America Sucks: The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was the first major war American’s had suffered defeat. The Vietnam war was a war of confusion, competition and biasness. The outcome of the war was far greater than an upset American nation, but a severe breakdown of the Vietnamese culture, economy, environment and government. It also had a tremendous impact on American society even up to present day. It was unclear from the beginning of the war if the American’s should even be involved. It was a war between Northern and Southern Vietnam but the U.S saw it as an indirect way to challenge the USSR’s sphere of influence in Southern Asia and to prevent the domino effect and the further spread of communism. The Vietnam War completely changed the way the United States

During the peak of U.S involvement in the Vietnam War, between 1967 and 1969 the U.S employed a strategy that proved to be a disaster on many different levels. With over 500,000 of their troops serving in Vietnam at the time, the widespread use of herbicides, particularly Agent Orange began being sprayed over the Vietnamese jungle by planes. The aim of this was to eliminate the ‘invisibility' of the Viet Cong and offer a safe path for the American troops to follow. This was a good idea in theory, but what the American strategists didn't think of was the toxicity of the herbicides, and the fact that not only would the Viet Cong be exposed to it, but their troops and innocent South Vietnamese would be also. A widely speculated and argued repercussion of this is that many Vietnam veterans, and Vietnamese villagers began to give birth to babies with birth defects. However, a confirmed result

Yet another type of bomb was dropped by the B-52s, this one containing a large amount of the defoliating gas, Agent Orange. Hundreds of millions of acres of jungle were destroyed and even more fields and rice paddies were poisoned because of Agent Orange. South Vietnamese farmers complained about the detrimental effect Agent Orange had on their rice paddies, and its use flooded camps and cities with refugees from outlying areas where entire crops were destroyed. Agent Orange was supposed to eliminate the VC's advantageous hiding places, but it only turned the people we were fighting for against us even more. Even more so, Agent Orange cause countless birth defects and deadly illnesses in returning vets. Thousands of soldiers came back with reoccurring sicknesses, and even cancer. 6 The use of Agent Orange was perhaps one of the largest mistakes made in Vietnam.

The Vietnam War greatly changed America forever. It was the longest war fought in America’s history, lasting from 1955 to 1973.The war had two major effects on American people. First, the Vietnam War tarnished America’s self image by becoming the first time in history the United States failed to accomplish its stated war aims, to preserve a separate, independent, noncommunist government. It was the first war ever broadcast on television. The public was able to see what happened on the battlefield. Second, one of the chief effects of the war was the division it caused among the people. Not since the Civil War had America been so divided. This war would have lasting affects on the United States. To better understand the horrors of the war, I will narrate the story from the perspective of my grandfather with a few personal opinions injected in between my grandfather 's thoughts.

Valuable resources was lost in the Vietnam war. Most important of all of the resources are the human lives that were lost. Around 58,000 soldiers died fighting the war efforts, or “police action”. Soldiers died for a pointless war, in fear that a domino effect would happen if they lost the country to communism. The domino theory is that when one country falls to communism more and more will fall

The Vietnam War was cause do to The United States wanting to stop the continuation of Communism, this war however had major consequences on several societies and communities. The war caused many American casualties and the soldiers who did survive suffer from many mental and physical problems to this day nearly forty-three years later. The Vietnam war was well known for its chemical warfare. The two most common chemicals were substances called napalm and agent orange. The war was also well known as America's biggest mistake for warfare. Soldiers who served were disrespected and disgraced after their return. And many of the politicians in office were threatened and the government was beginning to fall apart do to miscommunication.

