Remembering the Vietnam War

by Brandon Priddy, Public Services Librarian 

     Veterans Day, which is Wednesday, November 11th, is fast approaching and I wanted to take some time to honor those who served and sacrificed for our country.  In this newsletter, I decided to highlight resources on the Vietnam War since it isn’t discussed as frequently as other conflicts.  As a quick refresher on the events:  

     “In the mid-1950s, Vietnam, a nation in Southeast Asia, was divided into a northern and a southern region. The Vietnam War was fought from 1955 to 1975 between communist North Vietnam and South Vietnam.  Communist countries, such as the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union, supported the North, while anti-communist nations, mainly the United States, aided the South. After more than 20 years of fighting, North Vietnam won the war. Over 3 million people were killed in the Vietnam War, including more than 58,000 Americans.”

-Gale World History Online Collection 

     Samuel W. Black, Director of the African American Program at the Senator John Heinz History Center, joins the Library again on Monday, November 9th at 7PM for his lecture “Soul Soldiers: African Americans and the Vietnam Era.”  Mr. Black will discuss the experiences of African Americans in Vietnam amid the backdrop of the Civil Rights movement.  You can register for his program here. It’s a new perspective for our Library to offer and I hope you can join us for another one of his excellent lectures.

     Library streaming service Kanopy has a lot of well done material on the war.  I recommend the excellent series The Vietnam War by acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns.  The series, “tells the epic story of one of the most divisive, consequential and misunderstood events in American history, as it has never before been told on film.” You can watch it here.  

     The Year of the Pig: Origins of the Vietnam War starts with “French colonialism and rickshaws to the Vietnamese victory at Dien Bien Phu.”  You can watch it here.   Medal of Honor: The Vietnam War “shares the stories of Medal of Honor Recipients of the Vietnam War.” You can watch it here.   

     Check out The War at Home: Resistance to the Vietnam War which is an Oscar nominated documentary that, “tells the story of the impact of the war in Vietnam on one American town, using the Midwestern city of Madison, Wisconsin as a microcosm for the 1960s Antiwar Movement.  Over twenty interviews with antiwar activists, university and police officials, Vietnam veterans, community members and others illuminate rare archival film footage of '60s political activism to weave an eyewitness portrait of the antiwar movement in Madison.” Watch it here.  

     Library eBook service Hoopla has Voices From The Vietnam War by Xiaobing Li.  The author, “spent seven years gathering hundreds of personal accounts from survivors of the war, accounts that span continents, nationalities, and political affiliations. The twenty-two intimate stories in the book feature the experiences of American, Chinese, Russian, Korean, and North and South Vietnamese veterans.” You can borrow it here.  

     You may also be interested in Vietnam: The Real War: A Photographic History by the Associated Press and Pete Hamill.  “One of the great photographic legacies of the 20th century. Collected here are images that tell the story of the war that left a deep and lasting impression on American life.” You can borrow it here.  Finally, A Rift in the Earth: Art, Memory, and the Fight for a Vietnam War Memorial by James Reston tells the, “remarkable story of the ferocious "art war" that raged between 1979 and 1984 over what kind of memorial should be built to honor the men and women who died in the Vietnam War.” You can borrow it from OverDrive here.  There is a lot going on in the world right now, but I hope this Veterans Day we can take some time to reflect on the stories of our soldiers and their sacrifices.  

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