John Silva
The Vietnam War
The history of this footage was created by CBS News correspondent Richard Threlkeld on March 27th, 1970. Richard Threlkeld had joined the CBS News network four years prior in 1966 and then starting in 1970, he began serving as a war correspondent in Vietnam. Around the time that the footage had been released to the public, he was tasked with providing coverage from a United States platoon that was being stationed in Cambodia. Cambodia became an important destination at this time because in April of 1970, Richard Nixon announced the launch of American fronts into parts of Cambodia with a special objective of capturing COSVN. In order to further understand the significance behind this footage, it would be good to know that the United States had been involved with the Vietnam War for over five years.
From the start of the video, correspondent Richard Threlkeld narrates the perspectives of soldiers from this specific platoon. ^1 “Specialist Dwayne Moore hopes that he can meet his fiancé in Honolulu two weeks from now so that he can show her the silver star that the General pinned on him yesterday. Dibaye is the lone medic in the platoon. He is scared, scared from the moment he got out of the chopper, scared that one day he will get killed trying to pick up a wounded buddy. Jorgenson just became a sergeant, but he doesn’t like it. He’d rather be up front where the fighting is. He’s already got three Purple Hearts, so everyone calls him ‘hero’. And then there’s lieutenant Hughtley, or known as blue, which is his radio call. Blue didn’t want to come to Vietnam, he’d much rather be a businessman than a soldier, but right now he is in charge of the lives of the twenty one men in his troop.”
It is important to know the thoughts of these soldiers because for the most part, this was the reality. Between 1964 and 1973, over two million Americans out of twenty seven million were drafted into the United States military. The average age of an American soldier in Vietnam was only 22 years old, and there were reportedly hundreds of soldiers in combat that were 18 or younger, most notably Dan Bullock, an African American who was only 15 when he died in combat in 1969. ^3 In author James Westheider’s book Fighting In Vietnam: The Experiences of the American Soldier, he argues that soldiers in Vietnam had dealt with immense numbers of outside factors during the war. They had to figure out how to simply survive the day, the ongoing frustrations and stress made by the media, and the public opinions of millions of American citizens. This holds a strong connection towards the soldiers that were introduced earlier in the CBS footage such as Specialist Moore, the Medic Dibaye, Lieutenant Hughtley, and Sergeant Jorgenson.
The time that this footage was released is also significant. The public opinion on the Vietnam had become wearingly negative when Nixon intensified the amount of troops to Vietnam in 1968. ^4 In February 1968, millions of American households witnessed on TV the horror of North Vietnam’s Tet Offensive
across South Vietnam, particularly the destruction of the imperial city of Hue, once the aesthetic, gem of the nation, where thousands of civilians were slaughtered and 110,000 out of 135,000 residents were rendered homeless. In a famous report, seen as a turning point in public attitudes toward the war, esteemed CBS broadcaster Walter Cronkite announced that he could conceive of no other option for the
United States but withdrawal. ^2 This action was shocking because prior to the Tet Offensive, military commanders and government administration had assured the nation that the war effort had been successful and
that the enemy was nearly defeated. Though these attempts were unsuccessful, the Tet Offensive inflicted damage on public support for the Vietnam War in the United States and prompted
Johnson to open peace talks in Paris and refrain from running for reelection. This year had also seen developing boycotts across the nation, especially at student universities. The student demonstrations had influenced protests in major cities including New York City where over 90 thousand protestors showed up. On May 4th in 1970, a big rally was held at Kent State University in Ohio. There were over three thousand protestors, and as a result, four Kent State students were unfortunately killed and nine others were injured. From that point on, hundreds of other universities around the United States had joined in on protests against the Vietnam War. This notably included Jackson State, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Virginia. The outcome of the Kent State incident had only influenced more protesting towards wanting to get out of the war. The footage released by CBS had not only caught the attention of millions of Americans at home, but it had also sparked a wide outrage of protests and cries to bring the United States soldiers home from Vietnam. It is almost certain that this footage amongst with hundreds of other videos at the time had sparked anti-war cries across the nation and motivated people to protest.
Footnotes
- https://youtu.be/89_3DgW_7mg
- Sarros, Caroline Therese, “History Through the Media Analysis of Media Bias and Public Opinion Toward
Student Protest in the Vietnam Era” (2005). Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects.
https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_chanhonoproj/915 - Fox, Mason E., “The Vietnam War At Home and Abroad: Soldiers, Military Leadership, and the Antiwar
Movement” (2019). https://scholar.utc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1225&context=honors-theses
4. United States : Cambridge, MA : New York, USA : Public Broadcasting Service: Da Capo Press: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2017