Quynh Dinh-Week 4

The article The "We-Win-Even-When-We-Lose" Syndrome: U.S. Press Coverage of the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the "Fall of Saigon" stretches out the ideal of how Viet Nam war affected us in multiple aspects. The U.S. failed to “liberate” and bring “freedom” to Viet Nam- the country which in the article depicted as “a tiny tinhorn country halfway around the world” onto anachronistic space, depicting it as “exotic,” “sensual,” “alien,” infected with “sweltering, insect ridden jungles”—a place of “horror,” “madness,” and “violence,” replete with snipers, drugs, and prostitutes; in short, “hell.” It’s Viet Nam where U.S. soldiers lost their “innocence” and returned home in shame. War, in general, is nasty and gruesome. It’s a battle field where there is no pain, no gain. Everyone involved in it, more or less, inevitably affected and suffered. Therefore I do not think it is right to blame VN for taking away U.S soldiers’ innocence. It is not just the U.S who wounded badly. VN and its people suffered the same thing. They have to face the devastated aftermath after the U.S. left.

In reality, I must agree Democratic countries are much more developed than Communist countries. But what the U.S. did to VN in the hope of stopping Communism spread and how it made VN sound like a horrible place are, for me, hard to accept. Why they always make themselves sound like a good person, a “savior” after they heavily bombed the country? And the U.S. did the same thing to Native Americans, Mexicans, and etc…They claimed to bring “light” and “freedom” by invading other countries, changing them into the way that they think is right. But the question is “who is here to judge which’s wrong and which’s right really?”