Source based questions on the Vietnam war 1960 Essay Example for Free

Source based questions on the Vietnam war 1960 Essay According to source G, results of opinion polls in the USA in the 1960s Vietnam was one of the most important problems facing the USA. This also shows in source F because 64% of people said television coverage made them want to back the boys in Vietnam while 26% felt moved to oppose the war. The safer film made peoples opinions change because through television they could see what was really going on out there so peoples interests about the war increased. Increasing exposure to the war may have changed opinions about the war because like safers film it showed what was really going on because in safers film soldiers were shot by their own men and they were killing innocent Vietnamese people for no reason. Source H shows a letter written by a U. S soldier fighting in Vietnam in 1969 and he is saying about how fed up he is with the war and having to go to sleep and listen to rockets and mortars and artillery then having to wake up to fight and see soldiers at the age of 18 and 19 being killed and having their lives cut off. His attitude to the war is that he is sick of it all and when people hear about this back in the USA their opinions probably changed. I think this soldiers views are probably shared by a lot of other soldiers when they are writing home. The soldiers families probably felt scared for the soldier and worrying if he will survive and this will probably change their opinions about the war. Source I is about American troops going in and killing innocent Vietnamese people in My Lai. The event occurred in March 1968 but was not published until January 1970. There might have been a delay in publishing details of this event because if the article was published then Americans would have questioned the soldiers tactics and it probably would have changed a lot of American opinions. The authorities delayed the publication of the article because it would have reflected badly on the soldiers and Americans would have started to question American involvement in the war. Source J is a picture from the My Lai Massacre and it shows a thirteen-year-old girl hanging on to her mother after a soldier stripped her. The picture creates a disgraceful impression on the American army and people probably wonder why the soldier done it. I dont think this picture was likely to appear in an American newspaper or magazine because people would have been horrified and ashamed of the soldier. If it were published it would have changed peoples opinions of the war. Source K is an anti-war song written by Country Joe Mc Donald in 1967. Anti-war songs were popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I think anti-war songs were popular at this time, particularly among young people because they wanted the war to stop because there were so many people getting killed in Vietnam and it was the young people who were being called up to fight for the war and they didnt want to. Anti-war songs were heard by large numbers of people on radio stations, cassettes or at concerts so it might have influenced people to think more about the war. Source K is a bit like Source H because Source H reached large numbers of people like Source K, they both express attitudes of opposition towards the war and they both might have made people change their views about the war. Source L is a political cartoon published in the USA in 1969. The cartoonist is making a serious point but is trying to make the point in a funny way. People usually remember funny things so the cartoonist wants people to remember this point. In the cartoon you see a salesman wearing an American suit and trying to sell it to a Vietnamese man by telling him all about it but the Vietnamese man says it doesnt fit. The cartoonist is making points like Americans want the Vietnamese to be like them, Americans and Vietnamese are different from each other and America is a big rich country but Vietnam is a small poor country. I have now examined a variety of sources, G, H, I, J, K and L. All these sources give reasons why opinions changed during the war. I think the most important reason for peoples opinions changing during the war were television and things like safers film.