Verified Document

Interview With Specialist Six Alan West, U.S. Term Paper

Related Topics:

Interview with Specialist Six Alan West, U.S. Army Vietnam Veteran Just over 53,000 men and women died in the Vietnam War, but the ravages of this war did not end in Southeast Asia. Although many Vietnam veterans experienced problems in readjusting to civilian society, most veterans used their GI Bill benefits to attend school and secure meaningful employment and have gone on to have families of their own. Today, many of these Vietnam veterans are political leaders, captains of industry, successful entrepreneurs and senior executives. This paper provides the results of an interview with a 60-year-old Vietnam-era veteran, former Specialist Six Alan West of the U.S. Army Support Command, Thailand. The results of the interview are followed by a summary of the experience in the conclusion.

Interview Summary

On March 2, 2013, Mr. Alan West was telephonically interviewed from his home in Sperry, Oklahoma. When asked about...

West stated that he served in a non-combat role with the Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Army Support Command in Sattahip, Thailand from 1974 to 1975. Mr. West made it clear that he was initially against the War in Vietnam while attending high school in Wichita, Kansas and admitted to openly demonstrating against the war on several occasions in 1969 and 1970 and was tear-gassed during a demonstration outside the Wichita Civic Center during a speech by then-Vice President Spiro Agnew. Mr. West stated that the organization he belonged to, the Committee for Student Rights, was giving away baloney sandwiches to the demonstrators to mock the baloney being delivered by the Vice President when a "bunch of storm troopers" (Wichita police) showed up and gassed the lot of them to force them to disperse. These experiences and the draft combined to convince Mr. West that the United States was headed in the wrong…

Sources used in this document:
Mr. West was subsequently assigned to the U.S. Army Support Command in Thailand where he worked for the Inspector General in winding down operations as the War in Vietnam ground to its bloody conclusion. When asked if the Vietnam War had impacted the evolution of the United States, Mr. West replied, "This was a stupid war that taught us some expensive lessons in blood and treasure." Mr. West stated that he concluded his tour of duty at U.S. Army Support Command and was subsequently assigned to Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe where he served as the Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Alexander M. Haig, Jr.'s personal secretary until his discharge in 1977.

Conclusion

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Mr. West's interview was the fact that his opinion of the Vietnam War did not change substantively after his enlistment in the U.S. Army and several years of honorable service. Even though Mr. West received an Army Commendation Medal (among others) for his military service and attained senior noncommissioned officer status during his tour of duty, he remained adamant that the United States made a major mistake fighting the Vietnam War.
Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Enron Was the Seventh Largest
Words: 27112 Length: 98 Document Type: Thesis

Enron could engage in their derivative trading strategy with no fear of government intervention because derivative trading was specifically exempted from government regulation. Due in part to a ruling by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's (CFTC) chairwoman, Wendy Graham, derivatives remained free of regulatory oversight. Ms. Graham, wife of Texas senator Phil Graham, made this ruling 5 weeks before resigning as chairwoman of the CFTC and joining the Enron Board

Global Market Research- Roles and
Words: 15495 Length: 54 Document Type: Dissertation

The third position means stepping outside the situation and seeing issues from the point-of-view of a third party. NLP reminds us that people receive information in various sensory channels: the visual, the auditory, the kinaesthetic (perception of movement of effort) and the digital mathematical or reasoned thinking (Taylor, 2000). The idea being that people use all of these modes, but may have a preferred mode. Ethnographic approach: this takes its

Endangered Species' Means Any Species Which Is
Words: 2529 Length: 10 Document Type: Term Paper

endangered species' means any species which is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range other than a species of the Class Insect a determined by the Secretary to constitute a pest whose protection under the provisions of this Act would present an overwhelming and overriding risk to man." A threatened species "means any species which is likely to become an endangered species within

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now