The U.S and Soviet Union were at high tensions with each other which was the Cold War and they became allies because of a common enemy, Germany. They were both superpowers but completely different and both were always afraid of going to war with each

The Vietnam war had many effects on the countries who fought in it and the soldiers that fought for their country. One of the reasons the United States should not have participated in Vietnam is because of the horrible effects it had on our soldiers. Many soldiers that fought in the war came home with injuries both physical and mental. One discovery doctors made after our soldiers came home was of a mental illness called post traumatic stress syndrome also known as

In 1965 the United States of America became involved in the Vietnamese war attributable to the support America showed France in reclaiming Vietnam after it became independent in 1945. The US stopped involvement in the Vietnam War in 1973. During the involvement of the United States, many herbicides were used to defoliate the dense forests within Vietnam in order to upsurge their battle plan. One of the tactics of the United States was to use what they referred to as “The Rainbow Herbicides” (Institute of Medicine, 2011). The most notorious of these chemicals was called “Agent Orange”. Agent Orange was the most popular chemical used of all the herbicides, and also the most toxic. Not only did Agent Orange cause extreme defoliation in the areas

The Vietnam War was a long war that was devastating to the United States as well as Vietnam. The war was a total disaster for the South Vietnamese and was also a political and social disaster for the United States. During this time, chemicals were used during times of war and were detrimental to the people on the receiving end. One instance of this was the United States’ use of Agent Orange in Vietnam. Agent Orange’s use by the United States affected Vietnam in a negative way economically, demographically, and ecologically.

The Vietnam War was a direct result of the First Indochina War (1946-1954) between France and Viet Minh. A “third” Vietnam War began between North and South Vietnam but without U.S. involvement. Communist ended it in victory in April 1975. It was not a place you wanted to be.

The chemical weaponry that were used on the Vietnam vegetation had an adverse effect on the people in a way that even after three generations, the effects are still evident on the children. Many of them are born with malformations and severe defects in the nervous structure and immune system. The chemical also affected the American soldiers and veterans as many of them have health issues related to these weapons. Although the American government thought that they were only punishing the North Vietnamese, American veterans ended up victims of chronic and unhealthy conditions.

One of the main causes of the Vietnam War revolved around the simple idea held by the Americans that communism was threatening to expand all over Asia. This idea that one Asian country becoming a communist nation would lead to a chain reaction that the rest of the Asian countries would follow suit and become communist countries as well. This is an example of the domino theory under United States foreign policy. The Americans used this idea to explain why they needed to station troops in South Vietnam and that was to contain the spread of communism. This ultimately led to the Second Indochina War in 1954.

Kennedy sent a team to scope out Vietnam, the team then advised more military, economic, and technological aid. Kennedy believed in the Domino Theory which was if one country in southeast Asia was taken by communist the rest would. Kennedy gave more aid but stopped before sending a large-scale military intervention. By 1962 there were 9,000 U.S. troops compared to the fewer than 800s in the 1950s. Diem, leader of South Vietnam, and Kennedy, president of the U.S., were both assassinated within 3 weeks of each other. Lyndon B. Johnson with the secretary of defense Robert Mcnamara both felt it was right to send even more military and economic support to South Vietnam. In 1965 Johnson decided it was right to send even more support so he sent 82,000 troops at the beginning of the year and by the end, he had sent 175,000 more, he then sent 100,00 more in 1966.

An effect was imbalance in the industrial sector, factories in America are forced to make things/equipments to support the military. It also caused increase in taxes because the country has lost an enormous amount of money to the war. It had caused 2 millions soldiers who were sent to the war either wounded, missing in action, or dead. Even though America was scarred from the war, Vietnam left the war more affected than America. The American military dropped Agent Orange, which was exposed to 4 million people and 3 million people suffered from it. It has caused people in North Vietnam to migrate in large populations to South Vietnam, tripling the population from 2 million to 8 million. Deadly weapons and equipments are used in the war, which both sides were affected from it: Vietnamese soldiers and the American soldiers. Napalm for example was dropped by the Americans, which burned down the Vietnam’s forest, exposing the Vietnamese hiding place, and killing innocent civilians. Booby traps that were made by the Vietnamese caused a lot of American soldier to be wounded or dead. Booby traps like the camouflaging spikes under the leaves, punji pit, rope trap, hidden ropes to set of grenades, shoot off arrows, or even send a log slamming were responsible for many American casualties. The Vietnam War has influenced the US economically, socially, environmentally, and and morality of US citizens. Today, decades after the war ended,