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- Internet access
- Letters from soldiers in Vietnam
- “A Letter Home” assignment sheet (Attachment C)
- Some students may have family who fought in the Vietnam War. Ask students the following: “What do you know already about the Vietnam War from movies and television?” “What do you know about Vietnam from listening to your family?” Write students’ responses on the board.
- Using the responses on the board as a point of departure, provide students with some basic information about the conflict. Have students find Vietnam on the maps they developed in session 3. Explain to students the reasons the United States intervened in Vietnam and the United States’ goals. Explain that U.S. political leaders were afraid that if South Vietnam fell to communism, so would the rest of Southeast Asia — the Domino Theory. Finally, explain to students that the fighting in Vietnam was unique. The U.S. was not prepared to fight a guerilla war, in which tanks and traditional air strikes were not effective. Explain that U.S. soldiers often did not know how to identify the enemy: many South Vietnamese sympathetic to the communist cause (Viet Cong) appeared to be civilians, yet they launched attacks on U.S. troops.
- Have students read aloud in class and discuss a selection of letters written by U.S. soldiers in Vietnam. These letters will provide information about the soldiers’ experience in Vietnam and the controversy that was (and still is) associated with that war. Selections of letters can be found in the book Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam, edited by Bernard Edelman and published by W.W. Norton & Company in May 2002. (See <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393323048/103-4737576-1741423?v=glance#product-details> for information about this book.) Teachers will need to be selective and choose age appropriate letters. The book The Vietnam War: A Historical Reader in the Nextext series published by McDougal Littell offers a selection of letters in Part II: “United States Soldiers at War.” (See <http://www.nextext.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=books.view&target=vietnam&filetype=int> for information about this text.) This text also offers a selection of other primary documents (e.g., poetry, speeches, and journalistic accounts) related to the war. Teachers will need to clarify points in the letters and translate slang associated with the war.
- After the letter-reading activity, use the following sample questions to prompt a class discussion:
• What do the letters have in common?
• How are the letters different?
• How might the individuals to whom the letters were written have reacted?
• How is the tone of the letters similar/different from letters written during other wars? (Teachers will need to find some letters for comparison. A WWII letter home can be found at Dear Home: Letters from World War II at <www.historychannel.com/dearhome/>.)
• What might have influenced the soldiers who wrote these letters?
• Did the soldiers’ attitudes affect the way they performed their duties? If so, how?
- Following the discussion, assign each student a soldier whose name appears on the Vietnam War Memorial. Direct students to go to the Web site The Virtual Wall, Vietnam Veterans Memorial at <http://virtualwall.org> to research their soldier. Have students use information from the letters read in class and their research to write a letter home to a loved one from the point of view of their assigned soldier. Have students use the sample instruction sheet at Attachment C
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