The Opposed Vietnam War Protests:

Revolution, Reaction, Reform

Madeline Kentros & Sophia Engle Senior Division Group Website

In our list of potential topics, we pursued one that fell deep into a personal nature in which it embodied every aspect of this years National History Day theme- Revolution, Reaction, and Reform- and we chose to focus our studies on the Vietnam War Protests. We discovered that this topic fit perfectly after attending a Veterans of Foreign War meeting where we got to engage in heart felt conversations with Vietnam Veterans. They explained how the war revolutionized the United States citizens reaction leading them to protest and eventually reform their opinions in which they experienced firsthand after returning from the war. After finalizing our topic, we headed to the books, websites, and documentaries to gather the ideal and meaningful information that we needed to have the personal knowledge to go in depth with our interviewees. We realized the best source for this theme would have to be individuals that actually experienced the conflicts firsthand. For example, Larry Thompson, a Vietnam Veteran that we interviewed, described the massive revolutions and gave us more knowledge on the reactions he saw and received after returning from Vietnam. His observations gave us insight to seek out other people who experienced the conflicts, leading us to watch the popular Vietnam-Era movie, Forrest Gump starring Tom Hanks, a soldier in the war. Another inspiring factor of our research was the revolutionizing music distinguished on various pages of our website, protesting the war in another configuration with every lyric sung. We chose the website category because we thought it would be the most sensual medium to express our topic in a more engaging way. With the absorbing factors, including the distinct visuals, multimedia, and text, we knew that the website surpassed elements of a documentary, paper, and exhibit. We sought to challenge ourselves by learning something new. When we first began the project we struggled to import main factors. We began incorporating text and then

added visual and audio supplements to create an interactive story. As we became more familiar with the programs, it was just a matter of combining our skills to create one unified final product. The Opposed Vietnam War Protests are a monumental example of revolution, reaction, and reform. As we ventured into our project, we sometimes felt like we experienced, firsthand, how the Vietnam War embedded itself into our society and how unprecedented nonracial demonstrations and protests could reform our way of thinking and start a massive revolution. The Vietnam War revolutionized the United States citizens reaction leading them to protest and eventually reform their opinions.