• Question: Was the vietnam war lost in the minds' of the U.S. soldiers?

    Asked by Y E S to Ben, Sam, Kirsty, Maggi, Rose on 15 Jun 2017.
    • Photo: Kirsty Miller

      Kirsty Miller answered on 15 Jun 2017:

      Hi 🙂 That’s a great question, and a really difficult one – it’s probably more of a question to ask of a historian! However, it was considered a very controversial war for both the public and the military, and latterly, it seems that the soldiers began to turn on each other (refusing orders, fighting, and sometimes even trying to kill their fellow soldiers). To this extent, there was certainly a breakdown in the military process and I imagine based on this that the soldiers would not have considered it a successful war…

    • Photo: Rose Turner

      Rose Turner answered on 17 Jun 2017:

      You might find it interesting to look at research into the Psychology of war. Some researchers at Stanford University (incidentally, where Zimbardo’s prison experiment was based) have looked specifically at the psychology of the Vietnam war, which you might find interesting: https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/war_peace/media/hpsych.html 🙂

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