BLAME ON BOTH SIDES: AMERICA AND THE VIETNAM WAR

“I was either too crazy or too stupid to act otherwise but I always felt I could not let my fellow comrades

down, so I did what was necessary, but I have always considered this the dark time in my life. I did not enjoy

taking the lives of other people, I did not see them as the enemy, just people, just like me caught in the middle of that disaster. So I took

steps to distance myself from that time and place and went

underground so to speak and became invisible to the rest of the

world.”

• Brief Explanation on Anthony Calamito• Brief Overview on American Involvement in

Vietnam• General Quotes on Crimes Against The Vietnamese • Casualties of War• American Views on the War in Vietnam• Quotes on American Treatment and Torture• Jeremiah Denton • Conclusion

MY FATHER:ANTHONY CALAMITOAnthony Calamito was a helicopter pilot with the United States Army. He served with the First Calvary Airmobile Division, in the 227th Aviation Battalion.

DadMe

AMERICA AND VIETNAM 1961-President Kennedy offers military assistance to Ngo

Dihn Diem and sends the first U.S. advisors to South Vietnam

August 1964-U.S. Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which allows President Johnson the use of any

means necessary to prevent North Vietnamese aggression February 1965-Viet Cong attacks the U.S. air base at Pleiku March 1965-Operation Rolling Thunder begins over Vietnam March 1965-The First U.S. combat troops are sent to Vietnam

IT WASN’T UNCOMMON“The policy here is anyone killed is a Vietcong so (they don’t) care who you are if by chance you get shot; they say he was ‘Vietcong.’”

“I talked to the battalion and they said that as far as they were concerned, if he’s dead and Vietnamese, he ‘s VC.”

“THEY JUST SAID VC, VC. THEY OPENED FIRE ON THE LOCAL CIVILIANS, THEY WERE ONLY OLDER WOMEN AND CHILDREN.”

CASUALTIES OF WAR On November 18th 1966 Private First Class Sven Eriksson went on a

patrol with four other soldiers That morning the patrol kidnapped a young girl later known at Phan

Thi Mao Phan Thi Mao was raped by the four other members in the patrol;

Eriksson refused to participate Mao was later murdered by two soldiers in Eriksson’s patrol party Eriksson vowed that Mao’s kidnap, rape and death would come to

light and that the men responsible would be held accountable After speaking to his Lieutenant and a commanding Captain, it took a Army chaplain to bring Mao’s abduction, rape and murder to light

THE VIEWS ON VIETNAM

http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/vietnam-war-history/videos/coming-home?m=528e394da93ae&s=undefined&f=1&free=false

THE PAIN CAUSED BY THE VIET CONG

“Men would tell me how they would be talking to a buddy one minute and watching him die the next. Or wake up in the morning and see a friend hung from a tree by hooks in his armpits with parts of his body shoved in his mouth.”

“Four marines from another regiment were captured and later discovered in a common grave, also tied up with their skulls blasted open by an executioner’s bullets.”

JEREMIAH DENTONU.S. Navy Pilot who was taken as a POW on July 18th, 1965 and spent the next seven years and eight months as a POW. During his time in captivity Denton made history by blinking out the word TORTURE in Morse code using his eyes. Confirming for U.S. suspicions that American POW’s’ were being tortured in North Vietnam. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgelmcOdS38

WORK CITED PAGE Calamito, Anthony. "My Fathers Time in Vietnam." March 20th, 2014.

Hillstrom, Kevin, and Laurie Hillstrom. Vietnam War Biographies. A-K. Vol. 2. Edited by Diane Sawinski. Detroit, MI: The Gale Group, 2001.

Horne, A.D. The Wounded Generation. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: The Washington Post Company, 1981.

Lang, Daniel. Casualties of War. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1969.

Munson, Glenn. Letters from Viet Nam. New York, NY: Parallax Publishing Co., Inc, 1966.

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http://images.moviepostershop.com/casualties-of-war-movie-poster-1989-1020469753.jpg

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/07/13/gordon-duff-vietnam-decades-of-liars-blacken-the-names-of-real-heroes/vietnam_soldiers/

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