Peace is Patriotic: the Riveting and Controversial Stories of Pittsburgh Antiwar Veterans in the Vietnam Era
Author: Jennifer Brooke Edder
Publisher:
Published: 2012
Total Pages: 80
ISBN-13:
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Patriotism, Peace, and Vietnam
Author: Peggy Hanna
Publisher:
Published: 2007-06
Total Pages: 132
ISBN-13: 9780974186511
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBecause of the War in Iraq, Hanna's book is more timely than ever. In the final chapter of her book, she wrote, "The lessons of Vietnam must never be ignored or forgotten." To her that lesson was simple: American citizens must always question our government, and we must never again sacrifice our sons and daughters to political rhetoric and unsubstantiated fears. Or lies. But we didn't learn the lesson after all. American citizens, in the name of patriotism, have allowed our government to trap us in a war that has become a nightmare. Peggy's story is one that many Americans today can relate to as she recounts her struggle with patriotism and dissent, with trying to understand why we were at war, and who was telling the truth. Peggy's story breaks the stereotype of the Vietnam anti-war demonstrators. She was a housewife and mother of five small children. The stereotype of crazed hippie college students, created by the media, caused unnecessary pain for our troops because they believed the protestors opposed them. They didn't! They opposed our government's policies, not our troops. Patriotic moms and dads just like Peggy Hanna took to the streets too but never received the media coverage that the college campuses did. She describes how much peace activists cared about our troops - a message that never made it to the soldiers dug into the trenches or to their families at home. That was one lesson that was learned. Today anti-war protestors are making sure the troops understand they are protesting our government's policies, not our troops. Opposing the war in Vietnam or the war in Iraq, does not take away their sacrifice and their honor. As one college professor said, "This is a book that all Americans should read."
Hell, No, We Didn't Go!
Author: Eli Greenbaum
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: 2024-05-11
Total Pages: 286
ISBN-13: 0700636307
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAs long as there have been wars, there has been conscription. And conscription has never been popular. When asked in a Gallup poll taken in August 1965 whether the US decision to send troops to Vietnam was a mistake, 60 percent of Americans polled said no. But as American casualties increased and the war escalated, polls showed fewer Americans supporting US actions in Vietnam. That, however, did not stop the drafting of Americans into military service. Later, when the leaked Pentagon Papers revealed that the United States had misled Congress and the American public about the extent of US involvement in Vietnam through lies and the withholding of information, support was driven further downward. Today, the Vietnam War is regarded as the most unpopular war of the twentieth century. In Hell, No, We Didn’t Go!, Eli Greenbaum presents firsthand accounts of men who were driven to resist or dodge the Vietnam draft at all costs. He introduces readers to a cross section of individuals who found ways to defy the draft by leaving the country, going to prison, becoming conscientious objectors, gaming the system, conspiring to fail physicals, and even enlisting—anything to avoid being drafted. These vivid essays and candid oral histories detail events that were often controversial, sometimes volatile, and almost always emotionally charged. Greenbaum brings together a chorus of first-person accounts of draft resistance and protest held together by an overarching personal narrative while providing context, commentary, and an unusual fifty-year perspective on the men’s decisions to avoid the Vietnam War, no matter what. While some men passively accepted conscription as their fate, others actively resisted it, sometimes going to extremes. Each account reveals individual motivations, fears, and hopes—everything from disagreement with American foreign policy to questions of cowardice and the meaning of patriotism, all underlined by courage and determination.
Born on the Fourth of July
Author: Ron Kovic
Publisher:
Published: 2016
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9781617754685
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis edition marks the 40th anniversary of the original publication of Kovic's American antiwar classic.
War Redemption
Author: Buddy Billinger
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: 2021-09-15
Total Pages: 196
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe small antiwar movement grew into an unstoppable force, pressuring American leaders to reconsider its commitment. Peace movement leaders opposed the war on moral and economic grounds. The North Vietnamese, they argued, were fighting a patriotic war to rid themselves of foreign aggressors. The anti-war movement not only happened in US territory but also in warfare. This book is a novel about enemies working together in Vietnam. Three Army enlisted men, led by an anti-war second lieutenant, were ordered on a dangerous patrol in Vietcong-infested territory to support a nearby American regiment. Senior officers expected them to die as happened to the previous patrol. In order to save their lives, the lieutenant sought a truce with an enemy village.
