Vietnam War – Sharing History

“The Lesson of Kent State”

May 3, 2024May 2, 2024UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On May 4, 1970, four Kent State University students were shot and killed by members of the Ohio National Guard during an anti-war protest. Enraged by U.S. involvement in Vietnam, thousands of students in Kent, Ohio, took to the grassy spaces of their university to voice their discontent. Today, similar protests are occurring the country over. Students at 35+ universities have been arrested for their involvement in pro-Palestinian rallies. Some politicians are calling for National Guard deployment to quell these protests. The events at Kent State 54 years ago are an example of why such a move might end in tragedy.

In the spring of 1970, Nixon sat in the Oval Office. He had run his campaign promising to withdraw U.S. troops from the increasingly unpopular Vietnam War. Instead, on April 30, 1970, he took to the airwaves to announce that the U.S. would be invading Cambodia in an attempt to undermine the Viet Kong. The next day, May 1, protests and anti-war rallies cropped up at universities all over the country. At Kent State University, about 500 students gathered. That night, as students gathered at the downtown bars, the anti-war sentiment turned into rioting, with students lighting trashcans on fire and breaking store windows. At this, the mayor, Leroy Satrom, became nervous about further violence and contacted Ohio Governor James Rhodes looking for help.

The next day, May 2, protestors on Kent State campus set fire to the ROTC building, which burned to the ground. At this, Rhodes, who was, at the time, seeking the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, deployed the Ohio National Guard. He said, in a press conference on the subject: “We’ve seen here at the city of Kent, especially, probably the most vicious form of campus-oriented violence yet perpetrated by dissident groups and their allies in the state of Ohio . . . we’re going to use every part of the law enforcement of Ohio to drive them out of Kent.” Nixon referred to the protestors as, “these bums, you know, blowing up the campuses.” The National Guard arrived in Kent on May 3 where protestors blocking roads were met with tear gas.

On May 4, around 3,000 students gathered on Kent State campus to protest. The National Guard members there launched tear gas and then advanced on the group with bayoneted rifles. As they pushed the students away, some students began throwing rocks at the guardsmen. It was said then that a small group of guardsmen appeared to huddle and discuss something. This was later referred to by those who believed the guardsmen had conspired to fire on the protestors. The guardsmen began to retreat back the way they came, when at 12:24 p.m., 28 of them turned and fired toward the protestors. Jeffrey Miller and Allison Krause, both protestors, were shot and killed. William Schroeder and Sandra Scheuer, who were walking by on their way to class, were also shot and killed. Nine other students were shot and injured, including Dean Kahler, who was paralyzed by his injuries. The aftermath of the shooting was memorialized in a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo taken by John Filo, a student photographer. Faculty marshals were able to diffuse the situation and prevent further bloodshed after the initial shooting.

In the years that followed, the details of the shooting were litigated at length. Three students were convicted for their parts in the burning of the ROTC building. A federal court found that the guardsmen were not at fault for the shooting, though that decision was overturned in an appeals court, and a settlement awarded about 650,000 to the victims and their families. Nixon created a Commission on Campus Unrest to investigate the situation. Their report recognized that some student protestors committed criminal acts, however; “The indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students and the deaths that followed were unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable . . . The Kent State tragedy must mark the last time, that, as a matter of course, loaded rifles are issued to guardsmen confronting student demonstrators.”

In an editorial in the Washington Post, Brian VanDeMark, author of Kent State: An American Tragedy, writes of today’s university protests: “University officials, not state authorities and armed troops, possess the knowledge and insight best suited to dealing with these constitutionally protected expressions of dissent. The goal of university and college administrators should be to guarantee the safety of all students while fostering civil engagement over passionately held views. This is the lesson of Kent State University.”

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“MAS*H:” “A Timely Satire”

February 27, 2024May 7, 202420th CenturyLeave a Comment

On February 28, 1983, over 106 million Americans gathered around their televisions to watch the series finale of the incredibly popular television show “M*A*S*H.” This episode remains the most-watched program (outside of the Super Bowl) of all time. The finale aired after 11 seasons of the show: a situational dramedy about a mobile army surgical hospital during the Korean War. “M*A*S*H” not only broke the mold of television sitcoms, but also, in the shadow of the Vietnam War, addressed antiwar sentiment in a groundbreaking way.

