PATRIOTS: THE VIETNAM WAR REMEMBERED FROM ALL SIDES

One format for approaching your Patriots essay would be to pick a mid-range theme that forces you to bring together a series of disparate interviews within a common analytical framework.  Note, however, that such an approach is not mandatory and that you may wish to write a more comprehensive response to the book.  Listed below are some themes I highlighted as I worked my way through the book and also some more general questions.  Do not hesitate to design your own topic.

A.  SOME POSSIBLE MINI-ESSAY TOPICS

• The Aftereffects Of War

• American Presidents

• Americans In Vietnam -- "Walking Gods?"

• Arrivals And Departures

• The Art (Art, Music, Poetry, Photography, etc.) Of War

• "Babes In Arms?": The Americans In Vietnam

• Children and The Vietnam War

• Communism

• The Dirt Of Vietnam

• The Draft

• The Duality Of War

• Encounters With The Enemy

• Explaining The American Defeat In Vietnam

• Fighting The Americans

• Flags

• Fire And The Vietnam War

• The Food Of War

• The Ivy League And The Vietnam War

• Memories Of Past Wars (ie.  How do personal or societal memories of earlier Vietnamese and/or American wars influence these interviews?)

• Morale And The Soldiers

• Of Father And Sons

• Protesting The War

• Race And The Vietnam War

• Role Of The Media

• The South Vietnamese Army And Government

• The Tools Of The Trade

• The Vietnam War As A Family Affair

• Vietnam War: The View From The Air

• Vietnamese Perceptions Of The Americans

• The Village War

• Visions Of Ho Chi Minh

• Women And The Vietnam War (or Vietnamese Women or American Women or Comparing Vietnamese and American Women or Women As Caretakers And As Killers, etc.)

• Wounds Of War

B.  SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT PATRIOTS

• How would you compare and contrast the American and Vietnamese interviews?  To what extent do they differ both in perspective and in tone?

• How do you respond to the title "Patriots?"  Were the interviewees patriots?  How did American and Vietnamese perceptions of patriotism differ?  What is patriotism?

• To what extent do these interviews begin to explain the origins of American involvement in Vietnam?

• To what extent do these interviews begin to explain the reasons for the American defeat in Vietnam?  Veteran Larry Heinemenn thinks that Americans lost the war "because we didn't understand that [the Vietnamese] were poets."  Respond.

• What is added through the inclusion of interviews with former South Vietnamese soldiers and government officials?

• What did you learn about the protest movement from this book?

• How would you compare and contrast the role of American and Vietnamese women in the Vietnam War?