Slowly but surely, I'm plugging away at my study.
The project is driven by two factors, the first is attempting to understand the motives and attitudes of national servicemen in regards to their service in Vietnam. That will comprise the research element once I complete all my course work. I'm in no hurry, enjoying the journey.
The second is the sheer excitement of discovery. There is so much material hidden away in archives, and so little time left to share the recollections of those of us who were personally involved.
And, of course, there are myths to bust.
I was initially advised by the University to jump straight in at the deep end and begin to conduct the research. Apparently my memoir would have been sufficient to gain admission to a Ph D programme. This course of action would most probably have been a mistake, because my forty-year grasp of the conventions of academia is weak, and would have turned the enterprise into an exercise in frustration.
Entering at master's level means I can navigate my way through the minefield of referencing and the various academic conventions that, whilst they haven't really changed since I last studied in the late seventies, use very different tools from those I employed forty years ago. These tools are essentially digital, and whilst they facilitate research and save time, involve techniques that have to be learned. My fellow students (digital natives) don't have these issues. I have forty years of progress to catch up with.
The only downside has been the elimination of the face-to-face aspects of the course programme as a consequence of the pandemic. Covid has turned the physical presence of fellow students into a virtual experience. You will always learn as much from your peers as your supervisors, and that learning is a bit stilted via zoom.
Having said that, my supervisor is a veteran of Afghanistan, and has a very clear understanding of military culture, which is a distinct advantage.
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4 comments:
"I've been right handed since birth...", but a socialist/communist/Marxist by choice.
Better make up your mind, old mate. Nobody can be all three of these at once.
By the way, have you actually read any Marx?
I left it to you to make a choice...so Marxist it is then.
I can't see much point in reading up on your mentor when the history of death and destruction that followed him can be found in any library.
You really shouldn't repeat the cliches you read on the interwebs. It makes you look silly. the history of death and destruction that followed him can be found in any library
Linking Marxist theory with death and destruction caused by the wars of the twentieth and twenty-first century is about as credible as blaming the deaths of the native inhabitants living in the entire Western Hemisphere on capitalist philosophy.
At the beginning of western colonisation, their population of 4-4.5 million had declined to about 600,000 in 1800. These were the Indigenous peoples who inhabited the coterminous United States. By 1900, this Indigenous population had reached its lowest point of about 237,000 people.
(Source - Counting the Dead: Estimating the Loss of Life in the Indigenous Holocaust, 1492 -Present - David Michael Smith - University of Houston-Downtown -https://www.se.edu/native-american/wp-content/uploads/sites/49/2019/09/A-NAS-2017-Proceedings-Smith.pdf)
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