HIST 3225-601  Spring 2008                                  
Günter Bischof & Stephen E. Ambrose
ED 206: Wed 6:00 – 8:40 pm
Dr. Bischof’s office hours in ED 128 (CenterAustria):
Wed 5:00 –6:00 pm, or on class days during the day
Office Phone: 280-3223           
E-mail: gjbhi@mobiletel.com

The War in Vietnam

The Vietnam War is the master narrative of an American intervention in the Cold War gone awry. It has produced one of the great traumas in American History. We will study these aspects and many more. Professor Ambrose’s lectures give you the basic outline of domestic and international events. Professor Bischof’s lectures review the materials assigned and add critical interpretative frameworks and questions such as comparing the French and the American Indochina wars, the American and North Vietnamese soldiers’ experiences, Vietnamese perspectives of the war, the essence of 1960’s America, and American memories of the war.

This is a distance learning course. You will be responsible for listening to Professor Ambrose’s lectures handed out on DVD and for attending Professor Bischof’s scheduled evening sessions without fail. Readings will have to be done by the dates indicated on the syllabus so you will be prepared for discussing them in class.

Grades

Midterm:30 %
Final:     30 %
Papers:  30 % (first paper 10 %, oral history 20 %)
Class Participation:  10 %

Class Readings (books available for purchase at UNO book store)

** Patrick J. Hearden The Tragedy of Vietnam. 3rd ed. New York: Pearson Longman Pb 2008 [textbook narrative]
** Christian G. Appy, Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides. New York: Penguin 2003 [textbook: an oral history of the war – war and home fronts]

Melvin Small. Antiwarriors: The Vietnam War and the Battle for America’s Hearts and Minds. Wilmington: Scholar Resources  2002 [the variety of the antiwar protest movements]

Eric M. Bergerud, Red Thunder, Tropic of Lightning: The World of a Combat Division in Vietnam. New York Penguin Pb 1994 [history of the 25th division, one American infantry division, fighting in the “iron triangle” between Saigon and Cambodia]

Michal Sallah/Mitch Weiss, Tiger Force: A True Story of Men and War. New York: Little, Brown  and Comp. 2006 [investigative report on atrocities by 101st Airborne]

Bao Ninh, The Sorrow of War: A Novel of North Vietnam. Transl. by Phna Thanh Hao New York Riverhead Pb 1993 [novel depicting the experience of a North Vietnamese soldier]

Graham Green, The Quiet American (Viking Critical Library Edition). New York” Penguin 1996 [1950s novel by British war correspondent in 1st Indochina War]
    

Attendance Policy

Students have to attend ALL class lectures held on the UNO Lakefront campus; unexcused absences will result in one grade drop per absence; a class can only be excused by contacting the instructor in advance (phone or e-mail); if you cannot make the 5 scheduled evening classes, drop the course!

Academic Integrity
Academic integrity is fundamental to the process of learning and evaluating academic performance. Academic dishonesty will not be tolerated. Academic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to, the following: cheating, plagiarism (including copying work from the Internet!), tempering with academic records and examinations, falsifying identity, and being accessory to acts of academic dishonesty. Refer to the UNO Judicial Code for further information. The Code is available online at http://www.uno.edu/~stlf/policy%20Manual/judicial_code_pts.htm.

Students with Disabilities
Students who qualify for services will receive the academic modifications for which they are legally entitled. It is the responsibility of the student to register with the Office of Disability Services (UC 260) each semester and follow their procedures for obtaining assistance.

Student Learning Objective
After successfully completing this course, students should be able to

• Identify on a world map the major theaters of operation in this region and during this war
• Identify the major figures (politicians, generals, diplomats) of the major belligerents who drove the war’s events
• Understand the nature of American interventionism during the Cold War and its intersection with the postwar global   decolonization struggle
• Have a basic understanding for what motivated the fighting soldiers in the field and how the brutality of war affects individuals for their entire lives
• Comprehend the enormity of the brutality of  the war and how a democratic nations could increasingly be drawn into unethical practices during this very destructive war 
• Understand how the legacies and memories of the Vietnam War powerfully linger on – and affect both individuals and nations -- to this day
  

Weekly Meeting and Reading Schedule

Wed Jan 16    Class: Introduction
Class question: The nature of the Vietnam War and its long afterlife in American History. Are there parallels with the current war in Iraq?

