ia_2009_b_pedro

=B. Summary of Evidence (500-600 words) Tips]=

Between all the famous American history episodes included in some way in the film Forrest Gump, I’ve chosen two of them as topics I would like to analyze and contrast. These topics are: The Vietnam War and The Hippie movement, which are closely related to each other.

In the film, Forrest is recruited to fight in the Vietnam War. As he says //“So bye-bye, Jenny. They sendin' me to Vietnam. It's this whole other country. [1] ”// I’ve chosen this chapter on Forrest’s life because in Vietnam he loses his best friend Bubba and this experience will determine many aspects of his future life too; apart from being one of the topics that is regarded in deeper detail within the film.
 * 1. The Vietnam War**

The **Vietnam War** occurred from 1956 to 1975. The war was fought between the communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and its communist allies and the US-supported Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam).

**The above picture is currently being used purely as decoration - this is not good enough - either refer to it within this page, or delete it (I'd prefer the former!)**

Communists took power in Vietnam in 1954 after the French decided to pull out. On the other hand, South Vietnam was ruled by an anti-communist leader (Ngo Dinh Diem). In 1959 the communist government of the North decided to encourage a revolution in the south. Since South Vietnam had been provided with American help from 1954, President Kennedy began providing support in 1961. After the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964 ( **footnote needed here to explain what this was** ) the Americans got seriously involved in the war. President Johnson ordered the bombing of northern naval bases in retaliation for the incident. In 1965, President Johnson agreed to send 180,000 American soldiers to Vietnam. Eventually there were more than 540,000 troops after three years. “//For Johnson and his advisers, the Vietnam War was the prototype for future limited wars in the Third World that would have to be fought without arousing public passion.” [2] // The Vietnam war ended in a disaster, since the Americans did see they couldn’t win the war ( **you haven't really explained why the war ended in disaster at all here - you just say it ended in disaster, because it ended in disaster - meaningless** !). They tried to withdraw without humiliation by the method of “vietnamisation” [3] The Vietnam War was much related to a new movement which was born in the USA and stood for peace in the world and so they wanted to put into an end the Vietnam War. Being Jenny a clear example of the Hippie culture in the film Forrest Gump, and due to the relationship that they both had, I’ve decided to include this topic on my investigation.

The **Hippie** subculture was originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the early 1960s and spread around the world ( generalisation in the extreme - it would be better to say its values spread quite rapidly, although it was really around San Francisco that the movement was most famous ). These people inherited the countercultural values of the Beat generation [4], created their own communities, listened to psychedelic rock, embraced the sexual revolution, and used drugs such as cannabis and LSD to explore alternative states of consciousness. “//All we are saying is give peace a chance.” -// John Lennon ”//But I would not feel so all alone, everybody must get stoned.”// - Bob Dylan [5] ( You can't just chuck in these two lines randomly - you need to elaborate, e.g. these values found themselves clearly expressed in popular music on both sides of the Atlantic etc ) This Hippie movement was very aware of the events happening in Vietnam, and they made their beliefs heard: “//Sixty five percent of all Americans had similar views as the hippies. They wanted their troops back and that’s what they got in the 1969 when the President gave the word to bring them back home”. [6] // - you should really refer to the song "Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag" by Country Joe and the Fish - which is a pure hippy song focusing 100% on the Vietnam War. Search for it on Youtube. They exerted a lot of pressure on the government by organizing manifestations and other events against this war. (such as? vague!!!)
 * 2. The Hippie Movement**

[1] //Forrest Gump//. 5 October 1994 (France) [2] //The Oxford Companion to American Military History.// Ed. John Whiteclay Chambers II. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. [3] **Vietnamisation –** The policy of passing responsibility to South Vietnam in the war. “Modern World History” - **this reference is insufficient and you get no credit. I need a proper Harvard Author-Date reference for this** [4] **Beat Generation -** term used to describe both a group of American writers who came to prominence in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the cultural phenomena that they wrote about and inspired. [5] **Quotes from** //__“http://www.hippy.com/hippyquotes.htm”__// [6] The Hippie Generation - //A brief look into the hippie culture.// [|www.users.rowan.edu/~lindman/hippieintro.html]