Preview

Apocalypse Now Vs Vietnam War

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1821 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Apocalypse Now Vs Vietnam War
The United States as a country never experienced an international war conflict that will significantly destroy their land, cities or cost lots of lives of innocent civilians. If the US was participating in the war it was usually under the label of rescuers. It is right that they helped to save lots of nations during the war times but sometimes we should ask was it necessary to expand the problem into the war such as Vietnam War? They wanted to protect democracy and yes, it is important but they were not fighting on their land again. The fact of not knowing what it is to suffer from huge bombing and loosing lots of innocent lives can result in different perception of the war. American movie Apocalypse Now described Vietnamese as voiceless people who did not know how to protect their country. Although Americans came to the Vietnam without invitation to help them, they just started to destroy their country, the book The Sorrow of War challenge the American perception of Vietnamese as …show more content…
The helicopter scene is an exemplary example of that. When American soldiers in the helicopters flight to destroy a Vietnamese village, accompanied with loud sound of Wagner’s composition Ride of Valkyries, they do not show even for a second some thinking that there are innocent people who do not anything to do with the political issues. They just came and unmercifully fire whole village. The lack of interest that they are devastating Vietnamese land, is shown when the Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore say to Lance that he can go surf and show what he knew. Even though this scene is serious and violent image of the Vietnam War, Apocalypse Now described it as common day in Vietnam. The only people who talk are the American soldiers. Vietnamese just scream and run away as cowardly people. The Apocalypse Now show the disrespect of the Americans against

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Like said above U.S its always in the war, and the most of the time U.S its in other countries to “help”. Help another country who really need its a good principle, but everyone knows that help its not the only reason, it always have a second intention, interests. And again failed “Be guided by principles, not interests”.…

    • 274 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Vietnamese war and the policies of the government during the 1970’s were chaotic enough, yet against the protests of left wing radicalists, such as Nick and Lucy in COSI, protagonists of the Vietnamese war, society had descended into anarchy, the madness of society comparable to that of a mental institution. War is mad enough yet after the development of nuclear technologies and policies of Mutually Assured Destruction, war, the Vietnamese war was pure inconceivable madness. It was no wonder that protests for the war to cease began, seen in COSI as Nick leads the moratorium against the government” 1,2,3,4 we don’t want your fuckin’ war. Radicalise the nation”, his readiness to implore violence utter lunacy, “barricades and bombs, why not?” The…

    • 2230 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    The most important reason as to why the United States became involved in Vietnam was the long term cause of the Domino Theory. The Domino Theory was the belief that once one country had fallen to communism, its neighbours would do the same. It was devised by John Foster Dulles, the US Secretary of State, during the 1950s. The Domino Theory would be a an obstacle for the Americans if they were to win the Cold War, as they had to keep as few countries from going communist as possible. If South Vietnam were to fall communist, its neighbours in South East Asia may do the same- including India, a country with a billion inhabitants and around 90% of its people living in poverty. Communism may look an attractive prospect to South East Asia’s poor, which increases the likelihood of the Domino Theory, and would have a dire effect for American economic interests in the region. American companies would be nationalised by the state under communism, and trade would be badly affected because Americans would not be able to sell commodities in communist countries. This would not only harm America’s economy, but also its military- it would not be able to sustain a well trained, well equipped army without the money to do so. Eventually, this would also have dire political effects for America- its President would look weak, and the Soviet Union would be the dominant global power, due to the United States’ inferior military, economy and financial system. Moreover, if the…

    • 1547 Words
    • 45 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    It was clear from the outset of war that the US had far more technologically advanced weapons than the Vietcong, which they used throughout the conflict. B-52 bombers altogether dropped 8,000,000 tons of bombs between 1965 and 1973which equated to 300 tons of bombs per person living in Vietnam. This was over three times the amount dropped during the whole of World War Two. Aside from bombs the US also dropped a considerable amount of napalm, a mixture of petrol, phosphorous and a chemical thickener which attaches itself to the skin causing horrific "fifth-degree" burns to the victim, which could quite often be an unlucky US soldier. Agent Orange, a complex biological weapon was dropped over a lot of the thick vegetation of Vietnam, causing all plant life to die, potentially to expose any hiding Vietcong.…

    • 716 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The preface, Hunt expresses how his early beliefs on Vietnam were molded by books he had read including Lederer and Burdick's The Ugly American, Fall's Street without Joy, and Greene's The Quiet American. He talks of living with his family in Saigon for the summer in the 1960s. His father worked with the U.S. military mission, to revamp the simple idea of Americans as “innocent moral crusaders”) in which was done outside of and in blindness to the actual Vietnamese history and culture. Hunt begins with an extensive look at the America’s view and movement on to the Cold War. In Chapter One, "The Cold War World of The Ugly American," he reviews the United States' indifference to the problems Vietnam while centering on a more international inference. That makes Ho Chi Minh with the seem to be more a communist instead of a patriot and which in turn led initially to help the French colonialism in the area, then to the support of anticommunist leaders, an move that attracted the United States to the issue. Hunt then blames Eisenhower administration's views, which gave a " ... simple picture of Asians as either easily educable friends or implacable communist foes" (p. 17).…

