Internet Resources
- Oral HistoryThe Vietnam War Commemoration Oral History Project collects and preserves video-recorded interviews of Vietnam veterans and their family members. Their stories provide the public with a clearer picture of military service and the effect of that service on the people waiting back home. It is an opportunity to consider the individual experience of war and how Americans remember the war 50 years later. The range of experiences can also challenge conventional understandings of the war and the American service person.
- The Oral History Project of the Sam Johnson Vietnam ArchiveIn 1999 The Vietnam Center and Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive initiated the Oral History Project (OHP). The history of the wars in Southeast Asia is not complete without the inclusion of the voices of those who were in some way involved.
- Vietnam Veterans Oral HistoriesIn 1954, Vietnam established its independence from France, raising questions about how the newly liberated nation would be ruled. The country became divided into a pro-communist north, supported by the Soviet Union and China, and an anti-communist south, backed primarily by the United States.
The American War
This documentary tells the story of the Vietnam War from the perspective of five Vietcong veterans: a soldier, an officer, an informant, a guerilla, a My Lai survivor and the leader of the Long Hair (all women) army.
Source: Kanopy
Vietnam veteran oral history project | Tom Roney
Vietnam Oral History Gene Feher
Vietnam veteran Gene Feher, interviewed by Maryland high school students for the Vietnam Oral History Project.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GyaJKWAi-s
Perspectives
Bringing God to Men
During the second half of the twentieth century, the American military chaplaincy underwent a profound transformation. Broad-based and ecumenical in the World War II era, the chaplaincy emerged from the Vietnam War as generally conservative and evangelical. Before and after the Vietnam War, the chaplaincy tended to mirror broader social, political, military, and religious trends. During the Vietnam War, however, chaplains' experiences and interpretations of war placed them on the margins of both military and religious cultures. Because chaplains lived and worked amid many communities--religious and secular, military and civilian, denominational and ecumenical--they often found themselves mediating heated struggles over the conflict, on the home front as well as on the front lines. In this benchmark study, Jacqueline Whitt foregrounds the voices of chaplains themselves to explore how those serving in Vietnam acted as vital links between diverse communities, working personally and publicly to reconcile apparent tensions between their various constituencies. Whitt also offers a unique perspective on the realities of religious practice in the war's foxholes and firebases, as chaplains ministered with a focus on soldiers' shared experiences rather than traditional theologies.
Falling Through the Earth
A daughter's unforgettable memoir of her wild and haunted father, a man whose war never really ended From her father, Danielle Trussoni learned rock and roll, how to avoid the cops, and never to shy away from a fight. Growing up, she was fascinated by stories of his adventures as a tunnel rat in Vietnam, where he risked his life crawling headfirst into holes to search for American POWs held underground. Ultimately, Danielle came to believe that when the man she adored drank too much, beat up strangers, or mistreated her mother, it was because the horror of those tunnels still lived inside him. Eventually her mom gave up and left, taking all the kids except one: Danielle. When everyone else walked away and washed their hands of Dan Trussoni, Danielle would not. Now she tells their story. As Danielle trails her father through nights at Roscoe's Vogue Bar, scores of wild girlfriends, and years of bad dreams, a vivid and poignant portrait of a father-daughter relationship unlike any other emerges. Although the Trussonis are fiercely committed to each other, theirs is a love story filled with anger, stubbornness, outrageous behavior, and battle scars that never completely heal. Beautifully told in a voice that is defiant, funny, and yet sometimes heartbreaking, Falling Through the Earth immediately joins the ranks of those classic memoirs whose characters imprint themselves indelibly into readers' lives. Falling Through the Earth is the winner of the Michener-Copernicus Society of America Award for 2005-06. It was chosen by Marilynne Robinson and James A. McPherson. The award is given every two years by the workshop to honor the best book written by a graduate of the workshop during this time.
Last Men Out
The monsoon winds swirling up from the South China Sea had doubled in magnitude as Marine Staff Sergeant Mike Sullivan stood on the roof of the American Embassy, watching North Vietnamese artillery pound Saigon's airport. It was late in the afternoon of April 29, 1975, and for the past eight days the airstrip had been the busiest in the world as flight after flight of United States cargo planes ferried Vietnamese refugees, American civilians, and soldiers of both countries to safety while 150,000 North Vietnamese troops marched on the city. With Saigon now encircled and the airport bombed out, thousands were trapped. Last Men Out tells the remarkable story of the drama that unfolded over the next twenty-four hours: the final, heroic chapter of the Vietnam War as improvised by a small unit of Marines, a vast fleet of helicopter pilots flying nonstop missions beyond regulation, and a Marine general who vowed to arrest any officer who ordered his choppers grounded while his men were still on the ground. It would become the largest-scale evacuation ever carried out--what many would call an American Dunkirk. In a gripping, moment-by-moment narrative based on a wealth of recently declassified documents and indepth interviews, Bob Drury and Tom Clavin focus on the story of the eleven young Marines who were the last men to leave, rescued from the Embassy roof just moments before capture, having voted to make an Alamo-like last stand. As politicians in Washington struggled to put the best face on disaster and the American ambassador refused to acknowledge that the end had come and to evacuate, these courageous men held their ground and helped save thousands of lives. They and their fellow troops on the ground and in the air had no room for error as frenzy broke out in the streets and lashing rains and enemy fire began to pelt the city. One Marine pilot, Captain Gerry Berry, flew for eighteen straight hours and had to physically force the American ambassador onto his helicopter. Drury and Clavin gained unprecedented access to the survivors, to the declassified "After-Action reports" of the operation, and to the transmissions among helicopter pilots, their officers, and officials in Saigon secretly recorded by the National Security Agency. They deliver a taut and stirring account of a turning point in American history which unfolds with the heart-stopping urgency of the best thrillers--a riveting true story finally told, in full, by those who lived it.
Knowledge Exchange Oral Histories
- Vietnam War Oral HistoriesOral history projects completed by Southern Adventist University Students.
Vietnam Veteran Bob Konrardy describes his first days in combat
Please tune in Tuesday, Nov. 11 at 7 p.m. on 88.5 FM as we premiere a 90-minute radio program featuring local veterans of all eras beginning with World War II to the present day. Nine veterans will share their recollections of before, during, and after military service - the challenges faced and memories gained from their experiences. On this Veterans' Day, we honor these and all veterans by offering their stories, in their own words.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLERo6HwecU