The Vietnam War

The Vietnamese believed that, “ Americans were evil and the Vietnamese simply were fighting merely defensively”. For several decades the Vietnamese fought boldly to win their freedom from the French. Many rebellious groups formed to win the freedom for Southern Vietnam. American troops could not identify were exactly the enemies were located in Vietnam. The United States used several tactics to gather information from sources and intelligences. In the film, Vietnamese peasants spoke intensely about the injustice surrounding the war. The local inhabitants of the villages spoke about the deadly tactics employed to kill innocent farmers and families. They spoke about how eight to nine hundred children were killed by the many toxics elements distributed by the planes and the several hundred tons of bombs dropped on a daily basis; to exterminate the Vietnam population. The villagers spoke about how their loved ones were killed right before their eyes and there was nothing they could do. The documentary shows soldiers entering villages, burning homes down, and killing civilians. They show the torture being inflicted by the soldiers.

Spearheaded by Second Lieutenant William Calley and his platoon, US forces began attacking human and animal targets alike. Men, women and children were killed indiscriminately with firearms, grenades and bayonets. After the initial attack, backup forces came in and dealt with the “remaining resistance,” killing every living person they could find. Although most soldiers did not or refused to participate in the My Lai Massacre, they neither resisted nor attempt to prevent the killings.

Before we ask about My Lai Massacre, we need to know what is My Lai Massacre the My Lai massacre is My Lai massacre has indiscriminately shot unarmed civilians during the Vietnam War. The genocide was the duty of an officer of Charlie Company in the United States to lead a team in search of Vietnam. Their teams occupied a place called My Lai and slaughtered civilians under the direction of the high commander. Charlie Company entered South Vietnam in December 1967. In the first month there was no fighting, but in mid-March, five members of the team were killed by booby traps. Moreover, Vietnam’s 48th Battalion attacked US forces in the South Vietnam. The place of the incident occurred not far from where civilians live. This time, the US military was very angry and determined a massive counterattack the villages. Colonel Oran K Henderson orders Charlie Company to commit a massacre. The civilians who lived there were mainly woman, children and the elderly. American soldiers cruelly murdered and mocked them after receiving get permission. In the massacre more than 500 civilians were slaughtered and many women were raped and murdered. They attempted to conceal the events they had committed and led to an antisense sentiment that further divided the United States during the Vietnam War. However, some US military testimonies make their world known to their cruelty, including genocide and rape. In this paper, I will write down things about the behavior of the US

William Calley testified that the sight of men killed in a land mine during an operation brought out feelings of hate and fear towards the Vietnamese (Olson, Calley, p.52). While the American soldiers were being wounded or killed the enemy was rarely to be seen or shot at. The soldiers were frustrated that their friends were being killed by the enemy, but they could not find the enemy to kill them. This lead American soldiers into My Lai with the attitude to seek revenge for previous casualties and that nothing would stop them (Olson, Roberts, Peers Report, p.54).

Consider the way that textbooks depict the My Lai Massacre, a standout amongst the most notorious occasions of the Vietnam War, amid which American soldiers killed unarmed Vietnamese ladies and kids. To the degree that textbooks say the slaughter, they regard it as a detached occurrence—notwithstanding the impressive confirmation that My Lai is demonstrative of "wrongdoings submitted on an everyday premise with the full attention to officers at all levels of command." Besides, course books never cite from the adversaries of Vietnamese mediation, including Martin Luther King, Jr.— without a doubt, the main individuals whom textbooks consistently cite on Vietnam are Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, two of the draftsmen of the war.

of unarmed and innocent Vietnamese civilian in the village of My Lai were massacred. It was a

The Vietnam War (1954-75) was an introduction of the true horrors of war to many of the American people. Journalist showed some of the most gruesome live footage in the history of war. This changed the idea of war meant for many Americans, who went from, almost jingoism, patriotic support to utter mortification and disgust for war. Families were seeing cities being bombed and people die while eating at the dinner table. Death coverage was then rethought of, after much of the support of the American people for the Vietnam War was lost. “There is perhaps only one thing worse than losing a war, and that is fighting a war that people at home have forgotten or have no interest in.” said Tim Hsla in his article for the New York Times, “The Uneasy Media-Military

The My Lai Massacre is, to this day, still known to be one of the most horrifying acts of violence against neutrals that occurred during the Vietnam war. A company of American soldiers, under the order of their superior, violently attacked and killed most of the population of South Vietnamese hamlet of My Lia. This village, made up mostly of women, children, and the elderly, did not fire one single shot

