The Vietnam War Era Of American History

The Vietnam war exposed a generation of Americans to the fallacy of American exceptionalism by exposing the magnitude of grievances the Government was willing to commit at the expense of Human lives. “For nine years victory wavered [in the Trojan War]” (Hamilton 261), for nearly twenty years media claims of American victory in Vietnam remained unfounded .”[Trojan] Men sickened and died so [often] that funeral pyres were burning continuously (Hamilton 261) as did their modern American counterparts.Both wars ended in part to the deviation of its constituents, anti-war movements eventually influenced Government as did the secretive actions of the few (the Trojan Horse) constrain further conflict. As, the current President continues to augment the U.S., seemingly in preparation for conflict, it is imperative that we remember from experience that swift revolutionary civil disobedience rather than reactionary civil obedience after grievances have been committed will ensure that the lives of Millions do not become

The Vietnam war was an absolutely brutal time in American history. The war lasted for the majority of the 1960s and left many young men dead. The short story “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien and the film Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam give us just a glance into the war by giving using the three themes of fear, pressures, and blame/guilt to embody the concept of war and how it absolutely changes a person. War not only destroys countries, but it destroys people.

The growing perceived ineffectiveness and illegitimacy of America’s role in Vietnam was the product of what was viewed as little more than an anti-communist crusade in which neither logistical concerns nor the nationalist motivations of a people who had yearned for sovereignty over centuries carried significant weight. Less and less Americans were willing to bankroll, much less have their sons paying “any price” or bearing “any burden” for what was becoming a quagmire. Bodybag after bodybag was being filled with American boys on a daily basis, not to mention that every dollar of damage incurred by the Communist enemy in Hanoi cost the United States ten dollars , helping to quickly bring an end to an era of unprecedented American prosperity.

The Vietnam War was like no war before. America got involved in Vietnam to preserve a non-communist South Vietnam, but in the end, the government and the country fell to communist North Vietnam. The US had never experienced such a military defeat in its history. The causes of this monumental defeat may not have been clear at first, but through memoirs such as Philip Caputo 's Rumor of War and other historical accounts of the war, we now have a better sense of what truly led to America 's loss. As a combat soldier in Vietnam, Caputo 's memoir helps us to better understand why America lost the war because it shows how the conditions of this war caused mayhem within the minds of these soldiers, undermining the American war effort.

The Vietnam War was one of the least supported wars in American History. It faced an immense and inexorable sum of social outcry that, while initially ignored, could not go completely unnoticed and unacknowledged by the government. While the majority of American citizens supported the war, they remained silent, most likely to protect themselves from the scrutiny of the minority that opposed the war. This minority of Americans were opposed to the war for moral reasons. They argued that the war was not any of the business of the united states and that it would be morally unjust to intervene because the North Vietnamese “were fighting a patriotic war to rid themselves of foreign aggressors.” that “Innocent Vietnamese peasants were being killed

There is no lack of interpretations or assumptions of what Americans believe about the war; stating their opinions about politics or the military is not something they are afraid of doing. Whichever way a person wants to perceive the war is entirely up to them, but the viewpoints of the soldiers’ who are fighting in said war, show perspectives that are often entirely opposite of the views of those Americans. Tim O’Brien’s The Thing They Carried offers insight on the Vietnam War as told by soldiers during that time. O’Brien blurs distinction of what the truth is and what is false when it involves the storytelling of war and how everyone else perceives it; the connection of the ‘normal’ Americans, or the average American opinion on war,

“And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it 's sinking. Racing around to come up behind you again. The sun is the same in a relative way, but you 're older. Shorter of breath and one day closer to death” (Pink)The third lyrics relates to how time catches up without the realization. As the Americans came to war and saw the horror of the battlefield, it was no surprise that they felt it could be their last battle. “It is estimated that 350 Vietnam Veterans dies by suicide while in Vietnam. After Vietnam, estimates have a range as high as 70,000 Vietnam Veterans who have committed suicide.” (Lee 713). As a soldier would see one of their allies, their friends, and their family being killed in front of their eyes all their hope

The Vietnam War is a sore spot in the long arms of American History. Nearly 60,000 Americans died and estimated millions of Vietnamese. It was considered to be the longest war in American history as well. Many questioned the motives and causes of the war calling it an atrocity. Others say that it may have been a terrible effort to defend a noble cause, the spread of communism.

