Causes Of Operation Rolling Thunder

The Vietnam War had a tremendous effect on the world, especially the United States. Not only did the war affect people in battle, but also left permanent effects on people all over the world. Over 57,000 U.S. citizens died and over 140,000 injured in battle. Multiple Americans were impacted by the war, vast amount of people died but more were injured. North Vietnam won the battle against South Vietnam and their allies. The Fall of Saigon in 1975 was the end of a gruesome war. The war had multiple long-term effects on the soldiers who fought for America.

The military was getting stronger and the people of Vietnam were affected by the casualties. Between both North and South Vietnam 2 million civilians were dead. There was another 1.1 million North Vietnam and Viet Cong people dead (Spector) A way to honor those that have passed was to create a memorial. The people were dying fast therefore the economy was suffering slightly. The farming was beginning to go down and businesses were widely affected by the amount of people injured or dead (Spector) The struggle with both farming and business caused yet another wave of refugees. Due to the amount of bombing there was 1,034,300 hectares of forest destroyed. Since there was so much land destroyed it has a serious impact on the lives of the people of Vietnam (Rohn). Many suffer from diseases caused by the chemicals. These casualties have impacted the world around including all that were involved. It was also a war of a lot of deaths.

Because of this war, many soldiers died. It was difficult for American men to fight in Vietnam due to the geography. American troops were not used to a jungle habitat and therefore did not know how to go about fighting in it. The Americans were fighting a war on foreign soil and it was very unfamiliar to them. The North Vietnamese used Guerilla Warfare and picked off many American men without them even knowing where the attacks came from. The North Vietnamese also used many booby traps set up in the jungle that were well hidden. If one was activated, it would either kill or severely disable the victim.

Kara Hinson The war in Vietnam started in 1955 and lasted until 1975. Many Americans believed it was a pointless war that had no meaning. The United States became involved in the Vietnam Warbecause they wanted to stop the spread of communism. This war took 50,000 lives and wounded 300,000 American men. Due to the My Lai massacre which killed hundreds of innocent and unarmed Vietnamese civilians, protests about the draft start all over the country, because of draft dodgers and draft deferment, and the government misleading people back home, this was known as the credibility gap, Americans are turning against the war in Vietnam. This leads to anti-war protesters, known as doves springing up across the United States demonstrating their opposition to the war.The Vietnam War is one of the most known wars in history, many innocent people were killed that had no involvement. United States soldiers came up with strategies to kill off the Vietcong, but occasionally the United States was not sure who were Vietcong and who were not. Napalm was a jellied gasoline that explodes when dropped in large canisters the napalm was usually dropped on villages. When the napalm was dropped on the villages, the Vietnamese houses and vegetation were destroyed. Napalm burned men, women, and children who were in the villages the clothes would burn completely off their bodies. Agent orange another substance used this was sprayed by an aircraft over the jungle. Agent

In 1961 the worst war ever fought by America had just started. The Vietnamese of the north also known as the Viet Cong had invaded the south to take control of the entire country. America and other democratic countries felt the spread of communism to this country would be a stepping-stone for other communistic countries around the world, also known as the Domino Effect. America, as cocky as they were, invaded Vietnam to help the southern Vietnamese. Although America is one of the most powerful countries in the world, it extremely underestimated the dedication of their enemy. Backed by China and the USSR, the Viet Cong were a determined and very tough enemy. The Vietnam War as a whole was a terrible act by the US government. Vietnam was

The U.S dropped “643,000” bombs on the enemies. The U.S bombing the enemies did not solve anything, it just made matters worse. The enemies didn’t feel scared. A North Vietnamese civilian said, “The Americans thought that the more bombs they dropped, the quicker we would fall to our knees and surrender. But the bombs heightened rather than dampened our spirit.” The U.S should have stopped because the North Vietnamese were just going to make their spirits higher and to never give up. This Resolution was supposed to solve things, but the results just caused bombing which lead to many deaths of innocent

Over two million Vietnamese died on both sides during the war and many more suffered horrifying injuries. Approximately half of all Vietnamese casualties were civilians and the major cause of their deaths was massive US bombing and shelling of villages in NLF- controlled areas. Many Vietnamese suffered terrible burns from the napalm, super- naplam and phosphorous bombs that were dropped by US planes.

