Laconia and the Vietnam War

This orange stuff being sprayed is called Agent Orange. Agent Orange was a defoliant used to clear out entire forests and destroy North Vietnamese food supplies. The US military did not test it beforehand and only realized it was harmful to themselves, the enemy, and innocent civilians after the negative health effects started to show. Agent Orange has killed over 400,000 Vietnamese citizens and a further 2,000,000 have suffered from its effects. 

This is a US bomber dropping its payload during Operation Rolling Thunder. Operation Rolling Thunder was a tactic used by the US military to destroy North Vietnam's military infrastructure and coerce them to halt support for the communist insurgency in South Vietnam. 

Overview

Throughout this unit we went from the very beginning of learning about the Cold War and the Vietnam War all the way to now. We watched videos, listened to guest speakers who had connections to the Vietnam War and speakers who were physically in the war about their experiences. 

Over the past six weeks we have had six guest speakers come in and talk to us. Our first guest speaker was Tara Shore, the president of Laconia Historical and Museum Society. The second speaker was Theresa Shea Mattor whose dad was in Vietnam and she brought in some artifacts from her childhood, things her dad brought back from Vietnam, and personal things from her dad. For the third guest speaker we had Mr. Jim McCollum who talked about his dad who was killed in action in Vietnam. The fourth speaker was Mr. David Dube who talked about his experiences before, during and after the war. The fifth speaker, Mr. Kevin Boyle, also talked about his service and how he became a Survivor Assistance Officer when he returned home. The sixth and final guest speaker, Mr. Joseph McCarthy Jr, told us about his experiences as well and taught us about the gun trucks in Vietnam. 

We interviewed veterans about their experiences in the war and turned those interviews into narratives that describe them. We interviewed veterans that were apart of Battery C, took a walk to interview veterans at the Taylor Community and also other local veterans. 


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