UCF VLP Presents: The Vietnam War

By the late 1960s, public support for continued American intervention in Vietnam fell drastically. Many families saw footage of the fighting in Southeast Asia on the television. Through media reports, the public realized that government narratives about American success in the war conflicted with the harrowing broadcasts transmitted back home. Amid dwindling support for the war, young people protested against military conscription and challenged the social norms of mid twentieth-century American society as part of the counterculture movements. As conscription unfairly targeted Black Americans, the protests against the war in Vietnam intersected with the Civil Rights Movement. When US troops began leaving Southeast Asia throughout the early 1970s, they returned to a nation that viewed the war as a failure and initially did not celebrate their homecoming. By the 1980s, after years of poor treatment, the American public finally began to embrace these Veterans’ service. Today, the history of the Vietnam War persists through the continued memorialization of US Veterans.

Host: John Lancaster.

Featuring: Barbara Gannon, PhD, Priscilla Southworth, Mary Kervin, and Carlos Antonio Deliz.

Music and Sound Effects: Pixabay artists and Wikimedia Commons.

Interviews and narration recorded at the UCF College of Arts and Humanities Studio at the Nicholson School of Communication.

Podcast cover art designed by Sebastian Garcia.

This episode is researched, written, and produced by John Lancaster. Edited and mixed by Sebastian Garcia. Executive Producers are Dr. Amelia Lyons and Sebastian Garcia.

Access this episode’s instructional materials below:

• UCF-VLP-RosewellAllenBuckSouthworth-SourcePacket
• UCF-VLP-GeraldJerryKervin-SourcePacket
• UCF-VLP-PriscillaSouthworth-OralHistory
• UCF-VLP-MaryKervin-OralHistory
• UCF-VLP-CarlosAntonioDeliz-GradeLevelBiography
• UCF-VLP-DelizFamilyAffairs-SourcePacket
• UCF-VLP-CarlosAntonioDeliz-OralHistory
• UCF-VLP-9th-12th-VietnamWarPodcast-LessonPlan
• UCF-VLP-VietnamPodcast-EP3-Transcript-WarAtHome
• UCF-VLP-VietnamPodcast-Bibliography

UCF VLP Presents: The Vietnam War is made possible by the University of Central Florida’s Veterans Legacy Program. The UCF VLP is a US Department of Veterans Affairs-funded partnership with the National Cemetery Administration through which UCF students, faculty, staff, and K-12 educators across Florida collaborate to extend the memorialization of Veterans buried in National Cemeteries across the state by using cutting-edge technology and innovative pedagogy.

To learn more about the other deliverables we produced as part of our VLP work, such as grade-level Veteran biographies, cemetery mini-tours, K-12 lesson plans, and more, visit our website: https://vlp.cah.ucf.edu/.

Footnote/endnote citation for this episode (Chicago): John Lancaster, host, “Episode 3: The War at Home,” UCF VLP Presents: The Vietnam War, produced by John Lancaster and Sebastian Garcia, September 30, 2026, podcast, MP3 audio, 27:22, https://vlp.cah.ucf.edu/podcasts/Vietnam/EP3-WarAtHome.html.

Bibliography entry (Chicago): Lancaster, John, host. “Episode 3: The War at Home.” UCF VLP Presents: The Vietnam War. Produced by John Lancaster and Sebastian Garcia. September 30, 2026. Podcast, MP3 audio, 27:22. https://vlp.cah.ucf.edu/podcasts/Vietnam/EP3-WarAtHome.html.

Following President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, the US intensified their presence in Vietnam. In 1964, North Vietnamese gunboats attacked American Navy vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin, which directly led to an increase in US bombing attacks. By 1968, the US government had sent thousands of troops to Vietnam to take a more active role in combating the North Vietnamese. But fighting against both the North Vietnamese Army and guerrilla warriors known as the Viet Cong in the tropical jungles of Vietnam proved challenging. In early 1968, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched a series of surprise attacks collectively known as the Tet Offensive. These attacks marked a dramatic escalation in the war and a turning point for US support back home.

Host: John Lancaster.

Featuring: Barbara Gannon, PhD, Carlos Antonio Deliz, Cassandra Holladay, and Lou Boria.

Music and Sound Effects: Pixabay artists.

Interviews and narration recorded at the UCF College of Arts and Humanities Studio at the Nicholson School of Communication.

Podcast cover art designed by Sebastian Garcia.

This episode is researched, written, and produced by John Lancaster. Edited and mixed by Sebastian Garcia. Executive Producers are Dr. Amelia Lyons and Sebastian Garcia.

