The Broken War

Before 1954, Vietnam was a united country, but when the civil war started the country’s perspectives became divided. According to Britannica (www.britannica.com/event/Vietnam-War.), the war was caused by many factors, but one of the biggest reasons was that North Vietnam wanted a communist government while the South "fought to preserve a [government] more closely aligned with the" U.S. and other western countries. Due to their aligning views, the Soviet Union and China supplied materials, soldiers, and ammunition to help North Vietnam. The U.S also joined the war in 1964 and started supporting South Vietnam.

There was a big problem between the western soldiers that were working with South Vietnam’s military, because they could not communicate with each other. Communication is crucial during war, so they tried many different tactics to break down the language barrier. One of these being teaching American soldiers Vietnamese and teaching Vietnamese soldiers English. This proved to be incredibly difficult, but it was discovered that the Vietnamese soldiers were picking up on English faster than the Americans with Vietnamese. Since their last method was not successful, they then tried to hire translators. According to a soldier’s account “[s]ome of the interpreters were pretty good and some left a lot to be desired”(mnvietnam.org).