John Day Tully - Understanding and Teaching the Vietnam War

The Harvey Goldberg Series for Understanding and Teaching History

The Harvey Goldberg Series for Understanding and Teaching History gives college and secondary history instructors a deeper understanding of the past as well as the tools to help them teach it creatively and effectively. Each volume focuses on a specific historical topic and offers a wealth of content and resources, providing concrete examples of how teachers can approach the subject in the classroom. Named for Harvey Goldberg, a professor renowned for his history teaching at Oberlin College, Ohio State University, and the University of Wisconsin from the 1960s to the 1980s, the series reflects Goldbergs commitment to helping students think critically about the past with the goal of creating a better future. For more information, please visit www.GoldbergSeries.org.

John Day Tully is an associate professor of history at Central Connecticut State University and was the founding director of the Harvey Goldberg Center for Excellence in Teaching at Ohio State University.

Matthew Masur is an associate professor of history at Saint Anselm College, where he is codirector of the Father Guerin Center for Teaching Excellence. He is a member of the Teaching Committee of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations and writes on American-Vietnamese relations.

Brad Austin is a professor of history at Salem State University. He has served as chair of the American Historical Associations Teaching Prize Committee and has worked with hundreds of secondary school teachers as the academic coordinator of many Teaching American History grants.

Kevin Boyle Ohio State University

Ross Dunn Professor Emeritus, San Diego State University

Leon Fink UIC Distinguished Professor of History, University of Illinois at Chicago

Kimberly Ibach Ben L. Smith High School, Greensboro, North Carolina

Alfred W. McCoy J.R.W. Smail Professor of History, Director, Harvey Goldberg Center for the Study of Contemporary History, University of WisconsinMadison

David J. Staley Director, Harvey Goldberg Center for Excellence in Teaching, Ohio State University

Maggie Tran McLean High School, McLean, Virginia

Sam Wineburg Margaret Jacks Professor of Education and (by courtesy) of History, Director, Stanford History Education Group, Stanford University

Understanding and Teaching the Vietnam War

Edited by

JOHN DAY TULLY

MATTHEW MASUR

B RAD A USTIN

The University of Wisconsin Press

The University of Wisconsin Press
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Madison, Wisconsin 53711-2059
uwpress.wisc.edu

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Copyright 2013
The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any format or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without written permission of the University of Wisconsin Press, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Understanding and teaching the Vietnam War / edited by John Day Tully,
Matthew Masur, and Brad Austin.
p.cm.(The Harvey Goldberg series for understanding and teaching history)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-299-29414-4 (pbk.: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-299-29413-7 (e-book)
1. Vietnam War, 19611975Study and teachingUnited States.
I. Tully, John Day. II. Masur, Matthew. III. Austin, Brad, 1972
IV. Series: Harvey Goldberg series for understanding and teaching history.
DS557.74.U53 2013
959.7043071dc23
2012040084

For

NANCY

JENN

LAGINA

JOHN DAY TULLY, MATTHEW MASUR , and BRAD AUSTIN

MARILYN B. YOUNG

GEORGE C. HERRING

KEVIN OREILLY

HUGO A. KEESING

MITCHELL B. LERNER

SCOTT LADERMAN

MAUREEN RYAN

RICHARD HUME WERKING and BRIAN C. ETHERIDGE

ANDREW DARIEN

MATTHEW MASUR

KATHRYN C. STATLER

DAVID STEIGERWALD

TUAN HOANG

CHIA YOUYEE VANG

KARN AGUILAR - SAN JUAN

ANDREW WIEST

DAVID FITZGERALD and DAVID RYAN

STEPHEN ARMSTRONG

Our inspiration for this project began with the career of an amazing teacher and prolific scholar, Harvey Goldberg. Born in New Jersey in 1922, he earned both his undergraduate degree and his PhD in history from the University of WisconsinMadison, completing his dissertation on the life and contributions of the French socialist Jean Juars. He published widely, producing not only a monograph biography of Juars but also numerous academic articles intended to advance scholarly debates and essays in popular magazines designed to engage and inform the public.

The dual desire to bring scholarly insights to the people and to bring the pressing concerns of the real world to the ivory tower manifested themselves in his teaching as well. The combination of his passion, intellect, and compelling stage presence made Goldberg one of the most effective and influential educators of his age.

After a brief stint at Oberlin College, Professor Goldberg taught at both Ohio State University and the University of WisconsinMadison for many decades. Although the editors of this volume never had the honor of working directly with Professor Goldberg, his influence and legacy were all around us. While graduate students at Ohio State, we had the opportunity to work on various projects through the Department of Historys Harvey Goldberg Center for Excellence in Teaching, which grew out of the desire of many of Goldbergs former students to honor him, his teaching, and his positive influence on their lives. As graduate students, we were honored to work on publishing projects designed to improve the quality of teaching in American history survey classes, on grant projects with local secondary teachers, and on continuing efforts within the department itself to improve the quality of the undergraduate classroom experience. We also were able to meet and talk with many of Goldbergs former students, who, even many years later, recounted with emotion and genuine appreciation how Harveys teaching helped them to become critical thinkers and engaged citizens. We became better teachers because of this experience and inspiration.

The mark of a great teacher is an ability to change students lives. Perhaps the mark of a truly great teacher is that such a gift influences generations of students, who in turn carry forward the legacy. The existence and prominence of the Ohio State Harvey Goldberg Center for Excellence in Teaching and the University of Wisconsins Harvey Goldberg Center offer testimony to the power of his influence on his legions of admirers and students.

Harvey taught these students that the appeal of history is not chronology, and it is not archaeology, and it is not computers, and it is not the memory bank, and it is not really getting on some kind of cards every little lopin of land in a French province in 1702. Instead, he proclaimed, the purpose of history is to go back and to find the useable past. That is all that is interesting to me. His desire to make students realize how much power comes from understanding the past is still valid today. He was able to live that truth in his teaching; this book and the Harvey Goldberg Series for Understanding and Teaching History are designed to help teachers make such a belief a reality in their own classrooms.