What if Wallace Was Elected? 1968!
- United States Military
- April 1968
- Khe Sanh Vietnam
- To show the resupplying mission for the US troops.
- This document is a primary source because it’s an actual picture that was taken at the site giving a first hand account of the battle field.
- I believe this United States Military is a reliable source, moreover, this picture speaks for it self because it is an actual photo.
- The picture begs the question what was the general mood of the troops in in Vietnam in April of 1968 in the front lines of the battle.
- Was the picture taken to shred light on the hardship and lack of supplies for the troops?
- Maybe it was meant to gain support for pulling troops from Vietnam.
Culturally the Vietnam War was a major issue for the candidates running during the 1968 presidential elections, particularly because of the war and the civil unrest of African American struggle to be treated fairly. Another issue was the racial issues facing African Americans serving in the military. The Vietnam war marked the first American war to be integrated and the first time that African American were encouraged to join the service. It is said that although African Americans was allowed to serve in the military “they have sometimes faced almost as bitter a hostility from their fellow Americans as from the enemy.” War is never a good thing, however, one might ask if it wasn’t for the war, which helped to show up the racial problems and make it necessary to address them. Because it was in 1968 with increasing problems and frustration with lack of racial progress that led to race riots on military bases and ships that the services’ response in creating interracial councils and racial sensitivity training in the military. Readings such as the Military war achieves might be a good place to get some answers.
According to the Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History. “African Americans often did supply a disproportionate number of combat troops, a high percentage of whom had voluntarily enlisted. Although they made up less than 10 percent of American men in arms and about 13 percent of the U.S. population between 1961 and 1966, they accounted for almost 20 percent of all combat-related deaths in Vietnam during that period. In 1965 alone African Americans represented almost one-fourth of the Army’s killed in action. In 1968 African Americans, who made up roughly 12 percent of Army and Marine total strengths, frequently contributed half the men in front-line combat units, especially in rifle squads and fire teams.” In the 1968 Election Richard Nixon campaigned as an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) supporter and seek to align southern voters with his doctrine. However, Wallace a segregationist gained more of the southern support and eventually voters from Nixon. Another question I would ask is what if Wallace had win the elections of 1968 what would life be like today?
Felipe, I appreciate that you have started the process of broadly contextualizing the document that you chose, but remember not to lose site of the specifics of the document. I have a few questions along those lines and assumptions I want to challenge:
-Where is the image? (Don’t forget this post may be read in isolation from your previous post, so it is best to put a copy in here as well).
-Is it fair to say that the picture “speaks for it self because it is an actual photo”? There are historians who spend their entire careers critically “reading” photographs and extracting meaning from them. This involves asking probing questions about the photograph’s content (and lack of — remember those silences we discussed in class!), and the way it was produced, circulated, and preserved.
-You say “I believe this United States Military is a reliable source…” Is that a safe assumption here? Remember the context–the military personnel who would have controlled the release of media were not neutral players in U.S. politics in 1968. For instance, in 1969, reporter Daniel Ellsberg ( a man who Henry Kissinger called “the most dangerous man in America”) discovered that vital information about progress in the war was being withheld from the public. The Pentagon Papers, as the report was called, were only revealed to the public in 1971 when the NYT agreed to print Ellsberg’s leaked copy. As maybe we can discuss in class at some point, it tends to be most effective to judge the credibility of a source in a very specific context, taking into account the sources relation to the topic on hand. A group such as the U.S. Military can be exceptionally open and accurate in reporting in one situation, but entirely opaque in another.
You are certainly right about believing that the military it a reliable source. I guess I got caught in the same trap of thinking that because a source is powerful it is reliable. i certainly see my mistake where that is concerned.