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Macklin Baldassaro
Mr. Sokolof
Modern World History
24 May 2021

Life In America vs Life in Vietnam during the Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a tough time in our American History, but what do you
think it was like for people living in vietnam during the time. I interviewed my
Grandmother who lived in America during the time of the Vietnam war and had a
husband during that time. She provided much information on what the atmosphere was
like during the time and what it was like being an average american. I am going to be
comparing this to the research I have conducted on what life was like in vietnam during
the time of the vietnam war. I conducted my interview in a controlled atmosphere where
the conversation was focused and all distractions were limited as much as possible. The
interview was scheduled ahead of time and she had known the topic beforehand so that
she had some time to prepare for the interview and what she was going to say.

After the interview I made a transcript of some of the most important parts which
includes the backstory of my grandfather during the Vietnam War, Information about the
war and the personal stories about what it was like for my grandfather overseas, and
about the time my grandfather and grandmother spent together. These topics cover
most of what it was like for the average american living in the United States in the time
of the Vietnam war. My grandmother was very good at explaining what was going on in
detail. She could easily answer most of my questions without having to think for too
long. I used noodle tools to bring all of my sources together and get them organized into
one place. It was very useful because I could separate what I had into multiple sections
to keep me on topic. I tried using different sources that I knew were reliable and I made
sure that the sources that I did not recognize were legitimate. I used lateral reading to
confirm my information. This was something that was extremely useful to me because I
could easily make sure that what I was finding was legitimate. It is a process that could
take some time, but overall it is extremely rewarding to find the information that you are
using is a good source. I used history.com and brittanica for a lot of my research. I
knew they were very popular sources that were filled with information that I knew was
reliable and quality. Although finding information on what it was like in vietnam during
the time was somewhat challenging, I managed to find everything that I needed without
too many problems. It was just mostly being more specific with my searches, and
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having to read a lot of different webpages and correlating the information on them to
each other. Doing my research I made multiple note cards that were analyzing the
sources that I found. These notecards helped me store information so I could use it for
later. After every source I provided details that analyzed the source, and explained it.
This is very useful for me because this information is a key component to this research
project. I can use it to prove that the information I am using is reliable. It also helps me
understand the source more and it will help me to prove to other historians that I am
educated on the topic I am researching. Overall, my research and interview was
relatively smooth and successful all while being extremely helpful for my interview.

My grandmother talked about how she was affected by the Vietnam war alone at
home. It affected a lot of people at school because there was a lot of tension and they
didn’t want their friends and boyfriends to be sent into the war. It was even worse
because they did not have any kind of say so most of them felt helpless at the time.1 Not
many people around her opposed the government at the time, she lived in a small town
and most of the protests were going on in the big city.2 In the next part she talks about
her regrets during the time and how her being so young and just getting a husband
affected her. It was hard because she had to deal with being alone at home while also
being very young. At that time while he was gone she was getting some money sent
home, but she had to work two different jobs to just be stable, and she was also going
to school during that time.3 They also had their own house so she had to manage most
of that by herself. This was a very hard time for her, and that is what makes it a perfect
example and a perfect story for this topic. She and many other Americans were
struggling with this at the time, and her story can shed much light on what it was like for
those people because she lived the live of a person during that time and experienced
first hand the struggles of not only the vietnam war, but also what it was like having your
husband overseas. On top of this she was still a very young woman at only the age of
seventeen when most of these things were happening. As I mentioned earlier I had
different sections during my interview, to start my grandmother talked about my
grandfather's backstory with the vietnam war. In this she talks about how he got himself
into the war, it started when they were in highschool, the war had already been going on
for a few years, and he was scared that he was going to get drafted, so instead of
waiting to get drafted he enlisted himself in the air force, this was a controversial
decision among his family members and his mom was not happy with it at all. He was

1
Mary Ann Timbrell, interview by the author, Family bedroom, Old Saybrook, CT, May 8, 2021.
2
Mary Ann Timbrell, interview by the author, Family bedroom, Old Saybrook, CT, May 8, 2021.
3
Mary Ann Timbrell, interview by the author, Family bedroom, Old Saybrook, CT, May 8, 2021.
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also newly married to my grandmother and they had only been together for a couple of
years. At the time he resented the government very much, and he did not want to go to
war at all. However the main reason he went into the air force was because if you were
drafted you had to go into the army which was on ground fighting. He thought that he
would get it easier if he went into the airforce. My grandmother also talks about what it
was like when he came back home, and what he talked about. In the interview she talks
about how when he came back home he did not want to talk about the war at all,
however he told her about the fun times and his personal stories but he did not want to
talk about the actual war itself. 4

For people in vietnam it was very different then it was for people in America, for
starters they did not have a draft and they were mostly backed by the soviets who were
showing their support and solidifying that they are enemies with the US.5 For starters
around 4 million vietnemese people died in the war including 1.3 million civilians. The
US also used 14 million tons of explosives on vietnam which really affected the
landscape which caused much of the problems there. They also killed most of the
wildlife there including the trees and crops. Many vietnamese people became homeless
after their villages were turned into battlefields.6 Comparing these was somewhat
difficult because you could find a lot of differences but you could find many similarities.
Nearing the end of the vietnam war around 1974 things started to calm down a little bit.
Casualties were lower even though they still did not know what was going to happen
next.7 For now let's go all the way back to the beginning of the vietnam war in 1965
things were much different in vietnam8 There was a lot of tension and it is a very
confusing topic because most of the time before the war they were colonized by many
different countries including France and China. This meant that vietnam didn't have
much of an identity since they have always had people controlling them. When the war
started one side was backed by the USA and the other side was backed by the solviet
union. All this shows that while the US was on one brighter side of the iron curtain,

