should be left in peace to work out their own destinies in their own way,” (Document 1). For an impressionable and uninformed mind on the subject, this statement gives the United States complete innocence in any provocation of the attack. However, to someone who is thinking slightly more cynically, and reading the silences, there is a definite propaganda. There is a clear lack of thoughts on the other side of the argument, the viewpoint that the United States might have done something to provoke the aggression. But, without that side and historical thinking skill that creates it, the quotation reads to all innocence and good intentions, which is why the two qualities above were believed for so many years. At the same time that Congress was passing LBJ’s resolution, members of the White House were out in the media newsrooms of the country, furiously sidestepping questions they could not answer and putting out a “story.” In one interview, Secretary of State Dean Rusk danced himself out of a question that asked why the Vietnamese would attacked unprovoked and went on to say that “the essential fact was that our vessels were being attacked on the high seas by these boats and we had to do something about it,” (Document 2). Similarly to the previous quotation from Congress, this quote shows a believable story on first look. However, just as the other one, when this is read more critically with all that is left unsaid noted, a very different song rings out true. With that point of view, the mind jumps to the question: “why WOULD the Vietnamese attack us unprovoked?” which then jumps to the idea that we did provoke them. Without the use of historical thinking skills, Dean Rusk’s answer remains honest sounding to the beholder. Only on the much propagandized surface of the issue can the United States be absolved of all responsibility within the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, and even there, there are glaring glitches in the story, a story that only becomes more bizarre as a historian gets farther in.
Paragraph 2: Emphasized Argument # 1
In contrast to what the Government was saying, the United States did provoke the Gulf of Tonkin Incident by its own secret attacks on the region. This is shown with no room for doubt in a private conversation that President LBJ had with the Secretary of Treasury. Before the document that shows this conversation is even read, there are already several historical thinking skills that show its truthfulness. Perhaps the most convincing and prominent, the fact it is a private conversation, jumps our immediately, for why would someone lie in an instance like that? Another reason that this especial document shows the truth, is that LBJ states what, in the media, he has been trying so hard to hide: that “there have been some covert operations in [Vietnam] that we have been carrying on—blowing up bridges and things of that kind, roads and so on,” (Document 3). Generally, when any one person says something in private that contrasts what they have been saying in public, and the private conversation is much less complementary to themselves than the public version, honesty can be found in the private version. The above thought process uses the type of documentation to find the reality of history within the many lies that surrounds it. Later in the conversation, LBJ summarizes to himself and the Secretary of Treasury what he sees to be the story so far in the United States involvement in Vietnam. He, without any prompt, rather callously says: “What happened was we’ve been playing around up there and they came out, gave us a warning, and we knocked the hell out of ‘em,” (Document 3). Although to most people LBJ comes across as rather unlikeable in this statement, he sees this to be the right path and something to be proud of. From that assumption it is all the easier to decide that LBJ was telling the truth in this conversation, because of the information the second quote gives a person about who he is. The fact that he finds he is doing the right thing in Vietnam gives all the more reason to the assumption that he would not lie about his actions to a friend who does not have the power to take him out of office. It seems that LBJ would want to brag the truth of what he has been doing, something that he believes to be right and necessary, to a friend who would be impressed by it. All of this can be inferred because of historical knowledge of who LBJ was, some of which is given within the conversation. So as follows, after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, LBJ coerced his government into lying about how the U.S. provoked it, so as to save his job and image.
Paragraph 3: Emphasized Argument #2
During the time of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, most of the controversy centered on why the incident happened, but perhaps a more important question is, did it happen at all? There is evidence in the form of cables that were sent by Captain Herrick of the U.S.S. Maddox concerning the alleged attack on said ship that point to the unlikelihood of the large torpedo ambush that was publicized. Quite similarly to the document to shows LBJ’s conversation, a great deal can be decided about the accuracy of this document by anyone using historical thinking skills, before even reading the cables. For one, the experience of the Captain, the lack of involvement he had in politics and that the purpose of these cables was one of private information, all point to the believability of anything said in the document. When Captain Herrick wrote that “all subsequent Maddox torpedo reports are doubtful in that it is suspected that sonar man was hearing ship’s own propeller beat,” two things are made clear (Document 7). The first is that the above mentioned truthfulness of the author and the type of document lead one to find that there was no large attack, but only one torpedo. Second, the plain way in which this is said, without any verbal flourishes or fancy wording, shows that there was no agenda; that the Captain was simply writing the latest and truest information. In an earlier cable, Captain Herrick states that where were “no actual visual sightings [of enemy ships] by the Maddox,” (Document 7). This gives the reader a clear insight into the fact that there wasn’t any proof of an attack on the ship. Also, throughout the many cables that were sent regarding the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, the Captain never comes out and says that there was defiantly an attack, this leaves a certain doubt. Reading between the lines and in the silences, it is made all the more plain that the one torpedo is all there is to the infamous Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Plainly, the obvious doubt of the Captain to the presence of repeated attacks shows clearly that the incident itself was so blown out of proportion that it was barely an incident.
