Planning for Feature Article

Pictures with captions:

(Young men, no older than nineteen were dropped off in Vietnam and given a gun, they were expected to know what to do).

(Many children were harmed in the Vietnam war)

Titles:
1. Is nineteen the new thirty?
2. Was/Is nineteen really to young?
3. Was/Is nineteen to young?
4. God Help Me- I was only nineteen!
5. Did Redgum really have an understanding of what men experienced at War?

Byline:
1. Is nineteen really to young to go to war? Shelby Batty explores
2. Famous Australian folk and political music group, Redgum, sings about the hardships men at the age of nineteen experienced through War.
Shelby Batty
3. Would you want to send your son off to war at the age of nineteen?
Shelby Batty


Lead:
1. Written in 1983, the song ‘ I was only Nineteen’ by Redgum focuses on the Vietnam war and the issue in which men at the age of 19 were being sent off to war. I believe they were to young to be given a gun and be dropped in the middle of some forest in Vietnam and expect to know what to do. Do you think that men at the age of 19 were too young to experience war?
2. Men, men, men, men… Are they to young to be sent off to war at only nineteen? Keep in mind that women mature faster than men, and even we wouldn’t be ready.
3. You have your whole life ahead of you. Your life has not even started yet. You have not been overseas, you are not married, and you have just finished school. You have so many plans for the future, to travel the world, to go to uni, fall in love and have children. One day, you are pressured by your mates to sign up for the Vietnam War; sure it seemed harmless at the time. But with one quick bullet to the chest all your dreams are taken with you to your grave without a chance to fulfil them. You are only nineteen, your life has not even started but yet it’s already over. I believe nineteen is too young to be sent off to war. Is this fair, you decide?