Wars like the Vietnam war were never fought without some sort of consequence having to be paid. An example of said consequence would be, PTSD, or better said Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This is one of the most

With the free hand recently provided by Congress, Johnson presumed that escalation would help to protect his soldiers. He ordered the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy to begin an intense series of air strikes called “Operation Rolling Thunder”. He hoped that the bombing campaign would demonstrate to the South Vietnamese the U.S. commitment to their cause, and its resolve to halt the spread of Communism. Ironically, the air raids seemed only to increase the number of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army attacks.

No longer would guns be emplaced and laid in one general direction to support maneuver along the “front line”, Vietnam would become known as a “6,400 mil environment” for the field artillery. At any given time, gun crews would need to be able to shift fires rapidly in any direction to support maneuver forces operating within their operational area (Major General Ott, 1995).

When Rolling Thunder failed to weaken the enemy’s will after the first several weeks the purpose of it began to change. Bombings then tended to be directed at the flow of men and supplies from the north (Karnow). Damaging as it was to the north, Ho Chi Minh still maintained the same course. Operation Rolling Thunder was a desperate attempt to convince the North Vietnamese to initiate negotiations and hopefully a ceasefire. This operation showed that LBJ was ineffective and ignorant. He was blind to the fact that the North Vietnamese were obviously going to retaliate because of Operation Rolling Thunder.

“The failure of the United States against North Vietnam was due to their inefficient use of military machines” (Gibbons, 2014:107). These tactics used by the US soldiers included bombs that the soldiers did not use efficiently, because if they used the military advantage that they had, this would have been a victorious war for the US. However, due to their use of these military machines inefficiently, they were left in humiliation. “The US threw bombs on Vietnam and was equipped with every existing kind of weapon, engaged in the longest and most brutal war” (Buttinger, 1977:169). The US army should not have bombed strategic routes of the Viet Cong because they wanted to get back at them, but they should have attacked with bombs and weapons on the battle once the Viet Cong had started attacking. Their lack when to use their tactics led to their failure. “One of the US’s mistakes which led to their defeat was the bombing of Laos when they launched the defoliant Agent Orange which destroyed homes” (Kaiser, 1973:412). Due to this action, the US lost not only the support of Laos citizens but also the rest of the Vietnamese people, because this was evidence that the only important factor for the US soldiers was to win the war against the Viet Cong and not the lives of the Vietnamese

In 1965, the United States of America officially enter the war against North Vietnam. After the Gulf of Tonkin incident where North Vietnamese attacked two U.S. ships on August 2nd and 4th, 1964, this event was a chance for U.S. President Lyndon Johnson to give authority for U.S. to enter war in Vietnam. United State involvement in Vietnam War was an approach to seize the communist aggression. A campaign authorized by President Johnson called “Operation Rolling Thunder” which started on February 24th, 1965 is a series of extensive bombing directed towards the North Vietnamese predicted to be eight weeks long until the North Vietnamese surrender to U.S. power. However, this campaign lasted two years longer than expected.

United States Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy had spent millions of dollars to aid the non-communist South Vietnamese. Before 1964 thousands of American military advisers were training and assisting the South Vietnamese army. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s decision to bomb North Vietnam put the United States in the center of the longest war in the nations history. The Vietcong (North Vietnamese) grew more aggressive after the incident at the Gulf of Tonkin. On November 1964, they attacked the American base at Bien Hoa and destroyed five B-57 jets while damaging twenty more. Since the increase of tension with the Vietcong continued, draft calls had increased substantially in the United States and American casualties were being felt across the country.

Personally, I feel that the greatest costs of the Vietnam war were the lives lost, the effect it had on U.S soldiers, the division it created throughout the country, and the newfound economic issues. Initially, I believe that the most profound cost was the numerous American lives lost. By the war's peak, the number of American soldiers involved in the conflict reached a high of about 500,000. Of those 500,000 involved, 58,000 fell victim to the war. It may not seem too dastardly, but many soldiers recruited during this time were volunteers or were drafted at a young age. Their lack of experience and proper training