Word: vietnam
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Vietnam War was fought "in country" in that the battlefield of that conflict was the entire countryside of Vietnam. Veterans of the war referred to their time spent "in country" as a way of separating their experiences in the war from their lives in "the world"--the term they used to refer to their homes back in America...
Today, as America attempts to understand its collective experiences with Vietnam the war has followed its veterans back home. In Country, a new film by Norman Jewison attempts to deal with the Vietnam War in this larger sense. Though a substantial body of recent films have attempted to examine the Vietnam conflict In Country is the first film to deal directly with the impact of the war on its survivors--the children family and friends of those who fought and died as well as the veterans themselves...
...volatile episode in American social history that today is just beginning to unfold. The complex emotions and problems the film deals with have yet to be fully realized and it remains unclear whether America will ever be able to truly deal with the sense of loss and guilt that Vietnam provoked...
...scene then briefly changes to a swamp in Vietnam where that group of American soldiers is quickly shot down by the Viet Cong. It changes again to a high school graduation in 1989 where the commencement speaker tells his audience in words hauntingly reminiscent of that wartime sergeant that the class of '89 is the best America has to offer and that by struggling hard, they can forge an America that the world will respect once again...
...governments of both nations hope the troop withdrawal will convince countries around the world to end economic and diplomatic boycotts imposed after Vietnam's invasion...