photo credit: Larry Burrows, LIFE archives. Courtesy Flickr Creative Commons.
February of 2015 marks the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson’s decision to begin the massive escalation of the Vietnam War.
Historian Christian Appy says that Johnson’s aggressive move towards Vietnam in 1965 was prompted, in part, by the partisan swipes of political wrangling.
“He remembered very well just about 15 years before that when the Chinese Communist revolution came to power in China and the Republican party really made hay on that,” Appy says. “Johnson really did feel that down to his bones.”
Appy teaches the history of the Vietnam war at the University of Massachuset6ts, Amherst. He finds that many of his students are two generations removed from Vietnam, and know more of the myth making of popular culture than facts.
“There are a lot of myths that we need to overcome that have hampered public debate and dialog,” Apply tells Steve Fast. “It’s not enough, really, just to say ‘thank you for your service’ to our veterans. We really should be asking ‘please tell us about your service’ and let’s have some discussion.”
Apply is the author of “American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity.”
Listen to the interview: Christian Appy on The Steve Fast Show
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