1968 Essay Example For Students

1968 Essay An Indignant Generation. With all its disruptions and rage, the idea of black revolution was something many white Americans could at least comprehend, if not agree with. When rebellion seized their own children, however they were almost completely at a loss. A product of the posts war Baby Boom, nurtured in affluence and concentrated in increasing numbers on college and university campuses. It was a generation marked by an unusual degree of political awareness and cultural alienation. Some shared with the beat writers and poets of the late fifties, a deep disillusionment with this status quo, a restless yearning for something more than a realistic conformity. Others had been aroused by the southern sit-in movement, The first hint, wore a contemporary, That there was a world beyond the campus that demanded some kind of personal response. Not so much ideological as moral, in Jessica Mitfords words, An Indignant Generation.Although an image of arrogance, even ruthlessness, had followed him from his early days as counsel to a Senate committee investigating labor racketeering, Robert Kennedy had shown a remarkable capacity to understand the suffering of others. More than this, he had demonstrated an untiring commitment to the welfare of those who had gotten little more than the crumbs of the Great American Banquet. In fact, Kennedy Appealed most strongly to precisely those groups most disaffected with American society in nineteen sixty-eight, they believed in him with a passion unmatched for any other national political figure, in part for what he had done, but also for the kind of man he was. The collapse of communications made it impossible to determine the fate of the pacification program, but most assessments were pessimistic. When the communists launched their attacks, the government pulled nearly half of the five hundred and fifty revolutionary development teams out of the hamlets to help defend the cities, along with eighteen of the fifty-one army battalions assigned to protect the pacification teams. In so doing, Saigon abandoned the countryside and dealt the pacification program what many felt was a considerable setback. There always was a semi vacuum in the countryside, said one United States pacification worker. Now theres a complete vacuum. By the end of the February, orders have gone out for pacification teams and some troops to return to the hamlets, but progress was slow. Although ninety-five percent of the five thousand RD workers in the Saigon region reported back to their assigned locations once the capital had been secured, by mid-March only eighty out o f three hundred RD teams had returned to the countryside in I Corps, while in the Delta, entire provinces had to be temporarily abandoned to the Vietcong For six days prior to the first attack, waves of B-52s blasted enemy weapon sites, troop concentrations, and bunkers. Despite the tons of explosives rained down on the valley, the first helicopter assault on April nineteenth came under withering fire from antiaircraft batteries hidden in the surrounding hills. There were white puffs of smoke everywhere, recalled a pilot who flew one of the earliest missions. I mean, when I came in, the ground erupted right at me. On the first day of battle communist gunners brought down ten helicopters, including the first giant flying crane to be lost in the war. Ill tell you this, said Major Charles Gilmer, executive officer of the first air cavalrys helicopter reconnaissance unit, If you fly over that valley you have a good chance of getting killed.Although they found themselves on the defensiv e in various parts of South Vietnam, it was imperative for the communists to maintain military pressure on the allies. To the American public the opening of negotiation became a tactic of warfare and warfare a tactic of negotiations. By continuing and increasing the intensity of fighting while the talks went on the communists hoped to demonstrate their capacity to wage a protracted war, capture territory that could later be given up as part of a face-saving American withdrawal, and convince the South Vietnamese and American people that however long it took, they could not be defeated. By nineteen sixty-five, of course, most Americans had grown accustomed to images of death and destruction emanating from Vietnam. They littered the pages of daily newspapers and weekly news magazines and provided common fare for network news shows. They reminded Americans that the nation was at war and that the war continued. Raccoon Hunting Sample EssayOn September 2, 1969, Ho Chi Minh died. In honor of Ho Chi Minh, Saigon was then renamed to Ho Chi Minh City. There is also dirt road or path called Ho Chi Minh Trail. WAS 1968 THE WORST WEVE EXPERIECEDWas Nineteen sixty-eight truly the most devastating year in all of American History? A few points to prove this statement true is: the Kent shooting, the Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination, the Robert Kennedy assassination, the TET Offensive, American Riots, the My Lai Massacre, the Democratic convention, the height of the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War was also a big upset in the history of OUR country. A few points that prove this statement false is the Civil War in 1861 untill 1865, the Cold War which followed immediately after World War II through the 1980s, the crash of the stock market which was in 1929. These are just a few of the many, many terrible things that happened in 1968. My opinion of the statement is that it was the most terrible year in all of Americas History. I feel this way because of how all the terrible things happened in the same year. I mean, all the terrible incidents I had listed above were bad but they didnt happen in the same year. Although I havent been around that long, I still feel that it was the worst year in all of Americas History. This is just my opinion. MUSIC IN 1968Most music in 1968 was about drugs, love, and peace. One of the best bands were the Beatles. They have many albums which feature drugs, love, and peace. Hippies were ones that admired these rock and roll bands. The bands that were top ten in 1968 were: #10 Woman, Woman by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap #9 Judy in Disguise(With Glasses) by John Fred and his Playboy band #8 This guys in love with you by Herb Alpert #7 People got to be free by The Rascals #6 (Sittin On) The Dock of the Bay by Otis Reading #5 Honey by Bobby Goldsboro #4 Love Child by Diana ross and the Supremes #3 Love is Blue by Paul Mauriat 2 I heard it through the Grapevine by Marvin Gaye #1 Hey Jude by The Beatles. Certainly, as Paul Simon sang on his Gracdland album, Every generation throws a hero up the pop charts. The talent is out there. But rock doent seem as important to this generation. The music industry has been in a downbeat since 1995, with shipments of album-length CDs slipping three percent last year. Some say CDs are simply too expensive for the younger audience. Others say the commercialization of rock stragles creativity. THE THREE HEROESIt has been 30 years since Pham Thi Thuan, now a 60 year old woman, survived the massacre of Vietnamese civilians in the village of My Lai, Where American troops shot and killed about 500 defenseless civilians on March 16, 1968. Hugh Thompson tried to stop the slaughter. Why did they come and kill all the women in my village? asks Pham, who escaped death by hiding under a pile of dead bodies. Hugh Thompson of coarse could not explain. Im sorry for what happened that day, he says. I wish I could have done more. Hugh Thompson was ordered to fly to the coastal village to provide air cover for the U.S. troops engaged in Firefight with Vietcong guerrillas, instead, Thompson and his crew found more than a dozen U.S. soldiers in the process of murdering unarmed women, children, and old men. He landed his helicopter between a group of nine villagers hiding in a bunker and a line of U.S. soldiers advancing on them. Hugh Thomson, ordering his door-gunner, Lawerence Colburn, to shoot if necessary, coaxed the Vietnamese out and had them airlifted to safety. There were many helicopters, recalls survivor Pham Thi Nhanh. The only one that helped.