Originally Posted by bulldogg

Hang tough Deerslayer. I went through the same crap with teachers in my school when they made mistakes and I pointed them out. Just remember the point of an education system is NOT to educate it IS to take individuals and turn them into human beings that fit the mould of the current society. Its a factory designed to turn out cogs for the machine. Once you look at it in this light it will make it a lot easier to cope with on a daily basis. Self-guided learning is where true education lies.

Governments approve cirriculums for this very reason. Universities receive endowments from major corporations in exchange for the uni providing courses that train young people to fit the mould of what they wish to employ. There is nothing sinister about it and it is the same the world over. In China they want people who do what they are told and do not question things so the system trains them to be this way. In the US they want people to be creative but not subversive.

The Marxist educator Frere addressed this and was the very first educationalist to publicly acknowledge the agenda of education systems. He did so in an effort to foment revolution and was successful in two Latin American countries. This is something that even teachers often times don't know about their own profession.

Which explains why I am ill-adapted for school, if not society.

"A true warrior will embrace conflict. The true smart warrior, however, will embrace those conflicts which lead to benefit."

We're a largely narcissistic society as well. Here's my take on it:
"An officer's primary duty is to his men. Secondary, to his country. Third, the betterment of his world. I do not see any obligations to himself in the performance of his duties."- Me.

Your "cogs in the machine" statement illustrates perfectly that we are a society which casts away the undesired elements, leaving perfectly good careers and men (John R. Boyd comes readily to mind) to waste. As a side note, Boyd's theories form the basis for much of the work I do.

WD, my bio teacher can't pronounce "menstruation", and she's a woman. My highest quality of education has come from the knowledge of the self-educated and from my own education.

I guess I'm somewhat spoiled with regard to High School and Vietnam. My teacher was my father and my father served in Vietnam. He was an artillery guy, but he had made it his highest priority to study the war and especially talk to his fellow Vietnam vets. He feels he was blessed to not have to do and see some of the terrible things other Vietnam Vets saw. He did his thesis paper for his Masters + 45 on Post Tramatic Stress Disorder, which was the first case done at that particular university I believe. He pushed through the Vietnam war memorial for the State of Wyoming as well. All in all, I'm pretty proud of my dad on all that.

I've always made a point of asking questions and listening to Vietnam Vets especially, but any war vets. I've talked to guys who were still having tremendous guilt for situation like the following: A woman is kidnapped by the Vietcong and her 5 year old child is handed a bomb in a paper bag and told that he has to give it to US GI's or they'll kill his mommy. The US soldiers tell the kid to stop and turn back in Vietnamese and do everything they can to get his to stop approaching, telling him they will shoot, etc. The kid is too scared for his mom or whatever and doen't back down. There's two possible outcomes to this: 1.) The GI's are unable to stomach shooting an innocent child, he brings the bag and the whole works blows up. The child and numerous servicemen die. 2.) The GI's shoot the kid and save everyone but the child. This is a classic case of the types of headgames that the Vietcong liked to use. The sad truth of the matter was simple: The kid was going to die no matter what the soldiers did. Even hitting the kid in the leg is likely to kill the kid and the VC will llikely kill him anyways for his "failure", even if the trauma to the body doesn't kill him outright. So you've got a no-win situation that the American media will just eat up and have a field day with.

The one item that I probably find the most insulting to the Vietnam War efforts was a certain cover for Time Magazine (if I remember right.) If you see the picture, it looks like a Vietnamese man is crying while he is unceremoniously shot in the head. If you see the video reel of that exact same scene, you see a POW who was breaking free and trying to very best kill his captors and/or break free when a SVA soldier draws his gun and shoots him in the side of the head. What looks like crying is actually a scowl/rage on the POW's part. Sure its an ugly scene, but the bastard American journalists actively choose that exact frame to try to depict the event as something completely different than it was.

Originally Posted by Ted

I have been walking around with this question for quite while now, wondering whether or not to post it. After seeing We were soldiers recently, I decide to do so. But let it be clear beyond doubt that it is not to disrespect the servicemen who served there or to question their motives. It is not meant to pass judgement but I can't figure this one out.

I just wonder what you are taught in Highschool with regards to Vietnam's wishes to souvereignty. Are you still taught that because of the Domino Theory and the communist threat that their wish for self rule should be contained? How can it be that Indonesian wish to decolonisation in '49 was seen as nationalism and stimulated by the Americans and Ho Chi Minh's wishes were seen as communism and not nationalism? Soekarno was more affiliated with the PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) then Ho to the Vietnamese version?

