Georgia Haskell
Patriots - The Vietnam War Remembered From All Sides by Christian Appy
Part 1
Tran Thi Gung has a powerful story of being a woman and a member of the guerrilla force of the Trung Lap Ha Hamlet. She is a tiny woman fighting in the war to avenge her father’s death and carry on his cause. She fought for a specific goal fuel by revenge, when lots of people had no idea what they were fighting for. She had many combat accomplishments and was very successful in her combat career. Her account of the things that happened seems to be based on actual events and she acted out of pure emotion. At first she tells of how she killed American soldiers and seems very proud of her accomplishments, “They were such big targets, so easy to shoot”. She talks about how she had to fight people she knew and grew up with. She also tells of how they hid in tunnels and barely ate or drank sometimes because of how long they had to stay in the tunnels waiting out the enemy bombing. Tran Thi Gung comes off as believable, not having embellished parts of her story and sharing credit throughout. She also describes a wide array of emotions from being angry, scared, and feeling compassion. She felt valid in her causes and does not have regrets.
Part 2
Paul Kattenburg was a Vietnam specialist in the 1950. In 1963 he was the head of the Tate Department’s Vietnam Task Force. He tried to get the political leaders to of America to pull out of Vietnam and seemed to be the person who was hired by our government that should have been consulted on the issue. He stated, “It didn’t take me very long in Saigon to come to the conclusion that we were dealing with an absolutely sinking ship”. At a National Security Council Executive Committee meeting he seemed to be the only person who had any actual knowledge of Vietnam and the only one who cared to. When he voiced his opinion that America should get out of Vietnam with honor he was brushed aside. When he later pushed the issue in a report, he was kicked out of East Asian Affairs and sent elsewhere. The government obviously had an agenda and anything not fitting nicely in it was ignored. The validity of Paul Kattenburg’s story is believable at face value, only because of all the other mistakes made in government during this time that are well known. It could be totally true or it could be the account of a fired employee who knows he will believed after the loss in the war. It is hard to tell. If these reports he wrote are real then this seems to be another missed opportunity to change direction in the war.
Malcolm Browne was a journalist who went to Vietnam in 1961 to cover the war for the Associated Press. His life reads like a Hollywood movie. He is reporting on the action in Vietnam. He seems to have a bystander’s view of the war. He can see the viewpoints of both sides. He has an exciting life; he meets his wife while there. He becomes close with the Buddhists. He gets famous for reporting the famous Buddhist protest where the monk burnt himself to death in the street. The S. Vietnam government was harassing him. His story seems to bring to light that even in this long horrific war, there was still life happening. There was still protest for religion, people still fell in love, and even though life was way different human behavior didn’t change. People still craved excitement, fell in love, and fought for what they believed in; all while living in a hostile unstable environment.