The Vietnam War was a Cold War-proxy era war that had significance on a global, and domestic scale with an everlasting effect that has shaped modern day politics. The Vietnam War also known as the second Indochina War was fought between November 1955 and April 1973. A large time frame that would span many presidencies, and include millions of deaths, corruption and tragedy. The prominent effects after the war, and the time leading up to the war gives great insight to the mindset of American officials and the public as the war progressed. Specifically in regards to the way American Officials, and citizens alike fought and engaged in this

This volume contains the U.S. explanation for the war, a review of Vietnam’s history and the war, and U.S. armed forces, as well as various problems during the war, including drug and racial problems, desertion, sedition, and treason. There is information about POW treatment, POWs and MIAs, the CIA and the drug trade, war crimes, PTSD, Moral Injury, and history lessons not learned. This volume also contains a brief photo view of some aspects of events, in South Vietnam, in 1968; a decisive year in the war.

In the era between the Second World War and the Vietnam War, national unity in the United States and American patriotism began to disintegrate and morph as the nation progressed from the 1940s through the 1970s. During WWII, the United States military fought a foe that the American public, and the world alike, saw as an enemy to the human race, which caused Americans to unify in their efforts to fight in the battle. In contrast, US military actions in Vietnam were not fully backed by the American public or American allies, in which caused many people from the country to lose trust and faith in America. Wars have points that define them. In WWII, it was the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, which rallied a nation to come together and fight, citizens and soldiers alike. Where as, Vietnam it was the Gulf of Tonkin with North Vietnam, which left many Americans, and soldiers both, confused by the confrontation and unsure of what actions should be taken by their government. Both attacks prompted American officials to make decisions concerning the use of military force, but in each case the attacks appealed differently to American leaders and the American public. In the time period between the two wars the United States military had desegregated its forces. For the first time, African American and white soldiers fought on the front lines together and slept in the same barracks and this caused many African American soldiers to think about the Army differently. Although the

Vietnam was the longest war in American history and the most disliked American war of the twentieth century. It brought about almost 60,000 American deaths and in an expected 2 million Vietnamese deaths. Indeed today, numerous Americans still ask whether the American exertion in Vietnam was a transgression, a bungle, a vital war, or whether it was a respectable reason, or an optimistic, if fizzled, push to shield the South Vietnamese from totalitarian government. This leads to the question of In what ways did the U.S.’s involvement in the Vietnam Conflict affect American society from 1957 - 1975?

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s Americans became uneasy not only about the troubled position of the United States in world affairs, but also about the disorder wrought at home byforeign entanglements. Vietnam, either because of the searing war experience itself or because of the lessons Americans later drew from the experience, drastically altered society during the1960s and 1970s. The belief in the right to influence the internal affairs of other countries led todisaster in Southeast Asia. This disaster would forever be known as the longest war in thenation 's history (lasted 25 years), in which the world 's most powerful military (United States)spent itself in a futile attempt to conquer the peasant population. Vietnam became an additional opponent in the containment of communism for America. Overlooking the native roots of the revolutionand the tenacity of the people fighting for their own land, American leaders are going to makethe mistake of looking at Vietnam from a globalist point-of-view, and the events through a ColdWar lens. Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, came to recognize this as their flaw in the war, he statedthat the United States had "misconceived the nature of the war" (Doc. E). Ultimately, theVietnam War would come to heighten tensions in the social, political, and economic aspects of the United States during the mid-1960s and early 1970s.

Although the Vietnam War was supported by a small number of Americans, it was the first war in American history that was not supported by the majority of Americans, for good reason. The Vietnam War had imperfect goals from the beginning. The execution of the war was flawed as well. The Vietnam War damaged America’s reputation, as it was the first war that America had not emerged from victorious. The Vietnam War also caused a shift in the way that the American population viewed war. This war changed both the physical ways people learned about events happening in the war and their overarching opinions of war in general. Finally, the Vietnam War hurt the home front of the

Dominos. One falls then they all fall. People spend hours to set them up, just to watch them all fall in the blink of an eye. This is similar to the theory of what the U.S. believed would happen if one country, Vietnam, was to fall to communism. This is what caused the war between North Vietnam the communist lead government and the anti-communist South (Encyclopedia Britannica1). How does a war relate to a game enjoyed by millions of people all over the world? Just like in a game of dominos, you set them up and watch them fall, the Vietnam War was the same. Vietnam and the countries surrounding it had worked very hard for independence, that they no longer cared how their government was run. But, the U.S. believed that if Vietnam became