Unit 5: The Legacy of Vietnam (1972-2000)
Unit Overview:
1972-2000: Unit 5 covers the end of the Vietnam War and its aftermath in America and Vietnam as well as normalization between the two nations and what Vietnam is like today. The first few lessons describe the signing of the Paris Peace Accords of 1973 through the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975. After, the lessons describe the experience of Vietnam Veterans, POWs, Vietnamese refugees, and the normalizing of relations between the nations that occurred in the 1990's. In the Unit essay, you will write of the legacy of Vietnam and of the lessons that can be learned from this conflict.
Unit Essay: The Legacy of Vietnam
The Legacy of Vietnam
On April 30, 1975, the North Vietnamese Army accepted the surrender of what was left of the South Vietnamese government, officially ending the Vietnam War. At that point, the US had invested 15 billion dollars. spent 10 years and lost 58,000 men trying to prop up the South Vietnamese government yet had ultimately failed. The victory of the North Vietnamese forces represented the first defeat the US military had suffered and did immense damage to our reputation internationally and our society internally. As the years following the Vietnam conflict gradually pass by and now that Vietnam has taken its place among reputable nations, our involvement in Vietnam is now generally considered a mistake, but no one can predict the future in the present. Now that you have spent a semester studying the Vietnam War and the US involvement in this conflict, use your knowledge to write an essay of 600 words or more explaining the mistakes we made in this war or the lessons that can be learned from the Vietnam Conflict.
Consider the following as you write your essay:
How successful was the US policy of containment globally?
How willing and able were the South Vietnamese government and army?What were the principal differences (in goals, resources, and motivation) of the North and South Vietnamese?
What price did we pay as a nation for our involvement in Vietnam and were we willing to bear this price?
This is actually an easy topic to write on: Why did we lose this war or what can we learn from it? The answer to this becomes your thesis. Next, come up with 3-4 mistakes or lessons and build your body paras around these.
Option B:
Rather than writing an essay on the legacy of the Vietnam War, you may also choose to make a slideshow presentation with music on this subject. If you choose option B, your slideshow must be fully animated, last at least 5 minutes, you must have a music soundtrack of at least 2 songs (you can use period music or other appropriate music.), and you must use a minimum of 30 images. You have spent an entire semester studying the Vietnam conflict and have watched at least 5 powerful documentaries...get creative here and do something that is emotionally moving and speaks to the tragedy of this event. If you need a tutorial on how do this using Microsoft Movie Maker, click here.
Unit Videos:
Vietnam, a Televised History Part 8 (55:40)
Vietnam, a Televised History Part 11 (55:41)
Unit Lectures:
The Legacy of Vietnam Essay Class
Unit Study Guides:
Unit 5 has 3 quizzes. You can access the quiz study guides by clicking the links below. The documents linked here are Google Docs. To print our download, select "file", "download as" and choose either Word, Open Office Document, or whatever format suits you.
It takes 5-10 minutes each lesson to fill out a quiz study guide, and these will definitely help you to perform well on the quizzes. If you do all three quiz study guides you will also be well-prepared for the test. Since these study guides give you what is important in each lesson, think of them as notes and fill them out as you go.
To watch a short video on how to use these study guides click this link: How to Use Study Guides: Vietnam History
Key Terms:
For this project you must define the terms listed below and explain each term's significance to the unit/era being studied. Your definition should be 2-3 sentences long and may be copied and pasted from a source like Wikipedia, but the significance of the term must be in your own words and based on your own understanding. To fill out a term's significance, ask yourself, "Why is this item included in my study of this unit? Why is this term in a history book?" The answer to this question is your term's significance.
Unit 5 Key Terms:
1. Hmong
2. Pathet Lao
3. Khmer Rouge
4. Norodom Sihanouk
5. Lon Nol
6. Pol Pot
7. Cambodian-Vietnamese War
8. Nguyen Van Thieu
9. Pentagon Papers
10. Watergate
11. Operation Frequent Wind
12. Reunification Day
13. War Powers Resolution of 1973
14. Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act
15. Nguyen Van Linh
16. Doi Moi Reform
Below is an example of a key term done with the proper format:
William the Conqueror: William I (c. 1028[2] – 9 September 1087), also known as William the Conqueror (Guillaume le Conquérant), was the first Norman King of England from Christmas 1066 until his death. He was also Duke of Normandy from 3 July 1035 until his death, under the name William II. Before his conquest of England, he was known as William the Bastard because of the illegitimacy of his birth.To press his claim to the English crown, William invaded England in 1066, leading an army of Normans, Bretons, Flemings, and Frenchmen (from Paris andÎle-de-France) to victory over the English forces of King Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings, and suppressed subsequent English revolts in what has become known as the Norman Conquest.[3] (I copied and pasted this definition from Wikipedia)
Significance: William the Conqueror is significant because his conquest of England created the first nation state in Europe. His rearrangement of English feudal territories to give himself dramatically more power than the the barons and nobles around him caused him to be the most powerful monarch in Europe and eventually led to the rise of other nation states over the next few centuries. (These are my words based on my knowledge of English and European history.)