The purpose of the Vietnam War, was to end the awful spread of communism. As Ho Chi Minh (North Vietnam’s communist president) fought to which spread North Vietnam’s political uses to Southern Vietnam. With this, the American Military Advisors sought to believe that a fall of Southern Vietnam to communist hands, would then lead to a total takeover of neighboring nations to fall under communism. The effect of the neighboring nations falling, was known as the “Domino Effect”. It all began when The Northern half of Vietnam, with the Vietcong Army, invaded the Southern half of Vietnam to spread their political rule of communism to the rest of their country; seizing it from France’s established colony. Dwight D. Eisenhower, in which was an American politician and General who served as the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961. (Wikipedia), spoke of this theory of the spread of communism know as the “Domino Effect”. He stated in The President 's News Conference of April 7, 1954, that without the United States entering the Vietnam revolution, there would be a risk of communism spreading to the Southern Half of Vietnam. He stated that if this was successful, it proves that the domino theory, “A communist victory in one nation would quickly lead to a chain reaction of communist takeovers in neighboring states” (History.com). Which forcefully put America in a position in which government officials felt the need to involve America in the Vietnam war by sending a

As former president Richard M. Nixon once said, “No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.” The thought of the Vietnam War being entirely brutal comes from the misreported information given by people who were not in the first tier of the war. The soldiers were the first tier, they fought firsthand and saw everything that happened, from someone being killed, to traveling nightly to their next camping grounds. The second level, includes the reporters from America. These are the people who were close to where the action happened but not nearly close enough to experience the good things that came from the war. They saw the war through a window, seeing only the

The Vietnam War was another United States attempt in containing Communism in southeastern Asia. To this point in the Cold War, containment dominated U.S. foreign policy and already led the U.S. into a war, Korea. In 1964, The North Vietnamese attacked the U.S.S. Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin. Soon after the attack, the U.S. Senate crafted the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave President Johnson the ability to engage in the Vietnam War (Phillips). President Johnson immediately sent thousands of troops directly into Vietnam. The highest amount of American troops committed to Vietnam was 542,000 (Phillips). In January 1968, both sides agreed to a truce during the Tet holidays, which celebrated Vietnam’s new year. However, the Viet Cong organized a massive surprise attack in many cities in South Vietnam. This attacked has been named the Tet Offensive and shocked the U.S.. Even though the Viet Cong suffered many causalities, it showed the inability for the U.S. forces to adequately fight a war on foreign soil. This attack dismissed the fact that the U.S. was winning the war and changed the outlook on the war. Bringing the television into middle class family’s homes changed the way people got their news. This sparked outrage in the U.S. and caused the increased effectiveness of the anti-war movement. The Presidents policies began to change was the war dragged on and this ultimately led to the unification of Vietnam under a Communist government, which was the fear of many because

Early on March 16, 1968, a company of soldiers in the United States Army’s Americal Division were dropped in by helicopter for an assault against a hamlet known as My Lai 4, in the bitterly contested province of Quang Ngai, on the northeastern coast of South Vietnam. A hundred G.I.s and officers stormed the hamlet in military-textbook style, advancing by platoons; the troops expected to engage the Vietcong Local Force 48th Battalion—one of the enemy’s most successful units—but instead they found women, children, and old men, many of them still cooking their breakfast rice over outdoor fires. During the next few hours, the civilians were murdered. Many were rounded up in small groups and shot, others were flung into a drainage ditch at one edge

Regarded as the longest war in all of United States History, lasting from 8 May 1950- 15 August 1975, the Vietnam War is one of the most controversial wars. Supporters of the war believed in the Domino Theory and were convinced that the United States needed to stop the possible spread of Communism. However, because this was a civil war between the North and South, many felt that the United States did not need to interfere with it. The United States ultimately lost the Vietnam War because of unreliable weapons, tactics, unique terrain, the anti-war movement at home, and opposition from the Vietnamese population.

A South Vietnamese general shooting a man in the head, a monk setting himself ablaze, and a little Vietnamese girl running down the street, naked, her mouth rounded into a silent scream. These are iconic images associated with Vietnam. It was images like these, along with news footage and nightly reports that changed the way the American public saw the war. While press coverage from in country didn’t have any effect on whether we won or lost the war it influenced the hearts and minds of the American people. From the earliest newsreels such as “Why, Vietnam?” used by the government to garner support for the war; to mundane reports on the daily tasks of U.S. soldiers which made war seem routine; to Walter Cronkite calling Vietnam a “stalemate”

To succeed politically within South Vietnam itself the United States had to ‘win the hearts and minds of public’. However the atrocities which had struck Vietnam, caused disarray with the public of Vietnam, one case where this is true was the Massacre at My Lai in March 1968; this was the killing of 300 villagers mainly women and children who were raped, murdered, and mutilated; this was carried out by American soldiers who thought the villagers were supposedly harbouring Vietcong. Lieutenant William Calley was charged with the crime but only served