Preview

I Am A Soldier Of A Vietnam Soldier: Underestimate The Vietcong

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
297 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
I Am A Soldier Of A Vietnam Soldier: Underestimate The Vietcong
My name is Paul Meadlo and I was entering my 20’s when I was a soldier fighting in the Vietnam War alongside Lieutenant William Calley. When I was first forced into the selective service system, or draft, I expected this war to end within a year or so. However, I now have come to realize that I greatly underestimated the Vietcong as they are much stronger and smarter than we were in the jungles of Vietnam. As the years of fighting went on, every encounter with the Vietcong and the stress knowing death could be around every corner has framed me into the person I am today. However, if there is one experience that is engrained within my memory, it would have to be massacre I helped commit at My Lai. It was 1968 and I was only 22 years old, my

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Colonel Magnus was more than aware that there were Special Operations teams watching his every move. He knew sending his own soldiers out to find them would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. He wished they had captured at least one; they might have been able to break him and find out where he was from. He was aware that the closest Special Operations units were the SEALs in Virginia and Special Forces at Fort Bragg; he wondered how they got them this far north.…

    • 718 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Behind the scenes of the Vietnam War was cruel and fierce. This war was something to “Always to Remember.”…

    • 532 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    When America left Vietnam that South Vietnamese people were most likely feeling intimidated, scared, but at the same time relieved. In the “Doc-Lap at Last” section of the article, it states “ On April 30, 1975, columns of North Vietnamese soldiers entered Saigon, meeting little resistance for the demoralized South Vietnamese army.” The phrase, “columns of soldiers,”…

    • 268 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the book, If I Die in a Combat Zone…, Tim O’Brien, a Vietnam veteran, gives us his raw, personal story on what it was like to be a soldier in a controversial war. O’Brien was/is a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War and yet he completed his one-year service. He does not shy away from his negative opinions about the war and how in a way the government had let him down. O’Brien leads his story from the beginning in 1968 where he is drafted in Minnesota through 1969 with his homecoming. Throughout the book he is keen on the recognition of his comrades’ deaths, the Vietnamese residents, his daily internal/external battles, and the contemplation of what is bravery/courage.…

    • 178 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Vietnam War was a place of death, destruction, and confusion. Not only was the war a failure, but many soldiers were forced to fight. This lead to many negative effects that I must bring to your attention in this paper. The negative effects on soldiers during and after the war were depression, regret, desensitization, insanity, and the loss of friends.…

    • 690 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Richard Nixon, former United States president, once stated, “No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.” The Vietnam War was exhausting for soldiers because it involved unknown attacks brought on by the North Vietnamese. Tony Arellano, a Vietnam veteran, shared out his experiences overseas in Vietnam. He witnessed deaths, injuries, and surprise air strikes. In remembering the Vietnam War, it’s important to note the complex preparations made by U.S. soldiers, complications in air warfare, and all of the lives lost during the war.…

    • 939 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Vietnam War Dbq

    • 939 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The United States strategy in Vietnam from 1965 to 1968 went through various changes and revisions as leadership tried to find a feasible plan of action. US Army General William Westmoreland and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara were two of the major forces in US leadership that would shape the war effort. They devised a military strategy of attrition through tactics of search and destroy, covert operations, and other factors in hopes of wearing out the enemy. While their strategy found some success on the battlefields, the ineffectiveness of search and destroy missions, the over emphasis on body counts, and the disconnect between everyday soldiers and their superiors about defining success would doom the US war effort.…

    • 939 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    This documentary about life and the era in which the former Secretary of Defense of the United States, Robert McNamara refers to the concept of “Fog of War “ to describe the level of ambiguity in knowledge of the situation experienced by the participants in military operations. Robert McNamara was a great man, because although he made mistakes major in his position as Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War, his intentions were to do the right thing for his country.…

