Honouring the fallen in Vietnam
To be one of the awardees you studied and became involved in the story of our service men and women who were participants in World War 1 (1914-18) or World War 2 (1939-45).
However, as you
know, we are going to Vietnam – a place and conflict that you may not have
studied or learnt about to the same extent. This is particularly true of the
excellent research assignment you did and your connection with an individual
from WW1 or WW2.
We do not want to create a large amount of work for you, but to
make the experience of visiting Vietnam as significant as possible, so we are
asking you to do the following backgrounding and research.
Knowing a story
We ask you to go to the Virtual War Memorial Australia website and select a soldier who died during the Vietnam War. You will be asked during our trip to share the story of your selected person with us as a way of connecting with the sacrifice such times in our history have involved.Once you have a name, email Aaron and that will be your person to
research – we want everyone to do a different person. We cannot visit the grave
of the soldiers, but we can in our own way remember and commemorate their
sacrifice – and that of their family and loved ones all of these years ago. Do
what you can to find out some information and background on a person – you will
need to do a bit of checking out of names to find one with enough information
uploaded.
Feel free to look at other sources to build you story, such as the
Australian War Memorial and the Australian Archives:
· Virtual War Memorial (vwma.org.au)
· Advanced Search: People | Australian War Memorial (awm.gov.au)
· http://www.vietnamroll.gov.au/veteransearch.aspx
· Vietnam War 1962 to 1975 - Anzac Portal (dva.gov.au)
Backgrounding on Vietnam
We encourage you to now do some backgrounding on the history, geography, culture and travel conditions of Vietnam. Again, nothing too much but it is worthwhile getting an idea of the place and people we are visiting.
Here are several useful sites to check out:
· http://dfat.gov.au/geo/vietnam/Pages/vietnam-country-brief.aspx
· http://smartraveller.gov.au/Countries/asia/south-east/pages/vietnam.aspx
· https://www.lonelyplanet.com/vietnam
· http://guide.culturecrossing.net/basics_business_student.php?id=223
Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War (to the Vietnamese, it is known as the American War)
Do some reading/watching about the cause,
nature and events of the Vietnam War 1962-75. In particular, we suggest you
focus on the involvement of Australians in the conflict.
Check out the War
Memorial site and some of the great resources and videos up on YouTube.
Comments
Post a Comment