The Vietnam War

I am very embarrassed to say that I knew barely anything about the Vietnam War. The little I knew about this horrible era I owed to my brother; I watched him play Call of Duty: Black Ops during the summer of 2010. Before Literature class of October 22, 2012 the only two facts I was completely sure were correct were that the war was fought in Vietnam (though I didn't know were this country was located,) and that the US military was involved. I also speculated (WWW) that it was of great magnitude due to all the attention that this horrific event has recieved; here and there I also heard that it was during the presidency of John F. Kennedy. To be honest, seeing the "K" section in my chart makes me realize how ignorant and callow (WWW)  I really am.


What would I like to know? Lets see... Well first, who other than Vietnam and the United States were involved? What were the causes and effects? What was the outcome? Was its result in general good or just straight up tragedy? Basically, what was the Vietnam War?  Due to Ms. Colorado's lovely powerpoint presentation in class though I was provided with excellent information about the War. The one fact that I found completely disgusting was that this was a "living-room war;" please tell me if I am wrong, but I am just picturing a family watching savages blow each others' heads off. Ugh. I found it really interesting that soldiers were drafted and that many were poor and recieved a scholarship for fulfilling such duty. The most shockig statistic was that 304 000 victims were killed and 750 000 were disabled--Those were only the ones affected physically, but imagine those whose mental health suffered and experieced the loss of a loved one.

I find this topic to be very fascinating, it still left me wondering about some factors. Was there a specific person trying to spread communism? If so, who stopped it and who were the heroes of Vietnam? How did the US recover from such loss and why did it give up so instantly? I guess some of my unanswered questions will be responded to in The Things They Carried , but for the most part it is up to me to further research the Vietnam War.