The Vietnam War: The Destruction Of The Great Society

This was important for me because this event overshadowed my life from an early age until my teenage years. America’s participation in the Vietnam War was an extension of the Cold War. Since America said we would fight against communism, we did. We lost approximately 60,000 service men; some are still missing in action. In the end, it served no purpose, South Vietnam lost and became a part of the communist north. Many soldiers came back with PTSD and at that time they did not have a name or real treatment, for this disorder. Many Vietnam veterans suffered many side effects from the war, angent organge and other effects of weaponary. Today, we have in comparaion massive amounts of positive propaganda for military, nevertheless, in this war, verterns were treated poorly ,especially by the public. The collateral consequences of this war effected many families. Today, I know many people and families ,who have not recovered completely from this war

The Vietnam War was one of the most deadliest wars in America, many were killed and even more injured. The war began because of America’s efforts to stop the spread of communism. The Vietcong may of won the war but America showed that we will not let communism spread, the domino theory come into effect, and America’s faults in our war program and way to attack the Vietcong. The war was lost but from a overview of the war America learned from their lose.

President Dwight Eisenhower conditionally pledged to support South Vietnam’s new nation in 1955. In the time period between 1955-1961 the United States pumped seven billion dollars in aid so that Vietnam would not “go over quickly” like a “row of dominoes” (McNamara 31). In the next 6 years Vietnam would cost America billions of dollars, thousands of lives, and the disaffection of much of the United States public. Yet in the end, South Vietnam would fall to the North less than 2 years after the United States military involvement ceased.

The Vietnam War is widely regarded as the lowest point in the history of U.S. foreign affairs. It mercilessly dragged an unwilling country on a fatal ride for twenty years, all while receiving low approval ratings and high funding. The Vietnam conflict served as an optimum environment for the virus of controversy. No one has more experience with controversy than Heinz Alfred Kissinger. He is the ultimate pragmatist, as embodying his philosophy of realpolitik, a diplomatic ideology based on utilitarianism rather than international ethical standards. When one’s political calling card downplays the role of ethics in diplomacy, that individual is bound to garner a high profile reputation. Kissinger himself has lamented the national predicament during this conflict—squeezed between the ultimate rock, his duty to keep peace, and hard place, his duty to act with the approval of the American people. This predicament was rooted in an omnipresent opposition to Communism, as was America’s role in the entire Cold War. Cold War politics were politics of fear. That fear drove competition, which bred a certain variety of leader – a logical, calculating politician with regard for nothing but his country’s success. To avoid an uncontrollable spread of Communism through the westernized world, some moral casualties were strewn about the wayside. However, the American public had no trouble rolling up their collective sleeves to back this forward-thinking activist. In more recent years, some

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.

In order for Vietnam to be free of a Communist government, the United States decided to ally with France so the Vietminh could not gain more power. Since the Americans were fresh out of fighting the Korean and Chinese Civil War, they believed Communism could be spreading everywhere. Beginning in 1950, the United States initially pledged $15 million dollars in aid of the French. This was the start of an American debt that would damage the U.S economy for almost 30 years. The President of this time, Lyndon B. Johnson, played down the United States' role in Vietnam for two reasons. He believed that if Americans felt that this war had to be fought in order to protect their country from Communism, the public would demand a "full-scale, no-holds-barred war that could have led to Chinese and Russian

The Vietnam War lasted longer, bloodier, and more hostile than any U.S. President or American citizen imagined. Lyndon Johnson faced many other enemies during the war such as the duration, the immense number of deaths, and for the first time in most American’s history, failure. Through deep evaluation of Lyndon B. Johnson’s foreign policies as President during the Vietnam war, failure was a recurring outcome, as he faced military and political difficulties over having complete authority over political decisions made leading to the misuse of his respective power, receiving split support through torn Americans at home, and his accord to deport so many troops into combat in Vietnam.

Racial unrest by the summer of 1963 was at its height since the Civil War. President Kennedy picked up the situation at the close of the

Unfortunately, the Vietnam War ate a lot of government money and some of the Great Society bills just couldn't get through because of money problems. "Guns and butter," Johnson said, "should both be funded by Congress" (qtd. in Rubel 179). He was met with a lot of resistance because people rendered that idea impossible. It was obvious to everyone that the Great Society was much more important to Johnson than the Vietnam War.

By the time the of its conclusion, the Vietnam War was considered as a waste of life and deemed unnecessary by the American population. Sending American men to die in a foreign country in the name of capitalism did not resonate well with agitated families. Government officials, however, held a different stance on the war. Among those government officials, was President John F. Kennedy. “[JFK] became president in 1961 having proclaimed Vietnam the ‘cornerstone of the free world in Southeast Asia’” ( Keene et. al., p. 788). President Kennedy, fully committed to preserving capitalism, replies to a letter from a distraught sister whose brother was killed in the war while also detailing the need for U.S. involvement in Vietnam. President Kennedy justifies the reason for American lives in Vietnam being due to, “[determining] that [Vietnam] must not fall under Communist domination” (Johnson 275), confirming Kennedy’s beliefs in a communist-free world. Although the Kennedy Administration opted for a “middle path” by

President Johnson who inherited the commitment to counter communist forces further escalated the war, commencing air strikes on North Vietnam and committing ground forces. However, the war took a long toll on the America on the financial resources as well as losing a large

The Cold War era proxy war known as the Vietnam War wrecked global havoc during 1955-1975. Although the destruction on the ground occurred in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, the bloodshed of the war was just one part of a much larger worldwide communism versus capitalism battle headed by the United States and the Soviet Union. For the U.S., diplomatic and military policies had never before been so tightly intertwined with domestic policies. The war in Vietnam had such an impact on the home front in America that the term, “The Vietnam Syndrome” is still repeated to this day. The war, which is sometimes seen as a part of the larger anti-communist policy of ‘containment’, is largely to blame for the near destruction of three presidencies, as well as causing numerous political and social divides, a detrimental effect on the U.S. economy, and a credibility gap that caused distrust between government and the people. The focus on the war meant that many domestic issues such as the civil rights movement, the war on poverty, and Johnson’s ideology of the ‘Great Society’, were neglected by the government and therefore limited in their progress. The overall domestic impact of the war in Vietnam was largely negative and extremely divisive.

Johnson could never have envisaged what he had started. By the time of the 1968 presidential election, America had become involved in a war that was to take on far greater dimensions than anyone could have

The United States intervention in Vietnam is seen by the world as America’s greatest loss and longest war. Before the start of the war in Vietnam, the thought of the United States losing this war was unheard of because America was technologically superior, no country in south East Asia could contend with them. Lyndon B. Johnson announced that he would not be the president to allow South East Asia to go Communist . Why the United States lost the war has been a huge debate since the end of the war, because there were so many factors affecting why they lost; the war was a loss politically, after losing support from not only the American public but also the South Vietnamese and losing a political mandate for the war by 1973, when the last

The Vietnam War today is considered one of the most traumatic, but important events in the