    • 81 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    I was asked to talk about the 50-year anniversary of the Vietnam war. And as most of you can probably tell, I wasn’t alive 50 years ago, so I went to my grandfather who fought in that war and I asked him to recount his experience. I asked him if he lost any friends during that time. He responded with “Hunny, all the guys you are with are your friends. And it hurts to lose any of them.” He recalled for me one individual. Greg. He said “losing that one was hard.” He told me he was a good man who found a Vietnamese child that he wanted to take back to the states with him. My grandfather said that man was later killed in action and the child, lost track of. Ladies and gentlemen. 58, 220 American soldiers died in that war. To some, these numbers aren’t more than graphs, statistics, or numbers on a chart. But to the brave soldiers who fought, each number is a face, a name, a story or a memory. Every number, every digit matters. Let us not forget the 2.5 million soldiers who fought for us. Who fought against communism, against an ideal they felt to be…

    • 453 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gloria Pollock was 16 years old when the Vietnam War began. When the war first started, Mrs. Pollock did not think much of it. She just thought of it as another war that the United States would take care of. It was not a big deal to her, until further into the war, when she realized it could affect the US in a pretty big way. Although she, or anyone in her family, did not fight in the war, she knew a few people that had entered the war. Most of them were her friend’s fathers or brothers. When asked what she remembers from seeing on tv or reading in the newspapers, Mrs. Pollock revealed a lot of horrible things. On tv, there were a lot of nasty stories, like calling the soldiers baby killers, and just shaming them as if it was their fault. Mrs.…

    • 948 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Even though the war was so terrible soldiers continue to fight for the lives lost during the war. Some soldiers were prepared to risk their lives so long as there was a chance of success for them. Most went into the war believing they could make a change. Not just for themselves but for their family and country. Some were forced into going to war and forced to fight for their…

    • 72 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the end, war is crucial and hard for many. No two people are alike when it comes to the effects of war. Some have horrible flashbacks imprinted on their minds that only very few can see through. In addition, others have physical wounds that everyone…

    • 611 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A 21-year-old man by the name of Tom O’Brien was drafted into the American War in Vietnam merely one month after graduating from college. Tom speaks of his journey of living with the shame of events that took place the summer of 1968. War to Tom is sickening and revolting; there was no unity or purpose. The 1960’s were a period of social disturbance with both the feminist and the civil rights movements occurring. In addition, the United States’ was divided by those who agreed and those who did not agree with the US’s involvement in the Vietnam war. When he received his inauguration, Tom was trapped and felt hopeless. “All around me the options seemed to be narrowing, as if I were hurtling down a huge black funnel, the whole world squeezing in tight. There was no…

    • 620 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    I’ve lived a long life, and along the way I’ve made choices that I’ll never forgive myself for, and I don’t expect anyone to forgive me for them either. Some of the most powerful choices I’ve made happened when I was in the war. Where the jungles had such humid air that it was as though I was breathing in buckets of water, where danger lurked behind every tree in any form imaginable, and where the closest bonds of brotherhood were created. But as I look back on my time in the war, there has to be at least some decision I had made that did some good. Maybe if my choices did any good for the people in my squad or the civilians that we were trying to aide, but that could just be my mind glorifying those moments in order to protect myself from the pain and destruction they caused instead. I find that fact humorous, that my mind would be trying to protect me from the horrors of my past since it has never shielded me from the painful memories of Corporal David Johnson, my best friend.…

    • 740 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Between 1964-1972, there was about 4,000 young New Zealanders who had volunteered to service in Vietnam, they were wanting to get out into the world and do something exciting but the thrills of war were soon replaced by the gruesome reality. Things got worse when they finally returned home as they came to face an angry public and were told to get out of their uniform quickly and not to tell anyone where they had been. The full impact of the Vietnam war on the veterans took years to show and research now shows that the emotional and psychological impact of war trauma can be passed down through generations. There was only one official national homecoming parade for the New Zealand Veterans which was held in Auckland in 1971 on the withdrawal of 161 Battery, RNZA and 4 Troops NZSAS but this got interrupted by anti-war protesters.…

    • 601 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays