Peace Day in Vietnam is Jan 27th

This year's focus for our events and displays is to salute our military, and particularly the contributions of African Americans to the military. 

On this date in 1973, the Paris Peace Accords arranged a ceasefire to take place on midnight, officially ending American involvement in the Vietnam War. This 20-year war was devastating to the people—not just the armies, but the Vietnamese civilians—and the environment of Vietnam, as napalm and defoliants burned and destroyed plant life.

The Vietnam War saw the highest proportion of African Americans to ever to serve in an American war. During the height of the U.S. involvement, 1965-69, African Americans, who formed 11 percent of the American population, made up 12.6 percent of the soldiers in Vietnam. The majority of these were in the infantry, and although authorities differ on the figures, the percentage of African American combat fatalities in that period was a staggering 14.9 percent, a proportion that subsequently declined. Volunteers and draftees included many frustrated blacks whose impatience with the war and the delays in racial progress in America led to race riots on a number of ships and military bases, beginning in 1968, and the services' response in creating interracial councils and racial sensitivity training. . . .

The participation of Americans of African descent in the U.S. military has a long and distinguished history. But although African Americans have participated in all American wars, they have sometimes faced almost as bitter a hostility from their fellow Americans as from the enemy. Nevertheless, particularly since the 1970s, the U.S. military has made a serious effort at racial integration, and while much remains to be done, the military has achieved a degree of success in this area that surpasses most civilian institutions.

How has Vietnam recovered from the war?

Well, it is considered a success story because the economy continues to grow each year. Vietnam exports oil and agricultural products. Tourists visit and spend money in the country. New forests are being planted. Still, there is a lot of poverty in Vietnam, and there is disagreement about planting exotic trees (that is, trees that usually grow elsewhere) that are good for the lumber industry, or planting native trees and trying to return to the natural pre-war forest.

Thanks to Mark Fielding for putting together the display.

from The Oxford Companion to American Military History. Copyright © 1999 by Oxford UP.