The “M*A*S*H” storyline, based on a movie by the same name that had been released several years prior, featured two surgeons, Captain Benjamin Pierce, played by Alan Alda, and Captain John McIntyre, played by Wayne Rogers. The two, while talented doctors, are consistently caught up in silly hijinks, flirting with the nurses (though today we’d consider much of their flirting harassment), and drinking away the horror of war. The two are supported by a bevy of colorful characters, including the uptight nurse, Major Margaret Houlihan and her side-kick, Major Frank Burns, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake, whose shocking death was one of the greatest television blindsides in history, the company clerk Corporal “Radar” O’Reilly, whose uncanny ability to anticipate needs earned him his nickname, and Corporal Max Klinger, who did anything he could think of to earn a medical discharge.

Though the characters were interesting and relatable, it was the commentary on war that captured the hearts and minds of the nation. At the time of the series’ first season in 1972, the U.S. was embroiled in the conflict of the Vietnam War. By this point, antiwar sentiment was high. As James Poniewozik of The New York Times wrote, “the covert operation ‘M*A*S*H*’ pulled off was to deliver a timely satire camouflaged as a period comedy.” The show looked like a sitcom and the laugh track could convince you that’s all it was, but “M*A*S*H’s” ability to lay sitcom lightness on a backdrop of dark, dark war. In doing so, according to Poniewozik, “even the sitcom-standard high jinks—dealing with the black market for medicine, inventing a fictional officer in order to donate his pay to an orphanage—were forms of protest.” CBS executives were unsure about this move. In fact, star Alan Alda remembers that after the season one episode “Sometimes You Hear the Bullet,” in which a friend of Hawkeye’s turns up on the operating table and dies, the network was convinced the show was ruined. Someone from the network said, “What is this, a situation tragedy?” But America loved the drama. And so, the show went on. For ten more years. And, as Alda observed, “the element that really sinks in with an audience is that, as frivolous as some of the stories are, underneath it is an awareness that real people lived through these experiences . . . the crazy behavior wasn’t just to be funny. It was a way of separating yourself for a moment from the nastiness.”

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True Crime: Charges Brought Against William Calley in My Lai Massacre

September 3, 2023September 3, 2023Vietnam1 Comment

The beginning of September also marks the beginning of one of the most famous trials in American history. On September 6, 1969, Lt. William L. Calley Jr. was charged with the murder of 109 South Vietnamese civilians in what is known as the My Lai Massacre.

This was an incredibly complex case as it pitted what many felt were the “rules of war” or the acceptability of wartime murder against the everyday morality of preserving and protecting the lives of innocent civilians. Vietnam was a brutal engagement and even those close to it were divided on where the line fell in this case.

The simplest retelling of the facts are that on March 16, 1968, Calley and members of his platoon attacked an area code named “Pinkville” in Southern Vietnam, which was considered a Viet Cong stronghold.

Whether Viet Cong were present during the attack or whether it was just an attack on civilians including children is hotly contested. The incident and trial were covered by freelance reporter Seymour Hersh, who won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting.

Calley was accused of killing 109 himself, but a total of between 200 and 500 people were believed to have been killed during the massacre.

One of Calley’s fellow platoon members, Paul Meadlo, who was also under investigation, gave a very open interview to Hersh, clearly laying out that while they believed they were under orders to kill the villagers, they were also seeking revenge for the deaths of American soldiers.

In that article, Meadlo’s mother made the famous statement, “I sent them a good boy and they made him a murderer.”

According to Calley’s Wikipedia page, the two military prosecutors in the trial struggled with the unwillingness of many soldiers to testify against Calley. Nevertheless, Calley was ultimately convicted. President Richard Nixon, however, intervened and he was quickly paroled and freed prompting the prosecutor, Aubrey M. Daniel III, to write a letter to Nixon condemning his interference. President Donald Trump briefly toyed with the idea of pardoning Calley, but ultimately left if alone.

The news reporting at the time reported many officers defending Calley saying that other servicemen had killed civilians and that in Vietnam, you never really knew who was Viet Cong and who was not. On the other hand, people from Calley’s own platoon complained and reported the incident, which shows that even those on the ground found the situation questionable.

Vietnam veterans spoke of the dehumanization of the Vietnamese people that occurred over uninterrupted months of fighting in harsh, jungle conditions, and of the equally brutal murders of Americans.

In the end, the results show that there was no answer. Calley was convicted, Calley was forgiven. Calley went on to marry, write a book about the experience, become a gemologist and a realtor. He is now 80 and presumably lives in Florida.

