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Class Date: January 15th
Location: Your couch! See your weekly e-mail for Zoom link!
Road to War
Road to War
This time we’re talking about the women who courageously served during the Vietnam War. This isn’t a topic we have covered much in our classes, so this week we will look at a basic overview of the lead up to the war.
1887 - France imposes colonial rule in Vietnam
Calling it French Indochina, the system includes Tonkin Annam, Cochin China, and Cambodia. The French added Laos in 1893. Though the French claimed, like most colonizers, that their intention was to ‘civilise’ the people, they were driven by economic motives to access cheap labor and raw materials. You can read more about French colonial rule here: https://alphahistory.com/vietnamwar/french-colonialism-in-vietnam/
1923-25 - Ho Chi Minh trains with the Soviets
Ho Chi Minh was a Vietnamese nationalist who trained in the Soviet Union to become an agent of the Communist International (Comitern). He founded the Indochinese Communist Party in 1930 in Hong Kong.
1940 - Japanese invasion
In June, Nazi Germany took control of France. So in September, Japanese troops invaded Indochina and occupied Vietnam with little to no French resistance.
1941 - Viet Minh established
Ho Chi Minh and his communist colleagues created the League for the Independence of Vietnam. Their group, known as the Viet Minh, aimed to resist both French and Japanese occupation of Vietnam.
1945 - End of WWII and independent North Vietnam
Japan was defeated in WWII by the Allied Forces. As France began to reassert its authority over Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh sought to throw off colonial rule and declared an independent North Vietnam. He modeled his declaration of independence on the American Declaration of Independence. Vietnam propose limited self-government, which Ho Chi Minh rejected in 1946, beginning a guerilla war against the French.
1947 - Truman Doctrine
President Harry Truman addressed Congress and declared that the United States would provide political, military, and economic aid to any democratic nation under threat of communism. To read more about this pivotal foreign policy move, click here: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/truman-doctrine
1950 - Fighting intensifies
In 1949, Mao Zedong had created the People’s Republic of China and in 1950 recognized, with the Soviet Union, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Both the Soviet Union and China supplied the communist resistance fighters with economic and military aid. By June of 1950, the United States identified the Viet Minh as a Communist threat. They also provided military assistance to France.
1954 - Geneva Accords
The Geneva Accords established North and South Vietnam with the 17th parallel as the dividing line. The agreement stipulated that elections were to be held within 2 years to unify Vietnam under a single democratic government. The elections were never held.
1959 - First U.S. casualties
The first U.S. soldiers were killed in South Vietnam when guerillas raided their living quarters near Saigon. You can read about Maj. Sale R. Buis and Master Sgt. Chester M. Ovnand here: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-americans-killed-in-south-vietnam
1962 - Agent Orange
Called Operation Ranch Hand, the United States began spraying Agent Orange and other herbicides over rural areas of South Vietnam. The intent was to kill vegetation that would offer cover and food for guerilla forces. You can read more about Agent Orange here: https://www.aspeninstitute.org/programs/agent-orange-in-vietnam-program/what-is-agent-orange/
Agent Orange contained a chemical called dioxin which is highly toxic and a pollutant linked to cancer, diabetes, birth defects, and other disabilities. It was sprayed at up to 20 times the concentration recommended by manufacturers for killing plants. The Red Cross estimated that 3 million Vietnamese have been affected by dioxin and at least 150,000 children born with serious birth defects. Millions of Americans and Vietnamese are still affected by these wartime sprays of herbicides.
August 1964 - USS Maddox
North Vietnamese patrol torpedo boats attacked the USS Maddox while it was on an espionage mission in the Gulf of Tonkin. A second attack on the Maddox was also alleged, but according to declassified National Security Agency documents, the second attack likely never occurred. The incident led President Johnson to call for air strikes on North Vietnamese patrol board bases.
August 1965 - Operation Starlite
In July, President Johnson called for 50,000 more ground troops to be sent to Vietnam and increased the draft to 35,000 each month. During Operation Starlite, some 5,500 Marines struck against the First Viet Cong Regiment in the first major ground offensive in Vietnam. The 6 day operation diffused the Viet Cong regiment, though it quickly rebuilt after the offensive.
