Why teachers drink

In my 7th grade history classes, we are learning about the Cold War, as well as the Koren War and the Vietnam War; basically wars that had to do with Communism from 1950-1980.

Because we have to cram so much in such little time, and I teach Washington State history, I was only giving them a VERY BASIC overview of the Korean and Vietnam wars today. Their history books only gave each war a paragraph each, respectively. (As a person with a degree in political science and a minor in history, this makes my brain explode, but I do my best to plod on.)

Why are we studying these wars in Washington state history, you ask? Because most of the planes and ships used by the military during those wars were built, supplied and deployed from this state. War changed the entire industry and economy of Washington, and after the Vietnam war, the demographics of Washington changed with the influx of 55,000 Asian immigrants. The entire state was changed because of these particular wars.

And so, I had to give the kids an overview, because of course, you can't just say to students: "The Korean and Vietnam wars changed Washington in the following ways..."

Because you see, students will want to know what you are talking about.

Thus, I gave them a quick synopsis. Last week we spent two days (such a joke) talking about the Communism and the Cold War, so they had a basic idea of the American ideology of the time: "Communism= evil, must be stopped."

I explained the Truman Doctrine and how we declared as a nation that we would protect any non-Communist nation from Communist take-over= N. Korea invades South Kora, we go to war to protect S. Korea. A political coup was waged in Vietnam where the Communist forces were taking over and invading South Vietnam= we went to war in Vietnam. This is obviously the very simplistic 7th grade version.

We talked about what happened in Korea, we talked about the stalemate ending, and how soldiers remain there today on the DMZ.

We then talked about Vietnam. We briefly discussed what happened there (a political coup,) We discussed the fact that Vietnam became a huge issue in this country as some people supported it as a means to an end to Communism taking over and some people were completely against it, as we were at war in another country who had shown no hostility to us.

After all of this, students were asking questions about Communism, the wars, what it is like to live in a Communist country, etc.

When all was said and done, I asked them, "can you tell me, in the most basic or simple way, why did we fight a war in Vietnam?"

One student raised his hand, excitedly, "I know, I know!!!"

Me: "Yes....student...please tell us..."

Student: "We fought in Vietnam because the people there all went crazy and were killing themselves with bombs and stuff, so we had to go there and stop them before the blew up their own country and destroyed themselves."

Ahem.