Lt. George Coker was a war-hero, faithful American, and POW, but also in my eyes quite the rhetorician. Some of the scenes of the documentary followed Lt. Coker from his homecoming speech and procession, to the classrooms and auditoriums where he addressed the public. What really struck me was the way in which Coker spoke to the people and how he persuasively got them proud of America, and it’s involvement in the war by knowing exactly how to give the audience what they wanted to hear.
For example, when he addresses his hometown of Linden, New Jersey, cheering and chanting he gives them all the credit for his brave efforts in Vietnam. He acknowledges his high school coach, and the city itself for giving him the courage and for making him the hero. He is proud of his duty in the military and what he fought for and he wants the whole city to be equally as proud. By making them responsible they also have this American pride.
The next scene of Coker however is very different. He is in a different setting and uses entirely different language to address a classroom of students. The scene is opened with a nun schoolteacher, asking the students to be “very attentive” because he has an “important message” for all of them. He tells the impressionable students that they will all have to fight a war and that what got him through it, was what he learned before the age of ten. He then goes on to explain that the Vietnamese are very backward and don’t know how to do anything. Which to the children justifies why America would need to go help them, and teach them the correct ways for doing things. When one of the students asked how he felt when the war was over, he said that it felt good to win, because that’s why we went over there, to win. At this time the camera is on the table of boys at the edge of their seats listening intently about winning. Finally, explains the disgraces of American’s burning their cards by telling the children how cowardly it is, and how it should be taken offensively to the children because it’s as if the soldier didn’t like them enough to fight for them. In turn this visit has certainly made an impactful impression on the children and has taught them the importance of spreading American values, and staying true and brave to the country.
In Lt. Coker’s final scene he is in a room full of women. In so many words he is reassuring and flattering them. He gives them praise for their job as mothers, and gives them a special connection to the war. He accredits that without them there would be no brave soldiers and like the saying behind every man is a strong woman, it’s the women who they are more afraid of disappointing than the “gooks”. Just like the town hall homecoming, he tells the women if they are proud of their troops they should be proud of themselves, proud of America for making them that way. So once again, through the knowledge of his audience was he able to cultivate support for the war through the pride and ideals of America.
Is there a way I can return something to Lt Coker from that era?
ReplyDelete