In 2009, according to his Wikipedia page, Calley apologized for the incident.

“There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in Mỹ Lai. I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry.”

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On This Day: “Old Enough to Fight, Old Enough to Vote”

June 30, 2023June 30, 2023UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On June 30, 1971, then-President Richard Nixon issued the following statement: “Tonight, Ohio’s Legislature ratified the 26^th Amendment to the Constitution. This amendment guarantees the right of 18-year-old persons to vote in state and local, as well as federal, elections. It appears that 38 states have now ratified the Amendment that will now become part of the law of the land. The ratification of this amendment has been accomplished in the shortest time of any amendment in American history” (1).

Signed just a few days later, the 26^th Amendment to the United States Constitution reads: “The right of citizens of the United States who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age” (2).

The push to lower the voting age began during WWII. In 1942, President Roosevelt lowered the draft age of young men from 21 to 18 years old. Americans pointed out that it seemed only right that a young man required to serve in his country’s army should also have the right to vote. The slogan “Old Enough to Fight, Old Enough to Vote” became their cry. At the time, the proposal did not gain enough traction in Congress for passage, but when the Vietnam War came around, the idea was renewed. Congress aimed to lower the voting age as part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but after its passage, President Nixon himself suggested that this new law would only be upheld if it was passed as a constitutional amendment. The amendment was quickly drafted and ratified.

On July 5, 1971, President Nixon signed the certified amendment with three 18-year-olds signing as witnesses (2). Upon its enactment, the US gained 11 million additional voters (3).

Mirroring the sentiments of the “Old Enough to Fight, Old Enough to Vote” crowd, there is a contingent of Americans today who would like to see the voting age lowered again, this time to 16. Opponents of this proposal suggest that 16 and 17-year-olds are too young to make mature decisions regarding politics. Arguments in favor suggest that as this group is most affected by gun violence in schools, they should have a say in how that violence is addressed by lawmakers. They also point out that in countries where the voting age is at 16, that group’s turnout is much higher than among 18-21-year-olds (4). What do you think? Should the voting age in the United States be lowered to 16 years old?

1. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/statement-about-ratification-the-26th-amendment-the-constitution

2. https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/news/26th-amendment#:~:text=Sentiment%20to%20lower%20the%20nation’s,21%20to%2018%20years%20old

3. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1971/07/06/issue.html

4. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/02/opinion/sunday/voting-age-school-shootings.html

Learn more here:

https://www.rockthevote.org/explainers/the-26th-amendment-and-the-youth-vote/

https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/amendments/amendment-xxvi/interpretations/161

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4020373/

June History Hits: Unveiling the Truth

June 13, 2023June 26, 2023UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On June 13, 1971, The New York Times began publishing the Pentagon Papers, a collection of top-secret documents exposing U.S. strategy in the Vietnam War. This release sent shockwaves through the United States, forever altering the landscape of journalism, government transparency, and public trust.

The Pentagon Papers were a top-secret government study spanning from 1945 to 1967 that documented the United States’ political and military involvement in Vietnam. Commissioned by then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, the study aimed to provide an internal review of the war effort. The papers revealed a stark contrast between the public narrative presented to the public and private assessments of military officials.

The New York Times and The Washington Post published excerpts of these papers after receiving them from whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, a former military analyst. The decision to release these classified documents was met with considerable controversy and legal challenges from the U.S. government. The Nixon administration sought injunctions to halt the publication, arguing that national security would be compromised. The legal battles that ensued tested the boundaries of the First Amendment. In 1971, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of The New York Times and The Washington Post upheld the fundamental principle that prior restraint on publication should only be justified under exceptional circumstances.

The release of the Pentagon Papers marked a turning point in government accountability. It exposed the discrepancies between official statements and classified information, revealing a pattern of deliberate misinformation. This ignited public demand for greater transparency in government operations, fostering a renewed skepticism toward official narratives. The papers also impacted the public’s perception of the Vietnam War. The revelations shook public trust in the government’s handling of the conflict and fueled anti-war sentiment. This provoked opposition to the war effort, ultimately shaping the course of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

The New York Times’ decision to publish the Pentagon Papers stands as a testament to the vital role of journalism in fostering an informed society and holding power to account.

Learn more about the Pentagon Papers here:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pentagon-Papers

https://www.archives.gov/research/pentagon-papers

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/daythepr.htm