Tet Documents

After reading the Tet Documents, I ponder over the morality of the Viet Cong. The Tet documents had three documents which stood out. The first was the “The Tet Offensive”, the second was “The Massacre at Hue”, and the third was “The Presidents Address to the Nation”, which was when President Johnson announced his plans for the War in Vietnam, and his decision to not run for reelection. All three documents connect to each other through the ideas of morality and Just War. The document, “The Tet Offensive”, illustrates the unjust warfare and immorality of the Viet Cong during the war. After the U.S. had agreed to cease fire during the holiday of Tet, the Viet Cong had decided to attack “36 provincial capitals and 23 allied bases in South Vietnam.” The Viet Cong went against their word and attacked during the Vietnamese holiday. This attack shows the immorality and unjust warfare of the Viet Cong. The document, “The Massacre at Hue”, also illuminates the immorality and unjust warfare of the Viet Cong. The United States made a discovery in Hue of “2,300 the number of bodies of South Vietnamese men, Women and children”. The South Vietnamese civilians were executed by the Communists. One year after the battle for Hue, the United States had launched a search operation, and “about 24 sites were unearthed and the remains of 809 bodies were found.” The Viet Cong had slaughtered innocent South Vietnamese civilians. The act of killing innocent civilians by the Viet Cong demonstrates their unjust warfare and immorality. The document, “The Presidents Address to the Nation”, also confirms the immorality and unjust warfare of the Viet Cong. President Johnson desired to make peace with the North Vietnamese, but the North Vietnamese denied the peace offerings. During the Presidents peace offerings the North Vietnamese had prepared “for a savage assault on the people, the government, and the allies of South Vietnam.” The Viet Cong had also “caused widespread disruption and suffering. Their attacks, and the battle that followed, made refugees of half a million human beings.” President Johnson had tried to make peace with the North Vietnamese, who took part in immoral and unjust warfare. Ultimately, the North Vietnamese’s dismissal of peace offerings and immoral and unjust attacks on civilians had made the Viet Cong immoral. Overall, the documents, “The Tet Offensive”, “The Massacre at Hue”, and “The Presidents Address to the Nation” had connected through, as well as proved, the Viet Cong’s unjust warfare and immorality.

Mike Lefevre, Steelworker, and Dolores Dante, Waitress

After reading about Mike Lefevre, a steelworker, and Dolores Dante, a waitress, I was shocked about their feelings towards their types of work. I was more particularly surprised with how Lefevre and Dante viewed their individual jobs. Mr. Lefevre was a steelworker, who hated his job. Lefevre was a hard worker, but hated the type off work he did. He believed “the day [he] [gets] excited about [his] job is the day [he] [goes] to a headshrinker.” (319) Lefevre also hated when other people watched him at work. He believed that working was bad enough, and that he “would rather work [his] ass off for eight hours a day with nobody watching [him] then five minutes with a guy watching [him].” (320) Lefevre was called just a laborer, but to him it was “degrading to say just a laborer.” (320) Lefevre mostly hated his work, but he believed that he was more than just a laborer. The job made Lefevre blow up, and after an argument with one of his superior workers, he “got broke down to a lower grade and lost twenty-five cents an hour, which is a hell of a lot. It amounts to about ten dollars a week.” (321) Lefevre took out his anger on others through fights at his local tavern, but would never take it out on the wife and kids. Lefevre was a good father who wanted to send his kids to college. Lefevre also took his kids out on the weekends. Mrs. Dante “became a waitress because [she] needed money fast”. (329) Dante needed the job, because her “husband and [her] broke up and he left [her] with debts and three children.” (329) Dante was also an atheist, but she believed in her job as a waitress. Dante served coffee, cocktails, and a little philosophy. Dante also found the words, “just a waitress” to be “implying that [the] [customer] [was] not worthy, and that [she] [was] not worthy.” (331) These stories raise a few questions. The first question I have is why did these seemingly minor jobs mean so much to these average Americans? The second question I have is why were blue collar jobs viewed so highly when workers with an education made more money? These stories remind me of World War II, because, during the war, the women and minority factory workers viewed their seemingly small jobs on the assembly line so highly, which is the way Dante and Lefevre felt about their jobs. These stories also remind me of my 6th grade English teacher Mr. Jensen, because, after working at a steel mill in Indiana, he desired to get an education to earn more, even though he felt that his job at the mill mattered. These stories also remind me of myself, because I view my job, as a cashier at TJ Maxx, as not just a laboring position in retail, but of one that helps produce commerce in America.

Kid Pharaoh, Con Man, Tom Kearney, Cop

After reading about Kid Pharaoh, who was a con man during the Cold War, and Tom Kearney, who was a cop during the Cold War, I was shocked by how these polar- opposites, in careers, saw the same type of vulnerability in the people they came across. Pharaoh learned how to con people during the Great Depression, when his father was not making any money. He used his con schemes to feed himself, and decided that “outside of being a prize fighter, [he] took an oath to god [he] would never again labor.” (253) Pharaoh used peoples fear over events such as, the Cuban Missile Crisis, to earn his money. Pharaoh knew that people were afraid. “[He] [gave] them security.” (256) Pharaoh realized that he could also con people by using his and his brother’s bad publicity as prize fighters to earn money. Pharaoh “[sold] two things: [Pharaoh] [sold] the item of fear and [Pharaoh] [gave] them the security they never had in their life. And what ever they have [Pharaoh] [took] from them. [They] [were] more than willing to give it.”( 253) Pharaoh believed that he was giving the people, who had paid him, a feeling of security. When he heard about a boy in Arizona, who had killed himself, he noted that “psychiatrists couldn’t have [cured] him, but [he] woulda cured him.” (255) Tom Kearney “worked as a patrolman and a detective. Then [he] was promoted to a detective sergeant and from there [he] went to the traffic division.” (262) Kearney was a Catholic and so were his siblings, who eventually intermarried with Protestants, which during the Cold War became increasingly more accepted. His dad was a firefighter, who had got a pension, but Kearney’s father believed that everyone should have gotten a pension not just him. Kearney became a cop during the Cold War, and took that job, because he had authority. When he first started as a patrolman, he realized “a policeman starts out young and very impressionable, and you see people at their worst, naturally.” (271) The fear of the events going on during the Cold War had made his realization more true, because the fear that was shown made the people, he saw, at their worst. These stories raise a few questions. The first question is, did the Cold War have such an impact on the American people that anything that promised security, such as a con man, could ease people’s fears? The second question is how come the cops and con men have no fear, when the life they knew could be ended in seconds? These stories remind me of McCarthyism and the arms race. Senator Joseph McCarthy had used the fear of Communism to get him re-elected in 1950. McCarthy had accused many U.S. government officials of being Communists. This gave McCarthy instant popularity, because he used the fear of Communism to make voters feel like he would protect them from Communism if he was re-elected. The arms race also had been centered around fear. After the U.S. had used the atomic bombs to end the Second World War, the Soviet Union started to recreate the atomic bomb. When the Soviets had exploded their first atomic bomb, Americans feared that one day they would be attacked by the Soviets’ atomic bombs. These fears of atomic bombs lead to the negotiations between countries. These stories also remind me of my mother. My mother was in fifth grade during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and had gone to school on that day. She remembers that her school had practiced what to do if the city’s sirens sounded, which meant that they were under attack. The five children, including my mother, were told to take cover under the desk, just in case. My mother remembers the fear that she had.