Resister
Author: Bruce Dancis
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2014-02-25
Total Pages: 381
ISBN-13: 0801470412
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBruce Dancis arrived at Cornell University in 1965 as a youth who was no stranger to political action. He grew up in a radical household and took part in the 1963 March on Washington as a fifteen-year-old. He became the first student at Cornell to defy the draft by tearing up his draft card and soon became a leader of the draft resistance movement. He also turned down a student deferment and refused induction into the armed services. He was the principal organizer of the first mass draft card burning during the Vietnam War, an activist in the Resistance (a nationwide organization against the draft), and a cofounder and president of the Cornell chapter of Students for a Democratic Society. Dancis spent nineteen months in federal prison in Ashland, Kentucky, for his actions against the draft. In Resister, Dancis not only gives readers an insider's account of the antiwar and student protest movements of the sixties but also provides a rare look at the prison experiences of Vietnam-era draft resisters. Intertwining memory, reflection, and history, Dancis offers an engaging firsthand account of some of the era’s most iconic events, including the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the Abbie Hoffman-led "hippie invasion" of the New York Stock Exchange, the antiwar confrontation at the Pentagon in 1967, and the dangerous controversy that erupted at Cornell in 1969 involving African American students, their SDS allies, and the administration and faculty. Along the way, Dancis also explores the relationship between the topical folk and rock music of the era and the political and cultural rebels who sought to change American society.
Dear Dr. Spock
Author: Michael S. Foley
Publisher: NYU Press
Published: 2005-11-01
Total Pages: 294
ISBN-13: 081472776X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAt the height of the Vietnam War, thousands of Americans wrote moving letters to Dr. Benjamin Spock, America’s pediatrician and a high-profile opponent of the war. Personal and heartfelt, thoughtful and volatile, these missives from Middle America provide an intriguing glimpse into the conflicts that took place over the dinner table as people wrestled with this divisive war and with their consciences. Providing one of the first clear views of the home front during the war, Dear Dr. Spock collects the best of these letters and offers a window into the minds of ordinary Americans. They wrote to Spock because he was familiar, trustworthy, and controversial. His book Baby and Child Care was on the shelves of most homes, second only to the Bible in the number of copies sold. Starting in the 1960s, his activism in the antinuclear and antiwar movements drew mixed reactions from Americans—some puzzled, some supportive, some angry, and some desperate. Most of the letters come from what Richard Nixon called the “silent majority”—white, middleclass, law-abiding citizens who the president thought supported the war to contain Communism. In fact, the letters reveal a complexity of reasoning and feeling that moves far beyond the opinion polls at the time. One mother of young children struggles to imagine how Vietnamese women could endure after their village was napalmed, while another chastises Spock for the “dark shadow” he had cast on the country and pledges to instill love of country in her sons. What emerges is a portrait of articulate Americans struggling mightily to understand government policies in Vietnam and how those policies did or did not reflect their own sense of themselves and their country.
The Other Side of Grief
Author: Maureen Ryan
Publisher:
Published: 2008
Total Pages: 356
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA wide-ranging critical assessment of the cultural impact of America's longest war. A volume in the series Culture, Politics, and the Cold War.
Bringing It All Back Home
Author: Philip F. Napoli
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2013-06-11
Total Pages: 274
ISBN-13: 0809073188
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA collection of poignant oral histories challenges the myths and prejudices surrounding the veterans of the Vietnam War, surveying the experiences of soldiers who in spite of traumatizing experiences returned home to pursue an understanding of what they endured and serve productive lives of public service.
Letters to The Wall: Memorial Day Events 2015 & 2016
Author: Veterans For Peace
Publisher: Lulu.com
Published: 2016-07-30
Total Pages: 370
ISBN-13: 1365274195
DOWNLOAD EBOOK'Letters to the wall' is a publication of approximately 300 letters written in support of the Veterans for Peace Full Disclosure initiative. The initiative came about in the wake of the Pentagon's Vietnam War history project and was designed to bring an anti-war counter-narrative about the war and its impact on the populations of all involved in the Vietnam War. These letters were written by Vietnam War veterans, their families, anti-war resistors and anyone whose life was impacted by the war. They were delivered to the "Wall" on Memorial Day 2015 and 2016.