That’s where our timeline leaves us for the week. Tune in to learn more about the period!
Recommended Reading
Recommended Reading
For kids:
Vietnam: A History of the War by Russell Freedman
An accessible and authoritative account of what led to the Vietnam War and its legacies from Newbery Medalist Russell Freedman.
With prose that is clear, concise, and enthralling, Russell Freedman presents a detailed history of the Vietnam war.
Beginning with an overview of Vietnam's long fight for independence from the Chinese, the French, and the Japanese, Freedman then untangles the puzzling and catastrophic decisions that led to U.S. boots on the ground.
Coverage includes the French war in Vietnam, the rise of Ho Chi Minh, the fall of President Diem, the Tonkin Gulf, the Tet Offensive, the My Lai massacre, the bombing of Cambodia, and the fall of Saigon, as well as the U.S. anti-war movement. Freedman concludes with a hopeful epilogue on modern Vietnam.
The book includes nearly 100 historic photographs and illustrations, as well as candid photographs showcasing the state of Vietnam today. A glossary, source notes, bibliography, and index are included.
DK Eyewitness Books: Vietnam War: Discover the People, Places, Battles, and Weapons of America’s Indochina Struggle
A visual and informative guide to one of the longest and most controversial wars in American history, now revised and updated in the relaunched DK Eyewitness Books format.
Explore the people, places, battles, and weapons of America's Indochina struggle with DK Eyewitness Books: Vietnam War. See campaigns in the air and battles in jungles, cities, and rice paddies, from Saigon to the Mekong Delta. Learn about the most powerful combat weapons of the age, including napalm bombs and M-60 machine guns. From the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to the Ho Chi Minh Trail to the Viet Cong to the war's aftermath, discover the Vietnam War, why America went to war in Indochina, and who fought there.
Now available for the first time in paperback, DK Eyewitness Books: Vietnam War tells the dramatic story of patriotism, tragedy, bloody conflict, and heroism.
Series Overview: Each revised Eyewitness book retains the stunning artwork and photography from the groundbreaking original series, but the text has been reduced and reworked to speak more clearly to younger readers. Still on every colorful page: vibrant annotated photographs and the integrated text-and-pictures approach that makes Eyewitness a perennial favorite of parents, teachers, and school-age kids.
For Adults:
The Women by Kristin Hannah
The book that inspired this class topic! It IS historical fiction, but a fantastic view into the lives of women in Vietnam and certainly well researched and based on the lives of the women who served.
A #1 bestseller on The New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times!
From the celebrated author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds comes Kristin Hannah's The Women―at once an intimate portrait of coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided.
Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.
As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over-whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets―and becomes one of―the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.
But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.
The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm’s way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.
Healing Wounds: A Vietnam War Combat Nurse’s 10 Year Fight To Win Women A Place of Honor in Washington, D.C. by Dian Carlson Evans
Featured in Kristen Hannah’s new book The Women
What is the price of honor? It took ten years for Vietnam War nurse Diane Carlson Evans to answer that question—and the answer was a heavy one.
In 1983, when Evans came up with the vision for the first-ever memorial on the National Mall to honor women who’d worn a military uniform, she wouldn’t be deterred. She remembered not only her sister veterans, but also the hundreds of young wounded men she had cared for, as she expressed during a Congressional hearing in Washington, D.C.: “Women didn’t have to enter military service, but we stepped up to serve believing we belonged with our brothers-in-arms and now we belong with them at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. If they belong there, we belong there. We were there for them then. We mattered.”
In the end, those wounded soldiers who had survived proved to be there for their sisters-in-arms, joining their fight for honor in Evans’ journey of combating unforeseen bureaucratic obstacles and facing mean-spirited opposition. Her impassioned story of serving in Vietnam is a crucial backstory to her fight to honor the women she served beside. She details the gritty and high-intensity experience of being a nurse in the midst of combat and becomes an unlikely hero who ultimately serves her country again as a formidable force in her daunting quest for honor and justice.
Works Cited
Works Cited
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