Professor Valverde
ASA 150E
In South Vietnamese Soldiers: Memories of Vietnam War and After by Chau Nguyen focused on how America never focused on South Vietnamese soldiers' experiences, stories, and sacrifices, which made them forgotten Vietnam, America, and the whole world. She explains the different backgrounds of these South Vietnamese soldiers when America has forgotten these soldiers who have supported them during the Vietnam War. She discussed these soldier's experiences by talking about all the dangers they face during the Warr. Chau explained how friendship was real quick but disappear quickly by death. I like how she talks about Quan's experiences and able to keep his association with the soldiers in his unit. America has its alternative narrative of the Vietnam war and justifies what their soldiers did at War. They were " the good soldiers," which were white young men in the War forced to do horrible things during the War. Still, there is no mention of South Vietnamese soldiers, including South Vietmses women, soldiers, soldiers who were working class, people of color. I think it is essential that Chau Nguyen is representing the South Vietnamese soldiers since they have played a role in the Vietnam War and left out of both narratives in Vietnam and America. Even though I knew a few stories from some South Vietnamese soldiers, I never heard stories of South Vietnamese women soldiers, and their experience more complicated due to trauma and more. These soldiers need to represented in the alternative in America's Vietnam war.
Why America still sticking to the alternative narrative of the Vietnam War and not an acknowledgment of the South Vietnamese soldiers that have fought for them despite the odds? Why isn't there more working to represent these fallen soldiers and the experience to tell the American public?
Nguyen, Chau Huyunh Nathalie. South Vietnamese Soldiers: Memories of Vietnam War and After. 2016.
https://indomemoires.hypotheses.org/tag/soldats
soldier on patrol in Can Giuoc District, 1968. (Photo: University of Massachusetts Boston Digital Archive)
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