Times Of Change tues may 22

What challenges does Jack Smith face as a soldier in Vietnam? (a bulleted list is fine)
· Not many had combat experience
· First few months they never found anyone
· Can’t be trained for combat
· He and his division walked right into an ambush
· Killed a Vietnamese soldier right in front of him
· Pretended to be dead when North Vietnamese troops came so they wouldn’t kill him
· Had to act dead for most of the day and was the only person in the clearing between North Vietnamese and American troops
· Napalm bomb exploded near him and his troops and the North Vietnamese troops
· Vietnamese went around killing all the wounded
· The wounded mortar platoon leaders called for artillery and they drove the North Vietnamese troops away
· When Jack woke up, he saw a dead man in front of him
· Huge amounts of dead
· People wanted to kill North Vietnamese wounded like they did to Americans but Jack told them not to but they told Jack they wanted revenge
· All of his friends died at the battle

How does Smith’s attitude toward war change? In the beginning, Smith wanted to go fight in the war; he wanted adventure and all the “wonders” of war. When he ended up in Vietnam and after the battle, he found out that war is not so wonderful and that it is actually a horrible thing and so many die.



I Feel Like I’m Fixing To Die Rag by Joe McDonald
2 pages - complete by Wednesday May 23

I Feel Like I’m Fixing To Die Rag by Joe McDonald2 pages - complete by Wednesday May 23 This song by Country Joe and the Fish became one of the first protest songs of the Vietnam Era. Read the lyrics to the song, and then respond to the following:

What is the song asking the

“big strong men to do”? fight in the war- Uncle Sam needs their help again

the “generals” to do? Kill all the communists in Vietnam

“Wall Street” to do? Make money for the war in Vietnam to get weapons

… “mothers” to do? Send their children to Vietnam to fight

Write down four specific lines from the song that display sarcasm, cynicism, or anti-war sentiment.
“Whoopee! we’re all gonna die.”
“Be the first one on the block to have your boy come home in a box”
“And you know that peace can only come when we’ve blown ‘em all to kingdom come”
“What are we fighting for?”