    • 724 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    However, these Vietnamese have never been given the credit of that suffering. Instead, later presidents such as Bill Clinton renewed the sanctions against Vietnam, further fuelling hatred against the Vietnamese. Ironically, the US continued to rebuild Germany and Japan after World War II; countries that committed heinous atrocities on an enormous scale. In the case of the Vietnam conflict, the US has somehow lost its compassion and ability to make amends, pardon, reach out and shake the hand of an enemy and befriend them again (Riordan, p. 244). If all these actions were done to befriend Vietnam again, the USA would become a better country. Although some would treat Stone’s statements and thesis on the Vietnam conflict as political speeches, there could be truth in his stance on the…

    • 512 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The US' involvement into Vietnam started after North Vietnam was aided by communist countries Russia and China. The North Vietnam (with help from Vietcong) began a massive "recovery" of the rest of Vietnam with hopes of "reuniting" Vietnam. The US was in fear of another communist power forming, but instead of directly attacking Vietnam the US government began to aid South Vietnam. President Johnson, newly inaugurated after President Kennedy's assassination, was torn between sending more and more aid to South Vietnam, which would…

    • 2176 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The American involement in the Vietnam war is a conversial topic because many thing occured during that time that didn't set well in many Americans souls. This war reveal many tragic losses to people livelihood. These losses made certain americans wonder how American involement participation was unjust. The solution to this gruesome war was not agreed on by many americans . Martin Luther King Jr builds his argument on the affect of the felllow americans and the ways american solves the problems in vietnam.…

    • 677 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    <br><li>Charlton, Michael. Many Reasons Why The American Involvement In Vietnam. New York: Hill And Wang…

    • 1552 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    First of all, one reason many Americans oppose US involvement in the Vietnam war is that Vietnam War was the first war reported live coverage by many medias. So when Americans are having a breakfast, the war is keep going at the opposite of earth and they could see the shocking movie. For example, on March 16, 1968 The My Lai Massacre happened. It was a massacre by U.S. soldiers of three hundreds to five hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians, mostly women and children, on March 16, 1968, during the Vietnam War. Becoming a symbol of US-American war crimes in Vietnam, it prompted widespread outrage around the world and reduced public support for the war in the United States. In addition, on February, 1968 Tet Offensive occurred. However, America beat back NLF, it received as American's defeat. Because, media reported about Tet Offensive, and as a result, after the Tet Offensive, US anti-war movement got violent. Media can give lots of people information; so actually, media had huge influence on the anti-war movement on the Vietnam War.…

    • 910 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Vietnam war is an incredibly controversial topic; some say America won, while others say that they lost. In this case, America took a major loss, they were never winning at any point. The reason the Americans officially lost the war is because they were unable to achieve their goal which was to stop the spread of communism in Vietnam. In fact, the exact opposite happened, after the American forces left South Vietnam in January of 1975, communism immediately overran it. Along with the reasoning behind why the Americans lost are 3 points which will give a deeper explanation on why the U.S lost the Vietnam war. First of all the Americans lost because the North Vietnamese wanted to win more than they did. Following this is the American’s bombing strategies that proved to be horrendously ineffective because they were choosing to bomb locations that would end up giving them no real advantage. Thirdly, and quite possibly the biggest reason that lost America the war was their attempt to fight a war of Attrition against the North Vietnamese strategy of Guerilla warfare…

    • 911 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Vietnam War DBQ

    • 672 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Vietnam war was the longest war in American History which fought between 1964 to 1975 and the most unpopular war for the American of the 20th century. This is the only one war that United States lost the war but no one knows the truth because the US government had not told about this war yet. The resulted in nearly 60,000 American deaths and in an estimated 2 million Vietnamese deaths. It seemed like the American won the war but actually they were not. The experience for the American soldier in Vietnam was long and painful one for the nation. During the war, the Vietnam is spilt in the two groups; the South which was Capitalism and the North which was Communism. To support the South Vietnam’s government, the American sent the soldiers…

    • 672 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Vietnam Dbq

    • 1219 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Vietnam war brought many changes to the United States in the 1960’s and the 1970’s. Some of the changes were for the better of the country, take the rediscovered Women’s Rights movements and the ever growing Free Speech movements inspired by New Left, while most of the other changes brought on tensions between government and their people. The Domino Theory pushed our leaders to the edge. In order to stop the Domino Theory in Vietnam, the U.S. invaded. The war was useless for the American government to get involved with. Even Robert Kennedy described our presence in Vietnam as ‘... sending a lion to halt an epidemic of jungle rot.’ (Doc E) From new groups forming to rebel, to inflation and loss of trust in the Government, from 1960’s to the 1970’s the Vietnam War heightened social, political and economic tensions in the United States.…

    • 1219 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Vietnam War

    • 622 Words
    • 3 Pages

    References: Moss, G (2010) Vietnam: An American Ordeal (6th ed ) Prentice Hall Upper Saddle River, N.J.…

    • 622 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Domino Theory In Vietnam

    • 1381 Words
    • 6 Pages

    There were many reasons that the US had got involved but I believe that the war was particularly escalated by the USA due to an increase in involvement. It is also important to understand that during the 1900s, the US had thought of itself as the best country in the world and the only superpower, so they wanted to show that even though Vietnam had defeated its close ally, France, it couldn’t destroy America, so I believe it is important to understand that it was trying to send out a message to all of the countries in the world that the US is the only superpower in the world, and if anyone messes with the ideological theory of capitalism, something will happen to them, but as we know already, that had backfired for the US, and in the end, did the opposite of what it wanted to achieve. It sent out a message that the US wasn’t as great as many people had thought it to…

    • 1381 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays