Jordan Vermiglio

History Research Paper

12/20/19
Research question: what ways have international events influenced individuals and/or
families and groups narratives?

The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War affected different families in multiple different ways because
there are multiple different family situations that have different effects on people when a
family member could have been drafted into the war as a fighter or have a job relating to it.
The Vietnam War was a very serious, dangerous, and stress causing time for families who
had family members drafted into the war. Some families had older family members drafted
and some had younger being drafted and all had the risk of death. The stress this caused
many and you would think all families was immense. Imagine thinking about your brother,
father, uncle, or grandfather being drafted to fight or work in the war and have the chance
of dying at any point. These families were put into excruciating stress when having these
family members drafted into the war but they tried to do it in the most fair,
non-stereotypical, and nice way of drafting and that was doing it randomly. This was
actually such an emotional time period for people that some people didn't believe in the
war so even if they were drafted they didnt want to go because they thought it was like a
death penalty. Fighting for something that they didn't believe in seemed completely
ridiculous even though that it was done as fairly as possible. The Vietnam War started due
to the fact that America was threatening to expand communism all over South East Asia 1
During WW2, the job of the civil defense unit was to protect the citizens. The
threat of aerial attack on cities became sufficiently great to call for organized civil defense
planning2. ​This is an example of how it also affected the people who were being drafted
not just the families of these people. Some people honestly considered being drafted into
the war as a death penalty so thousands of people fled canada and others purposely failed
tests so they would not have to go and do whatever they had to do whether it was fight in

1
C N Trueman "The Causes Of The Vietnam War"historylearningsite.co.uk. The
History Learning Site, 27 Mar 2015. 18 Dec 2019
This website is good for learning how the Vietnam War started and what
caused it.
2
​Spector, Ronald H. "Encyclopædia Britannica" [Encyclopædia Britannica].
Vietnam War. Last modified November 1, 2019. Accessed January 8, 2020.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Vietnam-War.
This source is great for understanding the reasons that the Vietnam took
place and what the actual conflicts were and why that they happened.
battle or work for the government to help win the war because both were high risk of
danger. When boys turned 18 they were immediately put into have to register with the
Selective Service System within 30 days of the 18th birthday so they could be apart of the
draft if needed.3 This affected parents knowing that their baby boy could be called into
fight and have a high chance of dying every single day. The Monocchi/Vermiglio family
went through this on a very personal level. Butch Monochhi was drafted into the war and
was stationed in Germany and he was in an injury so spent his first month in the hospital in
Germany and before that he spent time at two different US military forts doing his training
for whatever he would run into. The scary part of the whole job is Butch Monocchi was a
message decoder in Germany but had to be trained for the same things that a man who was
fighting in battle after batter was trained for because they never knew what was going to go
down and where no matter what that person is trained for and in his case it was decoding
messages and having direct contact with the white house to tell them exactly what was
going on. The only benefit to Butch and his job was that he knew to much important
information so he would be the first one who was attempted to be evacuated but it was
never a gurantee. Butch worked in a hotel room in Germany partnered with the CIA and he
would be taken to the basement and sit in a jail cell by a machine and decode messages and
gave the decoded messages to the whitehouse because he had direct contact with the
whitehouse incase something was seriously wrong and there was an emergency.
He worked in room 72b and spent his days decoding messages that would look like
random letters to everyone else but he could understand it and was a part of the small
group of people who learned how to work the machines and understand how to decode the
important messages which really helped the US win that war in the end. He had shift
changes that changed every three weeks and the first week he worked from eight in the
morning until four in the afternoon and then the next week he would work from four in the
afternoon to eight in the morning then the third week he would work from twelve in the
afternoon to eight at night and he realized how important his job really was. He said he had
no choice in what he did but he says he got very lucky with the job that he was given and
he feels horrible for the people that didn't get as lucky and he feels empathy for the amount
of families who had their son or father or brother die and he feels like it was a lot for him
and his family to have him go do his job due to the risk of death so he can only imagine the
pain that some families of people who had uncles, brothers, fathers, and sons go to the war
and not come back and see their families ever again and have to leave their families
because they were the ones who were chosen. This was a common feeling for some

