LBJ's Achille's Heel: Vietnam

When visiting the LBJ museum, I wasn't really aware of what I was going to learn or what I was going to take from it, but I actually gained more than I thought. To start, when we all watched the 20 minute biopic over LBJ, everything he did seemed to be amazing, until Vietnam happened. His education, civil rights, and health care bills were greatly stressed, and were constantly brought up throughout the short film. Before then, I didn't really know that he had done all of those things, I really just knew him for the Gulf of Tonkin incident and being Kennedy's vice president. I think that was the reason why all the bills he passed were so heavily stressed, because most people, in my opinion, had the same association with LBJ, and the film was definitely trying to put him in a better light than had been cast on him. Though the short film did mention Vietnam, it just seemed to have a bad impact on everything, as I watched the film, there was a quote about LBJ being a pioneer in reform but at the wrong time, as everything he did was shadowed by the war, and I believe that is highly true, but it made it seem as though it wasn't his fault, almost like a victim. It played it off as him being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but I don't really know how much of that I bought into because he had the power to stop the war, but he didn't, and I know it is much more complicated than that but in a simplistic view that is how I felt.

In regards to the museum itself, I think it was really smart that they placed things in sections. As you walked through, it was as if you were living through each major part of LBJ's presidency at each exhibit; you went from JFK's assassination, to the civil rights movement, to LBJ's bills, and finally to the Vietnam War. One part of the JFK section of the mueseum that really struck me, was both the quotes from Lady Bird Johnson and the exhibit showing the clothes that vice presdient LBJ and his wife were wearing on the day of the assassination. For the quotes, theywere out of Lady Bird Johnson's diary and they were written in small paragraphs across the walls, but it was her voice overs, reading aloud the quotes that were really moving, the subtle differences in her tone, slight influctions of her voice, just made the words on the wall come alive as if she were talking to you, I really felt like I could feel what she was saying. The clothes was such a symbolic message and at the same time, it was almost surreal to see it because I kept wondering, are those clothes real? Were they really wearing them? The clothes themselves were not as significant, as we all wear clothes everyday and don't really rememeber what we wear a certain day, but by wearing those clothes on that day, they had forever carried another memory. It was weird to see that that was what they were wearing the day our presdient was assassinated because I guess of all things, you would think that clothes would be such a minor aspect to think about on such a tragic event, but yet when I was looking at them, it was a subtle image that evoked a deeper connection for me.

The Vietnam War portion of the museum, of course it was the most fascinating aspect for me since we are learning about it, but I felt like it gave me yet another perspective through which I could view the war. The photos of dozens of soldiers on a wall at the beginning of the exhibit ellicited a response that I didn't really expect. I looked at the wall and just looked at all the different soldiers, some were women, some were old, and some looked as old as I was. Seeing all the different faces and matching their photos with their small biographies, I couldn't help thinking, their families did this for them, no one would take the time to let people see more than just a picture than their loved ones, and I think with that, it made me feel so bad for those families that had to write "Killed in action ..." while others didn't have to write that. What differentiated the two biogrpahies? One person is still alive, and one person died 30 years ago, and it was all random, war didn't target sons over fathers, or blacks over whites, it was all by chance that the person in this photo can still take photos today, and that this photo was the last photo of this person. One last aspect of the museum I liked was the life-size sculptures of the marines and viet cong. When you look at the marines, they look huge, I was trying to see how tall they were compared to me and they were easily 4 or 5 inches taller. The uniform was something I noticed to be taken into great detail, making sure each one had a US Army tag or pockets here and etc, and the gunwas very intimidating, even as a sculpture I kind of worried some Night of the Museum magic was going to happen and I'd be next to a 6'4 soldier with a gun in my face. It was a stark contrast with the Viet Cong soldier, crouched over, he looked shorter than me already, and his clothes looked like the clothes I would see people wear to the market or around the house whenever I visited Vietnam, and he was wearing sandals "Viet Cong Sandals", a huge difference compared to the U.S. rugged combat boots. Though they were separated by a wall, you could still kind of scoot back and be able to look at both in the same perspective and it was powerful. You have the U.S. army soldier, looking like a hero from a war movie, standing tall straight and proud, with a rifle and uniform that was as intimidating as it was detailed, and you have the Viet Cong soldier, hunched over like a rat, with shabby sleepwear and sandals. It makes you seem like the U.S. are our heroes, and the Viet Cong are the villains only by the way their body stance is. I think had they put the sculptures side by side, no one would comprehend how the Viet Cong could ever beat the U.S. so it was smart to put them apart from one another.

I've always been a fan of museums, mostly for the science exhibits and the animal exhibits but never really ventured off into the political exhibits but I equally enjoyed it. I think the same effect in regards to cinema is happening to me in museum interest (not that I am an avid museum goer), in that I didn't like documentaries before beause I didn't have a background knowledge of the subject, and I didn't really like political exhibits about like war, and history, for the same reason. This really plays back with the audience and context argument in rhetoric I feel like because context to me before that I as an audience didn't really care for, has more meaning to me now that I have a new background.