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This is a history course on the Vietnam war, focussing largely on Vietnam rather than on U.S. foreign policy. I need to meet with the class before I can decide what sort of collective project we will undertake. The last several years the class has chosen to develop a web project, "Don't let "em Fade..." which can be seen at: http://mcel.pacificu.edu/mcel/dlef/

This year, however, because of the war in Iraq, the class may want to do something quite different. I am open to suggestions, in fact, insist upon them. So please read through the "Don't let "em Fade..." project and decide if you want to keep adding to this resource, or you would personally like to do something quite different or more relevant to the current situation. We will take a few days to decide this issue.

For purposes of both my grading and planning your time, assume that we will do a major web-based project of some sort, working together or separately, and that it will amount to about a third of your grade and a third of your time for this class. There will be a division of roles, some students doing research, some utilizing whatever special skills they may have for working with electronic materials.

But, however we do it, this course is going to be a significant amount of work. The Vietnam war was a terrible experience for millions of people and for us to do less than our utmost in an effort to understand it would be, in my mind, literally shameful. I hope that the class will be composed largely of students who feel as I do, and I expect to accomplish some genuinally significant work this term, acting both as students of the war, and as historians who are creating useful resources for others wishing to understand the war.