4
Mary Ann Timbrell, interview by the author, Family bedroom, Old Saybrook, CT, May 8, 2021.
5
The Vietnam War," Britanica, accessed May 14, 2021,
https://www.britannica.com/event/Vietnam-War.
6
The War's Effect on the Vietnamese Land and People," Encyclopedia,
https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/wars-effect-vietnam
ese-land-and-people.
7
The Vietnam War," Britanica, accessed May 14, 2021,
https://www.britannica.com/event/Vietnam-War.
8
"Why Did US Enter Vietnam War," Thought Co, accessed May 14, 2021,
https://www.thoughtco.com/why-did-us-enter-vietnam-war-195158.
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Vietnam was on another darker side suffering. This shows the many differences
between living in the US vs living in Vietnam during the time and leading up to it.

The main source that I analyzed was the interview conducted on my

grandmother. This was extremely useful for me because it allowed me a unique insight
on the topic that I definitely would not have found on any website. I found that it helped
me because I could always look back at it as a base and use it to back up my
information. I felt that sometimes while I was researching about the Us side of the
vietnam war some information would seem to contradict, I wish that I could go back and
ask my grandmother more specific questions about each topic so that I could get a
better understanding of some of the things that don’t make sense to me. Maybe a
second or third interview would have been more beneficial for me. I still think I got a lot
of good information but I just wish I could get on a deeper level with some of it. While
interviewing my grandmother she seemed slightly distracted at some points. I wish I
would have found a better environment to conduct the interview because I think it would
have kept her more focused and able to recall more from her memory. If I could do it
again another thing I would do is to get some pictures from the time. My mom has some
pictures of my grandmother and grandfather from that time so that could have been
used to jog her memory. I wish that I also got some pictures maybe of some of the
airplanes that he would have been on and others things that she could look at and it
would maybe remind her of something that she could share with me or at least give her
a little reminder of the time and her emotions about her experiences.

Finding information was somewhat hard. I had an easy time finding out the basic
information about the Vietnam war, however finding more primary sources was very
difficult. While I was doing my research a website that was very useful to me at first was
Encyclopedia.com, it had a lot of good information on how the war affected vietnam,
however it did not have enough information on the actual people. It gave a lot of facts
about what was going on there but no accounts from actual people which is what I really
wanted to know and have as a useful source. As soon as I figured this out I knew that I
would need a couple more sources on this to figure out what it was like. Looking back
on it I wish I would have looked more thoroughly for a better source to start myself off.
Then I could have a better base and better understanding of what the people in vietnam
were going through instead of just going off of the pure facts because it skewed my
opinions a little bit and may have changed my perception of the topic in an unwanted
way that wasn't beneficial to my research. This caused me to branch out a lot more
which ended up being very good because it allowed me to see things from some
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different perspectives. This source was very limited in perspective and only showed me
some things about what was going on. I wish it would have informed me about the
environment, what people were thinking, and other things.

Another very useful source that I used was History.com, this was extremely
useful because it gave me all the information that I needed to truly understand the
Vietnam War, it did not really go into specifics but it told me about the war itself and
what was going on from start to finish. Not only did it tell me about that but it also told
me about what was going on before the war which provided me with a lot of good
background. I think that this is a very good place to start. If you want to know the basics
of the vietnam war this is definitely the way to go but to go much deeper I recommend
using some of the other sources including britannica and encyclopedia.com. Those two
in my opinion share a lot of detail and facts with a lot of insight coming from britannica

I think this project was very useful and an interesting experience for me. I learned
that overall there are a lot of differences between what it was like for a person living in
the US during the time vs someone living in vietnam. Before starting this project I
thought that there may have been more similarities. However I still think that there is a
clear connection between these two even though people experienced them in different
ways. At the start of this process it was very overwhelming for me. I felt like there was
all this stuff and I did not have enough time. As I started to really get into the project, it
slowly got less and less overwhelming. At one point I felt very disorganized. My
research was all over the place and I really did not have a focused topic. As I started
writing my essay this carried over, I began writing with no focus. It was all just one big
mess of information useless to my topic. After that I realized that I had to add some
focus into my writing. I ended up having to delete two pages and rewrite them. This was
a major setback for me and something that I wish I could have dealt with earlier and
realized what I was doing wrong instead of waiting so long. If I were given the time and
resources I think I could get a much better understanding on the Vietnam side of the
story. I would hire someone to go to Vietnam and interview some people who were living
there during the time. I think if I could have this my research would be much better. It
would make it more balanced and give me the ability to directly compare the
experiences of the two different sides.

I think this is a very strong message and a good example of what it was like for
an American living during the time and comparing it to the atmosphere of what it was
like living in Vietnam. The differences are immense and the similarities are little to none
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which could be used as an argument against my topic. I decided to talk about the
background of vietnam a bit in this essay because I believe it is related to the build up of
the vietnam war. I feel like it set the scene for everything and it showed the history that
some people may not know. Some information that could have been better is having
more primary sources. I tried to find someone but it was very challenging to find
something that I felt was reliable. I think that this affected my project alot because it
could have been much better if I did have them. If I were to expand this I would make
sure to find some primary sources that fit what I wanted. Some people who were living
in Vietnam during the time. As well as more examples from the American side including
people that come from different places including cities.