“Well, I was fighting for freedom, for future generations, for the people of South Vietnam.”  Such are the words of many veterans who served in Vietnam.  More than 2.7 million American men and women served in Vietnam, over 300,000 were wounded, and over 58,000 died.  The 58,220 men and women who died in Vietnam will have died in vain if their reason for fighting - for future generations - is not taught to the children of today.  How is it possible for the children of today to care about the sacrifice paid on their behalf if they are not taught about the war?
 
 

When I was at Xavier University as an older student pursuing a second career in teaching, I was shocked to hear 22 and 23-year-old superior university students mention that they had never been taught about the Vietnam War.  They didn’t even know when it occurred!  At that moment I made a vow that every student who passed through my classes would learn about the war in Vietnam.  We simply cannot allow the sacrifice, injury, and death suffered by so many Americans to go untaught.  If we fail to prioritize the teaching of the Vietnam War and we continue to produce high school graduates who know nothing about the war, then the likelihood of repeating a similar national tragedy is increased.  That cannot and that will not happen!  The men and women who died in Vietnam did not die in vain!
 
 

Lessons from the war in Vietnam go well beyond the war itself and clearly shape our current foreign policy, as well as our government’s communication with the press and the people.  The goal of The Vietnam War:  Learning to Care, Caring to Learn is to have students learn all of the necessary information to grasp a full understanding of the war in Vietnam, but more importantly to have them learn to care about the men and women who sacrificed on their behalf.  If the children learn to care about our past, care about others, and care about what happened in Vietnam, then the mission of this unit will have been achieved.
 
 

Hopefully, after learning about the war in Vietnam, the children of today will never fully understand war.  That’s right, I don’t want them to understand, because there’s only one way to fully understand war.
 
 

Seek peace,
 

Patrick Bowes