FT 05-R The Vietnam War in History, Literature, and Film
Tobey Herzog, Department of English
Although the American combat role in Vietnam had terminated two years earlier, the Vietnam War did not end until April 30, 1975, with the fall of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), South Vietnam. After a few years of silence in the mid and late 70s, Americans have been talking and writing ever since about the “national trauma” of American involvement in Vietnam, including most recently during the U.S. military action in Iraq. Thus, 30 years after the end of “America’s Longest War,” this Vietnam experience remains a dominant moral, political, military, and artistic touchstone in the American cultural consciousness. In this tutorial taught by a Vietnam Veteran, we will study the history of this war as detailed in George C. Herring’s America’s Longest War, and we will read about the experiences of the participants—soldiers, veterans, anti-war protesters, supporters of the war, families of soldiers serving in Vietnam, POWs, and North Vietnamese soldiers. In addition to the history text, our sources of information will be documentaries, films, and literature. Some of the texts we will read will be Philip Caputo’s A Rumor of War, James Webb’s Fields of Fire, Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, and Bao Ninh’s The Sorrow of War. Films will include The Green Berets, Apocalypse Now, Heaven and Earth, and The Deer Hunter. Class activities will include oral reports, class discussions, student panels, research projects, videos, in-class written responses to the movies and books, four 3-4 page papers examining themes in the books and films, and a final project chosen by the student.