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From: Mattia Morley
T1: Mattia@aol.com
Date: 10/7/97
Time: 8:09:17 AM
Remote Name: 152.163.204.6
Mattia Morley Oct. 6 1997 What’s the Point? Chapter 1: pages 6-7 I chose this paragraph which begins, "The POW\MIA myth has had a profound political, cultural, and psychological influence…" because it is essentially the thesis which the rest of the book sets out to prove. The author, H. Bruce Franklin, states clearly and concisely that he has chosen which side of the issue he stands on. He sets out to prove that the POW\MIA myth that has grasped the nation is just that, a myth which has no basis in fact. He goes on further to say that the American people have even confused their loyalties. The small number believed to be held captive, a few dozen at most, are insignificant when compared to the destruction the war has reaped on the Vietnamese as well as the Americans. He states we should deal with the issues of the "MIA, missing in America." There are thousands of veterans who are alive in America, but not well. They are destroyed from the effects of the war. They are homeless, or are, or have been spending their time in and out of prisons and institutions. He states how American culture has romanticized the POW issues in movies, where a singular hero goes into the jungle and brings the captives home to a country with open arms. The fact of the matter is that none of the veterans who did come home in the first place were welcomed with open arms. The families of the POW\MIA are on a psychological roller coaster, they cannot accept the loss of their loved ones as long as they are supported by a nation who believes they could be alive in the basement of some government facility in Vietnam. Bruce Franklin sets out to find the roots of the myth which has so completely grasped a nation and then, to prove that it is nothing more than a myth.
Chapter 2: page 42
This paragraph which begins, "Americans did not need to read about that prehistory to see the grotesque features of the war it had released." This is where the influence of the media begins to be explained in the book. It was through television that the American people were awakened. They no longer believed in the illusion of the glorious war against communism that the government proclaimed. The images on the screen were not Rambo and other such heroes. They were real people, brothers, fathers, and husbands. The sight of death and destruction on television and in the papers; readily available to the American people led to the peace movements and the rebellion of the government propaganda. The American people were destroyed by images on television and psychological effects of the war, brought home by the media were profound. For the first time, the entire nation was at war together. The war was in the family room of house with a television and no husband, father, or brother present to watch it with.