Access this episode’s instructional materials below:

• UCF-VLP-JohnHolladay-SourcePacket
• UCF-VLP-CarlosAntonioDeliz-GradeLevelBiography
• UCF-VLP-DelizFamilyAffairs-SourcePacket
• UCF-VLP-CarlosAntonioDeliz-OralHistory
• UCF-VLP-CassandraHolladay-OralHistory
• UCF-VLP-LouBoria-OralHistory
• UCF-VLP-9th-12th-VietnamWarPodcast-LessonPlan
• UCF-VLP-VietnamPodcast-EP2-Transcript-AmericanIntervention
• UCF-VLP-VietnamPodcast-Bibliography

UCF VLP Presents: The Vietnam War is made possible by the University of Central Florida’s Veterans Legacy Program. The UCF VLP is a US Department of Veterans Affairs-funded partnership with the National Cemetery Administration through which UCF students, faculty, staff, and K-12 educators across Florida collaborate to extend the memorialization of Veterans buried in National Cemeteries across the state by using cutting-edge technology and innovative pedagogy.

To learn more about the other deliverables we produced as part of our VLP work, such as grade-level Veteran biographies, cemetery mini-tours, K-12 lesson plans, and more, visit our website: https://vlp.cah.ucf.edu/.

Footnote/endnote citation for this episode (Chicago): John Lancaster, host, “Episode 2: American Intervention,” UCF VLP Presents: The Vietnam War, produced by John Lancaster and Sebastian Garcia, September 30, 2026, podcast, MP3 audio, 22:39, https://vlp.cah.ucf.edu/podcasts/Vietnam/EP2-AmericanIntervention.html.

Bibliography entry (Chicago): Lancaster, John, host. “Episode 2: American Intervention.” UCF VLP Presents: The Vietnam War. Produced by John Lancaster and Sebastian Garcia. September 30, 2026. Podcast, MP3 audio, 22:39. https://vlp.cah.ucf.edu/podcasts/Vietnam/EP2-AmericanIntervention.html.

After World War II, the US grew increasingly wary of the Soviet Union’s encroachment across Eastern Europe. Anxieties over communism’s global spread gave rise to the Cold War that defined much of the latter half of the twentieth century. Although the US and the Soviet Union never formally went to war during this period, they maintained intensely frigid and suspicious attitudes toward each other that often teetered on the brink of conflict. Within this context, the Soviet Union looked to extend their communist ideology to former European colonies that vied for independence throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Communist revolutionaries in Vietnam, then called French Indochina, waged an eight-year war against France to end French colonial rule there. After indigenous forces defeated the French in 1954, world leaders divided the country into the communist North Vietnam and the capitalist South Vietnam. Fueled by their fear of communist diffusion across Asia, the US allied with South Vietnam to ensure communism did not spread across the entire region.

Host: John Lancaster.

Featuring: Barbara Gannon, PhD.

Music and Sound Effects: Pixabay artists.

Interviews and narration recorded at the UCF College of Arts and Humanities Studio at the Nicholson School of Communication.

Podcast cover art designed by Sebastian Garcia.

This episode is researched, written, and produced by John Lancaster. Edited and mixed by Sebastian Garcia. Executive Producers are Dr. Amelia Lyons and Sebastian Garcia.

Access this episode’s instructional materials below:

• UCF-VLP-9th-12th-VietnamWarPodcast-LessonPlan
• UCF-VLP-VietnamPodcast-EP1-Transcript-ColdWar-Communism
• UCF-VLP-VietnamPodcast-Bibliography

UCF VLP Presents: The Vietnam War is made possible by the University of Central Florida’s Veterans Legacy Program. The UCF VLP is a US Department of Veterans Affairs-funded partnership with the National Cemetery Administration through which UCF students, faculty, staff, and K-12 educators across Florida collaborate to extend the memorialization of Veterans buried in National Cemeteries across the state by using cutting-edge technology and innovative pedagogy.

To learn more about the other deliverables we produced as part of our VLP work, such as grade-level Veteran biographies, cemetery mini-tours, K-12 lesson plans, and more, visit our website: https://vlp.cah.ucf.edu/.

Footnote/endnote citation for this episode (Chicago): John Lancaster, host, “Episode 1: The Cold War and the Threat of Communism,” UCF VLP Presents: The Vietnam War, produced by John Lancaster and Sebastian Garcia, September 30, 2026, podcast, MP3 audio, 17:43, https://vlp.cah.ucf.edu/podcasts/Vietnam/EP1-ColdWarCommunism.html.

Bibliography entry (Chicago): Lancaster, John, host. “Episode 1: The Cold War and the Threat of Communism.” UCF VLP Presents: The Vietnam War. Produced by John Lancaster and Sebastian Garcia. September 30, 2026. Podcast, MP3 audio, 17:43. https://vlp.cah.ucf.edu/podcasts/Vietnam/EP1-ColdWarCommunism.html.