Wed Jan 23    Class: The French and the First Indochina War and the Origins of the American Involvement (Truman and Eisenhower)
Readings: Hearden, chs. 1-3; Appy, pp. 3-31; Greene, The Quiet American (entire)

Class question: Why were the French in Indochina and why did the Americans
want to be there and replace the French involvement?

Wed Jan 30    No class! Class: Kennedy and the Deepening of the American Involvement
Readings:Hearden, ch. 4; Appy, pp. 41-98

Class question: What kind of ally was Diem? Did JK plan to withdraw?

Wed Feb 6    No Class! The Making of a Quagmire: Johnson and the Sending of Regular  American Troops in 1965 Readings:Hearden, ch. 5; Appy, pp. 101-199

Class question: Would Kennedy have escalated and why did LBJ escalate?

Wed Feb 13    Class: Johnson and the Americanization of the War
Readings:Hearden, ch. 6; Appy, pp. 200-282; Bergerud, Red Thunder, Tropic Lightning (entire)

Class question: Why did LBJ’s strategy of “search and destroy”, body counts and  “daylight of the end of the tunnel” fail?

Wed Feb 20    No Class! The North Vietnamese and the War    
Readings: Bao Ninh, The Sorrow of War (entire)

Class question: see topic of first paper below

Wed Feb 27    No Class! The Nature of the Battlefield (1965-68)
Readings:Sallah/Weiss, Tiger Force (entire)

Class question: see topic of first paper below
        
1st Paper due (5 pages). How do Bergerud, Sallah/Weiss and Bao Ninh describe and analyze the nature of the battlefield in Vietnam and the respective American and North Vietnam way of fighting the war? Where do you see the commonalities and the differences of the soldiers’ experiences? Was the nature of the guerilla war in the jungles of Vietnam bound to lead to atrocities such as committed by the “Tiger Force” and the My Lai massacre?

Wed Mar 5    No Class! Home Front and Anti-War Movement
Readings: Small, Antiwarriors (entire); Appy, pp. 142-149, 262-278, 328-342

Class questions: What was the nature of the antiwar movement? Which segments and classes of society were involved? What were its ups and downs?     

Wed Mar 12     Midterm Exam!

Wed Mar 19    No Class! Spring Break    

Wed Mar 26     No Class! Tet and 1968
Readings:     Appy, pp. 285-327, 343-370

Wed Apr 2    Class: Guest Lecture: Professor Saki Dockrill (King’s College, London)
Making Peace: Nixon’s “Peace with Honor”
Readings:    Hearden, ch. 7; Appy, pp. 371-429

Class question: Was Nixon’s madman strategy effective in “Vietnamizing” the
war? Was his outcome a “peace with honor”?

Wed Apr 9    No Class: The American Withdrawal
Readings:Appy, pp. 430-511

Class question: Was Nixon’s “decent interval” a strategy of defeat and betrayal of the  U.S.’s South Vietnamese allies? Was it a “cut and run” strategy?

Wed Apr 16    Class: Roundtable of Vietnam Veterans
        The Nature of the Battlefield and the American Soldier in Vietnam

Wed Apr 23     No Class! Who Won? Legacies and Memories of the War
Readings:Hearden Ch. 8; Appy, pp. 515-549

Class question: Did anybody win? Why is the American memory of the Vietnam
War so intense? What role did “The Wall” in Washington play in
exorcising the war? What effect did the war have on US – Vietnamese
relations? What happened to the countless refugees of the war?

2nd Paper due - Oral History (6-8 pp): Conduct an oral history and write a historical narrative on it (don’t present it as Q & A interview!)– interview a Vietnam veteran, or an active opponent of the war, or a Vietnamese war refugee living in the U.S. today (drop paper in my mail box in the History Dept. Office, ED 186; or at CenterAustria, ED 128)

Wed Apr 30    Class: Review Session

Wed May 7     6:00 – 8:00 pm    Final Examination

>>Download as Word Document