Summary of Kathleen Belew's Bring the War Home

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 The war worked to radicalize and arm paramilitary groups in the post–Vietnam War period. It brought racism, military training, weapons proficiency, and a readiness to continue fighting home with many veterans.
#2 The Vietnam War was also distinct from other wars in that it was a conflict with a local, civil conflict and an enemy comprised of highly motivated guerrillas and partisan soldiers. This created high levels of despair among the troops.
#3 The Vietnam War completely changed the way Americans viewed their military. It was the first real test of an integrated army, and the racial violence that plagued soldiers of color in combat and at home signaled the incompleteness of this transformation.
#4 The discourse surrounding the Vietnam War shifted in the 1980s to emphasize the mistreatment of veterans by the government and by civil society. The idea that the nation had wrongly rejected, failed to honor, and impugned veterans created an emphasis on healing and memorialization.

Sujets

• United States
• 20th century

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 28 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669367208
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Kathleen Belew's Bring the War Home
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The war worked to radicalize and arm paramilitary groups in the post–Vietnam War period. It brought racism, military training, weapons proficiency, and a readiness to continue fighting home with many veterans.

#2

The Vietnam War was also distinct from other wars in that it was a conflict with a local, civil conflict and an enemy comprised of highly motivated guerrillas and partisan soldiers. This created high levels of despair among the troops.

#3

The Vietnam War completely changed the way Americans viewed their military. It was the first real test of an integrated army, and the racial violence that plagued soldiers of color in combat and at home signaled the incompleteness of this transformation.

#4

The discourse surrounding the Vietnam War shifted in the 1980s to emphasize the mistreatment of veterans by the government and by civil society. The idea that the nation had wrongly rejected, failed to honor, and impugned veterans created an emphasis on healing and memorialization.

#5

The Vietnam War served a vital role in the white power movement, as it allowed many activists who had fought in the war to continue their actions at home, and provided a justification for the selection of communists as their scapegoats.

#6

The Vietnam War was a powerful symbol and reference point for white power activists, who took from the war a tangle of testimonies and narratives. The war allowed men to take on the role of the soldier as an all-encompassing identity.

#7

The life of Beam is a prime example of the many soldiers that served in Vietnam. He was born in 1946, in Baytown, Texas, and enlisted in the army at nineteen. He had economic reasons to volunteer, as he was about to be married and have a child. His father had served as a combat soldier in World War II, and he wanted to follow in his footsteps.

#8

While military service could provide soldiers with the opportunity to meet people from different backgrounds, it could also harden their prejudices and lead to racial violence.

#9

The 25th Infantry had a difficult relationship with civilians in and out of the major base camp at Cu Chi. Some soldiers made fun of throwing rocks at civilians, shooting at them with slingshots, and pelting them with debris from passing vehicles.

#10

The Vietnam War changed American perceptions of itself, and many white power activists saw it as a sign of all that had gone wrong with the country.

#11

Beam’s writings were filled with blood and death, and he constantly called for violence against those who had betrayed soldiers in Vietnam. He called for resistance to a predicted seizure of guns from citizens, and urged white power activists to hold on to their weapons.

#12

Paramilitary camps emerged directly from the combat experiences of key activists in Vietnam. Louis Beam, who would participate in the building and operation of at least four paramilitary camps, returned home in 1968 and joined the United Klans of America, pinning his military decorations onto his crimson Klan robe.

#13

Beam began his own KKK group in 1975, which he later affiliated with the rapidly growing Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, helmed by David Duke. The KKKK had membership strongholds in Louisiana, North Carolina, and Southern California, as well as Beam’s followers in Texas.

#14

The second Klan was led by a Spanish-American War veteran, and it drew white Protestants opportunistically capitalizing on local tensions in multiple regions of the country. The third Klan resurgence mobilized in opposition to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

#15

Many men who had fought in World War II joined the third-era Klan, and wore their military insignias. They carried out anti-black and anti-civil rights violence.

#16

The Klansmen at Camp Puller trained a group of high-school-age Explorer Scouts on strangulation, decapitation using a machete, hijacking airplanes, and firing semiautomatic weapons.

#17

By 1980, Beam and Sisente had gathered enough equipment to outfit and command a paramilitary army. They did not immediately declare open war on the government, but instead chose an enemy that would allow them to frame their violence as serving the state by continuing the Vietnam War against Asian enemies.

#18

As the economy worsened in the 1970s, many Americans began to feel threatened by the arrival of Vietnamese refugees.

#19

Economic instability often correlated with the loss of the Vietnam War and uncelebrated soldiers. Many veterans felt that the government had betrayed them, and that the Vietnamese refugees were counterparts of the same enemy soldiers who had wounded them in Vietnam.

#20

The first Vietnamese refugees entered American territory in 1980, and in 1981 the violence against them reached its peak. The racist media began to circulate stories about Vietnamese refugees as a threat to white jobs and culture, and many Klansmen and neo-Nazis felt the same way.

#21

The most damaging rumors about the Vietnamese refugees were that they were welfare cheats and wards of the state. This anti-welfare sentiment was prevalent in the mainstream New Right, and was often shared by the Klan.

#22

The conflict between the Vietnamese refugees and the local white fishermen was framed as another battle in the Vietnam War. The media constantly referred to the situation as a war.

#23

The harassment of the Vietnamese refugee community in Houston continued, and the Klansmen threatened to burn down their houses if they didn’t do what they wanted them to.