Fire in the Lake :: essays research papers

Fire in the LakeBy Gerard ChretienEnglishVietnam 2002 ProfMorgan Shulz 28 years after publication, and 25 after the wars end, Fire in the Lake stiff one of the very best books on the Viet Nam war. Sadly, Americans are woefully brutish of the rest of the world. We have little real knowledge of our own accounting solely for the rest of the worlds history and culture, we have neither knowledge nor regard. We do not as yet do the Viet constructse people the courtesy of respecting the name of their country--Viet Nam, not Vietnam Sai Gon, not Saigon. Fitzgerald helps to correct some of this ignorance and arrogance. She begins examining the U.S. in Viet Nam from the persuasion of Vietnamese history and culture and in the process, demonstrating the tenacity and courage of the Vietnamese people, as well as their determination to rid themselves of any foreign invaders, even if, as with the Chinese, it takes 1,000 years. Another great strength of Fitzgeralds book is, with her concern to Viet Nams history and culture and their 20th century struggle against the French, she demonstrates, in an intimately matter of fact way, a fundamental tenant of U.S. foreign indemnity which has been repeated numerous times in the post World fight II era. That central tenant is to support thugs over patriots, to elevate to position those who will sell out their people for 30 pieces of silver preferably than work with those committed to the well being of their people. Ho Chi Minh was our champion during WWII his hero was Thomas Jefferson, not Karl Marx or Stalin. He was very pro-American yet he was a nationalist and a patriot first, which meant, from the perspective of the U.S., he was not just now unreliable, but someone who had to be destroyed. And though Fitzgerald does not carry her analysis beyond Viet Nam, an informed or a curious reader quickly can draw the parallels between U.S. indemnity in Viet Nam and U.S. policy in Africa, the Middle East, the Pacific rim (Indonesi a specifically), to the south America, the Caribbean, and most obvious of all, Central America. Thus Fitzgerald gives us not only the means of understanding the war in Viet Nam, and why we were doomed to lose, but also a point of departure for understanding the travesty of U.