We are taught the reason for both the Korean and 'Nam wars were because of the whole containment plan

Do you mean that Eddy Adams Picture that won the Pulitzer in 1969? You'll find the story about the guy who took the picture:

I

n later years, Adams found himself so defined and haunted by the picture that he would not display it at his studio. He also felt it unfairly maligned Loan, who lived in Virginia after the war and died in 1989. "The guy was a hero," Adams said, recalling Loan's explanation that the man he executed was a Viet Cong captain, responsible for murdering the family of Loan's closest aide a few hours earlier.

For the rest of the story (if this is the picture you are referring to) go to:
http://jan_edward.blogspot.com/2004_...d_archive.html

Originally Posted by Ted

I just wonder what you are taught in Highschool with regards to Vietnam's wishes to souvereignty. Are you still taught that because of the Domino Theory and the communist threat that their wish for self rule should be contained? How can it be that Indonesian wish to decolonisation in '49 was seen as nationalism and stimulated by the Americans and Ho Chi Minh's wishes were seen as communism and not nationalism? Soekarno was more affiliated with the PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) then Ho to the Vietnamese version?

Vietnam? What the hell is that?

I took 20th Century American history (which we spent more time talking about the 19th Century than 20th) and that was the only class where we touched on Vietnam, and I was not impressed with how it was handled. Actually, what I should say is "We touched on how Johnson's 'Great Society' was destroyed by the war in Vietnam." And we mentioned the war somewhere in there.

I can now understand why Americans are laughed at by the rest of the world for being so dumb. In the rest of the world history is rather important because they have a lot more of it, America as a nation is less than 250 years old while parts of Europe can trace their history back thousands of years. But the most amazing part about that is despite our history being so short it never failed that we would get to WWI and then the school year would end. Don't confuse that with we would study WWI and afterwords the school year ended, no, we had just begun to study WWI and the school year ended.

The best example I can give you is Geography I. The question, "Where did the Vietnam War start?" (The answer was Tonkin Gulf.) "Point it out on the map." First kid points out North Korea, as do the next four! "Are you all stupid!?" I blurted. "The US became involved in the Vietnam War when a Navy ship was attacked in the Tonkin Gulf, in Veitnam." Someone decided to offer a witty reply, "So?" "Vietnam and North Korea are two different countries!" "North Korea?"

Basically, if you asked a question about WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam or Desert Storm your most common reply would be "Don't go there!"

That does sound troublesome Damien. I remember my first contact with the American way of teaching geography. I just flew in from Europe and was astounded at difficulty level of geography (history as well). But it was good press to come home with straight A's.

I reckoned that with America's involvement around the world, interest would rise too. Seemingly that doesn't happen..... how odd ?!

I reckoned that with America's involvement around the world, interest would rise too. Seemingly that doesn't happen..... how odd ?!

There is two groups in Us society theres one group that knows nothing about history and what goes on in the world we call them "Democrats" Then there is another group that knows a little bit more about history and what goes on in the world we call them "Republicans"

You're as funny as always Rabs. Luckily they didn't teach you how to generalize, for that would be worrysome indeed

Originally Posted by Ted

That does sound troublesome Damien. I remember my first contact with the American way of teaching geography. I just flew in from Europe and was astounded at difficulty level of geography (history as well). But it was good press to come home with straight A's.

I reckoned that with America's involvement around the world, interest would rise too. Seemingly that doesn't happen..... how odd ?!

It was a running joke/comment about Vietnam by the anti-war protestors: Virtually every American drafted and shipped off to Vietnam was going to a nation that he couldn't have found on a World Map beforehand.

Americans are not unique in being, as a general rule, disinterested in both Geography and History. Afterall, most will never really have much use for such knowledge throughout their lives, with the exception of going on a vacation somewhere. But the US government runs exactly opposite. They know and are extremely aware of the world outside the USA. They know full well that ignoring the rest of the World or remaining univolved has only ever led the United States into War and Trouble. For instance, the USA was completely blindsided by the outbreak of WW2. The Germans had a merry ol' time sinking the barely protected US Merchant Marine, and Pearl Harbor was an even bigger shock. The fact that US foreign policy can be seen to have directly led to both events has drastically altered US foreign policy ever since then. It is much the same as the fact that Europe has finally (for the most part) gotten over its eternal cycle of war and revenge.

Oh yes, and there was my 7th Grade Geography teacher: "We will not be covering Africa or South America, we can not afford to waste our time on those areas, we will be focusing on Europe and the Middle East because those places actually matter."

And by focus on Europe and the Middle East he meant learn country names and Capitols, nothing about the nations themselves, except Russia and the Former Soviet Republics because this was only 8 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and was still being talked about like it had happened yesterday.