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=Lesson Plan One - 1984 vs. Today= [|Lesson Plan Write Up]

Part Two: [|1984 vs. Today]

[|Doublespeak] click on modern newspeak and read about doublespeak

LESSON PLAN TWO- BOOK TWO SOCRATIC SEMINAR
[|Lesson Plan Write Up] Article link (importance of memories) http://www.lifedynamix.com/articles/Mental-Health/630.html



= = =Lesson Plan Three- THE ENDING=

[|Lesson Plan Write Up]

article link[|:]http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa_fact

Vietnam Interview

Late Sunday evening, Joyce Berkowitz, successful financial advisor, wife, and mother, sat cross-legged at the kitchen counter slowly sipping her half full glass of pinot gregio. Dressed in black, terrycloth sweat pants and a blue v-neck sweatshirt, she massaged her temples to calm her frustration caused by the [|current stock market plummet]. Starring at the sink full of dishes, while also attempting to monitor my brother's homework progress, my mother twiddled her thumbs hoping the time would quickly pass and all the household chores would be completed before bed time. Having grown up during the days of the Vietnam War, my mother was used to hearing frightful stories and worrying about her friends in the far away land she knew little about. Her small town on [|Long Island] was graced by tragedy through the deaths of a handful of young men, a few of whom she was close with. Her hands ran through her thick brown hair as she pulled it back into a ponytail, signaling her willingness to begin the interview so she could cross it off her checklist of things to do (one of her many organizational strategies).

She began by telling me a story that was most memorable to her. “The moment I most remember is listening to the radio to the lottery calls of the draft, sitting with my parents and my brother who had just started college. We were sitting in the living room[| listening to the lottery] to find out if my brother was going to be drafted,” she recalled. "Luckily he had a high draft number which meant he wouldn't be affected, but I defiantly remember how anxious we all were waiting to hear his number drawn," she admitted with a sigh of relief as she took out a bottle of israeli dead sea cream and moisturized her hands.

The small town of Levittown, New York, sent clusters of young men off to [|Vietnam] not knowing if they would return. My mom, who was in high school at the time, remembers sitting in class thinking about her older friends, some of whom had graduated months prior, that were off fighting. She said, “we lived in fear of them never coming home.” Sadly, some of Joyce’s friends never made it back to their quiet corner of suburbia. She spoke about two neighborhood boys, whose death impacted the community immensely. “Kevin Murphy was a few grades above me. His brother Michael died when Kevin was a senior and right after that, Kevin enlisted. He died two years later. There were four Murphy boys and then there were two – those are the two that come to mind.” Joyce bit at her cuticle on her perfectly polished nail as she spoke about the Murphy brothers. She explained that in her extremely blue-collar town, more flags were raised and a memorial was built at the high school to remember the students and town residents who passed. The tone in Joyce’s voice got quiet, and then sad; it was easy to see that these memories were buried deep within and hadn’t surfaced in many years.

My mother commutes to New York City where she works on Fifth Avenue as the Senior Vice President of Investments at Smith Barney. She spends her days buying and selling stock, trying to calm her worried clients. When asked about her connection to the [|Iraqi War] compared to her connection to the Vietnam War Joyce explained, “I have no connection to the war in Iraq thank god - but the war in Iraq is affecting us economically which is definitely hurting us all greatly. I was too young to think about economics during Vietnam and I really had no interest in the economy at that time to tell you the truth. I just cared about my friends and how they were doing,” As the interview came to an end, Joyce began to move off her chair and back to the household routine she was interrupted from. While she opened the refrigerator to grab the turkey, lettuce, and whole wheat bread she would use to make my brother a sandwich, I was able to ask one last question. “What is the first thing that pops into your head when you hear the word Vietnam?” Joyce quickly replied, “A war we had no business being involved in.” With those closing remarks Joyce had said all she needed to say to express her experience through the Vietnam War. The suburban mother of two sipped the last drops of her glass of white wine and began to clean the kitchen and get ready to go to bed. media type="youtube" key="dP4GaprkAJg" height="344" width="425"

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