3
​Wikipedia . "Conscription" [Conscription]. Wikipedia . Last modified March 2017.
Accessed January 7, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription?cv=1.
This source is good for just basic information on the drafts that go on
when a war starts and how it works and how it is done.
families in the United States since the United States Armed Forces had ​57,939 deaths due
to the Vietnam War. 4
This situation also causes emotional and mental and physical pain and injuries to
the sons, brothers, fathers, and uncles that were fighting in this war and saw things that no
person should ever have to see and they had to do things that a person should never have to
do. This caused upsetting feelings in people while they were fighting making their times
miserable even though they were dreadful enough already this made their families worried
even more which caused more emotional stress on the family. The worst people who got it
were some of the people who made it back, they had to live their lives and know and live
with what they did and go on seeing their families knowing that they made other people
feel the emotional pain that their family feels except on a much higher scale because they
lost those loved ones. And some people come back with mental illnesses some people
come back with visions of what they did while they were.out there in the war doing what
they needed to do to survive not realizing the effects it was having on their mental health
making it ironic how they were fighting to live but made it so they are living miserably
with visions of the bad horrible things that they did and saw causing them to not even be
able to sleep at night.
This causes more emotional stress to the people who were actually fighting in the
war now fighting their own mental emotions trying to keep themselves normal to complete
the goal of coming home to their family and things being the same as they were when they
left.¨For some of them ' the trauma of their battle experiences or their physical disabilities
have shattered their lives¨5 This also puts more emotional discomfort on the family trying
to get things back to the way that they were without injuring their family member and their
mental health any more than they already are. When these people make it home without
any harm done and no mental health issues which is extremely rare they can often feel a lot
of guilt because of what they did not necessarily making it so their mental health is
completely destroyed but they feel guilty. This guilt will most likely eventually get to their
head and affect how they act around their family and that also affects the family even more
than the person.

4
​Spector, Ronald H. "Encyclopædia Britannica" [Encyclopædia Britannica].
Vietnam War. Last modified November 1, 2019. Accessed January 8, 2020.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Vietnam-War.
This source is great for understanding the reasons that the Vietnam took
place and what the actual conflicts were and why that they happened.
5
Hochgesang, Josh, Tracye Lawyer, and Toby Stevenson. "The Psychological Effects
of the Vietnam War" [The Psychological Effects of the Vietnam War]. Edge.
Accessed January 8, 2020. https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/war_peace/
media/hpsych.html.
This website is good for understanding what the psychological mindsets
were of the soldiers who fought and how much of a struggle it really was.
 It is scientifically and emotionally proven that events like these can affect more
than anyone may ever know. These events change the way people look at you, your family,
your country, and everything you've ever done or will do in the future. These events
whether it be the Vietnam War or another war someone in a family may have been apart of
or a personal altercation that caused a person to change the way they act for ever but
especially these international conflicts when people are torn in so many different directions
when in the middle of these conflicts. It's always the people who are brought into the
middle of those international conflicts or the people who love,care,and support those
people who get pulled into those conflicts which is unfortunate for everyone. Especially
when it is a family member that the person being pulled doesn't want to get hurt, then it is a
cycle of emotional distress being thrown onto people who the other people around them
don't want to be hurt but at the same time are throwing that emotional distress on the
people they don't want to get hurt. When people don't want each other to get hurt it makes
it harder on the both of them because they are slowly hurting themselves and making it
harder for the other person slowly hurting them even more. It is absurd the way that these
international conflicts could have so much of an effect on the way people's families are put
together and taken apart due to the fact that these people are nervous about what could
happen to the important people in their lives and end up hurting themselves and them even
more by taking it to an unnecessary level.
The Vietnam War events and things that led up to the Vietnam War caused so
much trauma in families that it is in our best interest for the sake of families and the sanity
of our fighter that we stay out of these altercations the best that we can and if we can use as
much machinery as we can to help save as many lives and protect as many lives and
families as possible.
 Bibliography

C N Trueman "The Causes Of The Vietnam War"historylearningsite.co.uk. The History

Learning Site, 27 Mar 2015. 18 Dec 2019
This website is good for learning how the Vietnam War started and what caused it.

Hochgesang, Josh, Tracye Lawyer, and Toby Stevenson. "The Psychological Effects of the
Vietnam War" [The Psychological Effects of the Vietnam War]. Edge. Accessed
January 8, 2020.
https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/war_peace/media/hpsych.html.
This website is good for understanding what the psychological mindsets were of
the soldiers who fought and how much of a struggle it really was.

Spector, Ronald H. "Encyclopædia Britannica" [Encyclopædia Britannica]. Vietnam War.

Last modified November 1, 2019. Accessed January 8, 2020.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Vietnam-War.
This source is great for understanding the reasons that the Vietnam took place and
what the actual conflicts were and why that they happened.

Wikipedia . "Conscription" [Conscription]. Wikipedia . Last modified March 2017.

Accessed January 7, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription?cv=1.
This source is good for just basic information on the drafts that go on when a war
starts and how it works and how it is done.