: Study Questions: Week Twelve

Vietnam, I: Cold War Myths Confront Reality

The Green Berets (1968) and Go Tell the Spartans (1978).

As the prospects of a global war employing nuclear weapons became increasingly unthinkable (a shift in Cold War attitudes reflected in last week's films: Fail-Safe and Dr. Strangelove), the first nuclear arms limitation treaty (SALT) was negotiated between the United States and the Soviet Union and American military planners adopted the concept of the "limited war," a war fought within a limited theatre of operations (generally a third-world client state) without the introduction of nuclear weapons. The aim of such "limited wars" was to prevent the expansion of communism in various parts of the world. It was assumed that the loss of any nation to communism would trigger a "domino" effect and, like a row of falling dominos, adjacent countries would also fall prey to communist aggression.

The war in Vietnam would put these theories to the test. After the defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 prompted France to abandon its former colony, the United States considered military (and possibly nuclear) intervention, but the Eisenhower Adminiatration chose instead to support a truce between communist-dominated North Vietnam and the anti-communist (but hardly democratic) South Vietnam. A promised election to allow the Vietnamese to choose a new government, for many reasons, never materialized, and by the early 1960s the communist Viet Cong military forces resumed operations in the South. America at first sent military advisors and supplies to improve the South Vietnamese military (ARVN). Then it instituted air strikes against the North. Neither stopped the Viet Cong, and by 1965 American ground forces were assignerd to frontline operations. Within three years 250,000 Americans were in Vietnam, but they proved unable to stem the Viet Cong offensive. Casualties mounted, public opinion turned against the war, and Richard Nixon's promised plan to end the war helped elect him President in 1968. By 1970 American troops were being withdrawn from frontline combat. The ARVN was no match for their northern adversaries, and in the Spring of 1975 the country fell to the communists and the last Americans were evacuated ending America's longest war.

The War left America politically divided and suspicious of not only military leaders in the Pentagon but of governmental institutions in general. The left which has opposed the War and the right which believed that the War was lost at home could agree that the managerial elite in Washington had lost touch with the ideals and aspirations of ordinary Americans. These important changes in public opinion can bee seen in the contrasting treatments of the War in this week's films.

1. Both films draw on many of the conventions of the war film genre: the focus on the small unit, a representative cross-section of American life, whose fate becomes a metaphor for the War itself. There are many other signicicant similarities in the films -- including, for example, the star status of the central character, the references to western films, the culminating battle, and the relationship between Americans and the Vietnamese. Consider the ways in which these generic similarities are used to express very different attitudes toward the War.

2. The Green Berets opens by introducing the men who will later fight in Vietnam. How does this sequence attempt to create sympathy for them? Why is so much emphasis placed on speaking foreign languages? What is the significance of their proficiency in primarily nordic languages? In what ways do the warriors resemble German soldiers in World War II films? What is the ideological significance (intended or unintended) of this similarity?

3. What is the thematic significance of the skeptical journalist Beckworth? How does he mediate between the audience and the action of the film? What does his presence say about the support for the War in the United States?

4. Why is so much emphasis placed on the Vietnamese orphan adopted by the Green Berets? How does he symbolize Vietnam and America's attitude toward the Vietnamese?

5. How does the presence of John Wayne invoke myths of American heroism? Why is he specifically linked to both World War II and the Korean War?

6. Why does the film portray the Americans and South Vietnamese as the besieged victims of superior Viet Cong forces when, historically speaking, the opposite was true?

7. How are the Viet Cong portrayed? In what ways does the film equate them with the Japanese enemy in films about World War II? Why, for instance, is the VC general depicted as a luxury-loving tyrant who exploits women?

8. How does the film draw on western myths in dramatizing the War? For instance, why is the Green Beret outpost called Dodge City?

9. What changes Beckworth's attitude toward the War. How does his conversion serve as a political lession for the film's viewers?

10. The film concludes with the sun setting in the East. How might this continuity error serve as a comment on John Wayne's interpretation of the need to fight in Vietnam?

11. How does the opening sequence of Go Tell the Spartans comment on the nature of the War? What, for instance in "Cowboy" doing? Why is he called "Cowboy"? What do the actions of Maj. Barker tell viewers about him and about his attitude toward his assignment in Vietnam?

12. Why does Capt. Olivetti want to "kill communists"? How do his career plans suggest he is more motivated by self interest than in patriotism? What is sifnificant in his being much younger than the Major or Sergeant Oleonowski?

13. What is the significance of calling the Major "old World War II"? And of having Sgt. Oleo serve with him in Korea? Why are they out of place in Vietnam? How does this dislocation indicate that Vietnam cannot be equated with these former wars?

14. What is the symbolic significance of the medic named Abraham Lincoln? How does his behavior indicate the influence of the War on American ideals?

15. How do General Hamitz and Lt. Finley Wattsberg (the computer-oriented psychological operations officer) represent the new American military? In what ways are they regarded as inferior to Barker and Oleo?

16. Why has Barker not been promoted to colonel?

17. In what ways does the Army's plan for Muc Wa create the very situation it seeks to avoid?

18. What is the narrative function of Coursey in the film? How does he mediate between the action and the viewers? How does is experience the exact opposite of that of Beckworth in The Green Berets?

19. What is the thematic significance of the Vienamese family taken in by the advisory group? How do they reflect the complexities of the War itself?

20. In what contrasting ways are the ARVN officers portrayed in the two films?

21. How do the fates of Oleo and the Major embody the fate of the United States in Vietnam?

22. Lastly, what is the meaning of the title? Why is the same phrase seen over the entrance to the French cemetery? What has the film to tell the Spartans (meaning the people at home)?