Name ______Date ______Period ______

Informational Documents: Primary & Secondary Sources

Standard: Reading Comprehension 2.5 – Extend ideas presented in primary or secondary sources through original analysis, evaluation, and elaboration.

ESLR: Resourceful Learner

Directions: Read the following two articles. Then, read each multiple-choice question that follows, and circle the letter of the best response. Don’t forget to use your test-taking strategies!

The Media and the War
Paul Boyer

By the end of 1967 more than 16,000 Americans had been killed in Vietnam. Thousands more hadbeeninjured or disabled. Despite the government’s optimistic forecasts, a U.S. victory seemed increasingly distant. American television news programs showed gruesome images of terrified Vietnamese civilians and dead or injured soldiers. Some Americans responded by demanding that the military be allowed to do whatever it took to win. Others wanted the United States to pull out of Vietnam.

The Vietnam War invaded American homes in a way that no previous conflict had. During previous wars the military had imposed tight press restrictions. In this war, reports, photographers, and TC camera crews accompanied soldiers on patrol and interviewed people throughout South Vietnam. Television beamed footage and reports of the war into people’s homes on a nightly basis. As a result, Americans saw images that seemed to contradict the government’s reports.

Reporters such as David Halberstam of The New York Times and Neil Sheehan of United Press International criticized the government’s optimism. As early as 1962 they argued that the war could not be won as long as the United States supported the unpopular and corrupt regime[1] of Ngo Dinh Diem. Journalist also reported on the ineffectiveness of South Vietnam’s troops and accused the U.S. government of inflating[2]enemy body counts to give the appearance of progress.

As the gap between official government reports and media accounts grew wider, doubted at home increased. The administration found itself criticized by both doves – people who opposed the war – and hawks – people who supported the war’s goals. Hawks criticized the way the war was being fought. They argued for more U.S. troops and heavier bombing. Air Force General CurtisLeMayexpressed the frustration of many hawks. “Here we are at the height of our power. The most powerful nation in the world.And yet we’re afraid to use that power.”

Doves opposed the war for many reasons. Pacifists[3] such as Martin Luther King, Jr., believed that all war was wrong. Some doves, such as diplomat George Kennan, were convinced that Vietnam was not crucial to national security. Others feared that the United States might use nuclear weapons. Pediatrician and author Dr. Benjamin Spock and others argued that the United States was fighting against the wishes of a majority of Vietnamese.

-from The American Nation (history textbook)

from The Vietnam War: An Eyewitness History
edited by Sanford Wexler

JOHN M. G. BROWN
Thanks a lot for the Christmas presents. They were great. Yesterday I went up Thunder Road on a guarded truck convoy to see the Bob Hope USO Christmas show. It was really a good time and very moving. One of the girlsstarted crying while she was singing “Silent Night” to us and got interrupted by a barrage of artillery going off nearby. If you see pictures of it, I’ll be sitting just to the left of two tanks with “Merry Christmas” painted on them.

-Pfc. John M. G. Brown, U.S.A., First Aviation Battalion from a letter to his family of December 25, 2967, from Rice Paddy Grunt (1986)

DICKEY CHAPPELLE
As I fell into the hypnotic rhythm of the patrol – we were moving between trees and cane fields, stepping high so we would not trip and clatter on the uneven ground – I was obsessed by a question that had plagued me on the other walks in other wars: Why?

Why was it that humans still got along so badly that conflicts were settled like this, by young men betting their lives at hide-and-seek? Did I truly think I could, with the camera around my neck, help end the need for the carbine[4] on my shoulder? Did I think I could make plain how warring really was, how quickly the cutting edge of fear excised[5] every human virtue, leaving only the need to live? Here, now, the supreme virtue was the ability to shoot fast. Or first.

-Dickey Chappelle, journalist with a U.S. and Vietnamese River Assault Group in the Mekong Delta in 1965, eyewitness account in National Geographic, February 1966 [Chappelle, who died on November 4, 1965, was the first American correspondent to be killed in action in South Vietnam.]

DU LUC
For the third time my life turned to war again. For the liberation of our compatriots[6] in the south, a situation of boiling oil and burning fire is necessary! A situation in which husband is separated from wife, father from son, brother from brother is necessary. Now, my life is full of hardship. Not enough rice to eat, not enough salt to give taste to my tongue, not enough clothing to keep myself warm. But, in my heart, I keep loyal to the [Community] Party and to the people.

-Du Luc, Vietcong soldier
diary entry of December 190, from Time, December 15, 1961

RON KOVIC
In one big bang they have taken it all from me, in one clean sweep, and now I am in this place around all the others like me, and though I keep trying not to feel sorry for myself, I want to cry. There is no shortcut around this thing. It is too soon to die even for a man who has died once already.

I try to keep telling myself it is good to still be alive, to be back home. I remember thinking on the ambulance ride to the hospital that this was the Bronx, the place where Yankee Stadium was, were Mickey Mantle played. I think I realized then also that my feet would never touch the stadium grass; I would never play a game in that place.

-Sgt. Ron Kovic, U.S.M.C., on being severely wounded in action in 1967, from his autobiography, Born on the Fourth of July (1976)

  1. Which of these informational readings is a secondary source?
  2. The textbook excerpt “The Media and the War”
  3. Du Luc’s diary entry
  4. The excerpt from Ron Kovic’s autobiography
  5. John M. G. Brown’s letter
  6. The writer’s purpose in the excerpts by Du Luc, Ron Kovic, and Dickey Chappelle is to –
  7. express strong personal feelings.
  8. give detailed information about combat.
  9. persuade the reader to support the war.
  10. persuade the reader to oppose the war.
  11. “The Media and the War” presents information that helps us to understand –
  12. the reasons for U.S. involvement in the war.
  13. the U.S. military strategy for the war.
  14. the reasons for American’s antiwar feelings.
  15. the history of Vietnam before the war.
  16. Which writer’s source would be MOST useful in researching the war as seen from the Vietnamese point of view?
  17. Ron Kovic
  18. Du Luc
  19. Dickey Chappelle
  20. the textbook writer, Paul Boyer
  21. The sources by John M. G. Brown, Du Luc, and Ron Kovic are alike in that they –
  22. are antiwar.
  23. strongly support the war.
  24. are based on other sources of information.
  25. provide an eyewitness point of view.
  26. What kind of source would you expect to provide the MOST objective reporting about the war?
  27. an autobiography
  28. a newspaper or magazine article
  29. a diary entry
  30. a letter home
  31. The two texts that are private and personal (that the writers never intended to publish) are the ones by John M. G. Brown and –
  32. the textbook writer, Paul Boyer
  33. Du Luc
  34. Ron Kovic
  35. Dickey Chappelle
  1. The writer who expresses despair over humankind’s seeming dependence on war and the fate of humankind is –
  2. Dickey Chappelle
  3. Du Luc
  4. Ron Kovic
  5. the textbook writer, Paul Boyer
  6. Which of the following sources would be LEAST helpful if you wanted to extend and elaborate on the ideas presented in these selections?
  7. an interview with someone who served in combat in the Vietnam War
  8. an encyclopedia entry about the Vietnam War
  9. a map of Vietnam
  10. a 1967 television news report about the Vietnam War

[1]Regime:n. government; rule.

[2]Inflating:v. used as n.: increasing beyond what is accurate.

[3]Pacifists:n. people who oppose war for moral reasons.

[4]Carbinen.: light semiautomatic or automatic rifle

[5]Excisedv.: cut out, as if surgically removed.

[6]Compatriotsn.: citizens of one’s own country