The Vietnam War: The French Culture

In the 1950’s, 1960’s, and 1970’s, many things changed in Vietnam. In 1946, the first Indochina War began, over 600,00 soldiers died in battle (French imperialism in Indochina (Vietnam) – Infogram, charts & infographics). In 1959, the second Indochina War (Vietnam War) began (French imperialism in Indochina (Vietnam) – Infogram, charts & infographics). In 1954, a cease-fire was agreed upon at the 17th parallel between the French and Vietnamese regions of Vietnam (French imperialism in Indochina (Vietnam) – Infogram, charts & infographics). Finally, in 1975, the French surrendered and gave South Vietnam back to the North – Vietnam became a truly independent country (French imperialism in Indochina (Vietnam) – Infogram, charts & infographics).

The Vietnam war did not officially start until the 1950's. This is when the U.S. started sending in troops. Before then the French had been trying to conquer what was then called Indochina. They began their conquest in 1859, by 1888 they had turned the area that is now called Vietnam and Cambodia into the Colony of French Indochina. This was challenged many times by different uprisings but none worked as well as the Viet Minh common front( this was controlled by the Vietnamese communist party). During WWII the French were defeated by the Germans. This severely weakened their authority in Vietnam. In 1940 the Japanese invaded and

The years precluding the Vietnam war, there was a war taking place in Vietnam. It was known as the Indochina War, where the Vietnamese waged war against the colonial rule of France. The French were defeated in the battle of Dien Bien Phu. Following this defeat, there was a peace conference in Geneva, which resulted in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam to receive their independence. The Geneva Accords officially divided Vietnam into North Vietnam and South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh and his communist forces led the North. A French backed emperor led the south until elections in 1956. These elections were supposed to reunify Vietnam.

The whole conflict in Vietnam started with France’s imperialism. The French took over Vietnam and established Indochina in the 1880s. However, the people of Vietnam wanted to be free from France, and under their communist leader Ho Chi Minh they established a military organization called Viet Minh. This organization took over the capital and declared Vietnam an independent country. Ho asked for aid from the U.S, but the U.S distrusted their communist ideals. Instead, President Truman sent financial aid to their ally, France.

As America was fighting a war for freedom in another country, unruly teens were fighting their own at home. Cultural change, the explosion of free love, youthful rebellion, and a new liberal mindset all seemed to have one underlying device in common; drug use. The late 1960’s into the early and mid-70’s found the perfect environment for recreational drug use. Music and arts celebrated this lifestyle, as well as free thinkers and their idiotic philosophies about spiritual elation through mind altering narcotics. Lack of family structure with so many homes transformed by the Vietnam War also left young teens without guidance, and an economy with little to offer to the up and coming generation. As the next few years passed and the free love generation began to grasp the concept of working for a living, showering on a regular basis, love with commitment (or antibiotics), and cultural change through policy, they brought to the workforce a new dynamic not previously prevalent. Recreational drug use had become part of society. Vietnam War veterans also brought their own demons home with their return, opiate addictions were a common occurrence (Carson 2012).

The French did pretty good in World War One. They didn’t trust the Germans to start with, so that gave them reasons to join the war. They started with around 40 million people as a country and a little over a million for an army. The French made it through the World War One with some casualties, but they did last through the whole war. They really didn’t want to have another war on their home land after seeing the destruction of Europe as a

In 1867, France had taken control of southern Vietnam and soon afterwards, the French had taken control of the northern and central provinces of the country. France had changed the names

Before this war happened, the Vietnam was colonized by French, but after the defeat of French forces; Vietnam was divided into two regions: North Vietnam, and the South Vietnam. North Vietnam became a Communist country, which was led by Ho Chi Minh, South Vietnam, whereas, became a Republic under Ngo Dinh Die. In fact, the Korean War, which is the first military action of the cold war, sparked by a North Korean invasion of the South, has many remarkable similarities with the Vietnam War. For instance, the North part is communist, and the south part is anti-communist.

The pursuit of French colonialism intended to provide opportunity for Capitalist accumulation for its investors as well as attain raw material. During the nineteenth century, the French found added pretext to validate military action and gained control of five territories to form a sole Indochinese Union (French Indochina). “For the French, as for most capitalist nations in the West, colonies served as a source for cheap raw materials and a consumer market for manufactured goods produced in European factories (William J. Duiker, 13).” As the French began to colonize territories they intended to implement assimilation processes such as teaching them their language or converting them to Catholics.

“Involvement in two world wars and the Cold War transformed America into a “crusader state” convinced of the superiority of its institutions and way of life and intent on imposing them on the outside world. ” Whether fought at home or abroad every war is to impact all parties involved. Such example of staggering influence on one country’s culture is no more evident then in America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. Upon entering the war the USA’s government was convinced and assured the public of its confidence in very quick and consequences free resolution to their problem on the other side of the world. However, what it failed to predict which later was to prove

On February 28th 1991 after the speedy 100-hour ground war against Iraqi troops, George W Bush proclaimed proudly: “By God, we’ve kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once and for all” The fall of Saigon had not marked the end of the Vietnam as Bush accurately conceded to the people, the repercussions of the war can still be seen today in American culture, it has sustained through the Vietnam veterans, as the basis for the support of anti-war precedencies, and morphed the gender stereotypes that are portrayed in society. The Vietnam War had denounced the idea of America’s invincibility and by the end of the war had lost the phenomenal reputation it had gathered after its triumph in World War II. America’s entanglement and debacle in the Vietnam War left an everlasting imprint on the heart of its people typically specified now as the “Vietnam Syndrome”. The denouncement of America’s invincibility had guided the people to face the Vietnam Syndrome through events such as the Maya Lin Vietnam Memorial and movies such as Full Metal Jacket by Stanley Kubrick and Coming Home by Hal Ashby. These examples addressed the problems of the Vietnam Veteran adjusting back into society. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and witnessing the harsh realities of war portrayed veterans as the outcasts of society in Ashby and Kubrick’s films. The stereotypes of Veterans during the war were druggies or “fucked up in the head”. This

In Vietnam, a civil war was raging on with the French rulers, who were there since 1856. At the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, 1954, they were finally kicked out.

The reason for conflict in Vietnam could be described as “the straw that broke the camel’s back”. Since the late 19th century, French had been colonizing Vietnam as part of their quest to take over Indochina for its vast amount of resources. Following World War I, a group of Vietnam nationalists gathered in Paris. They petitioned at Versailles for Vietnam’s independence, but were virtually ignored. One of these nationalists would go on to play a huge role in Vietnam’s future— Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh later went on to Moscow to study the ideologies of Communism.

The colonialism of Vietnam by the French lasted for approximately six decades. In the late of 1880s, the French had the control of the Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, commonly known as the French Indochina (Indochine Francais) (Mason 7). As such, Indochina was able to assume the status of being the lucrative colonial possessions of the French. It became the French empire, which spanned the western and northern Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific empires. The French formulated the civilizing mission as a way of justifying their imperialism in the land. Such mission existed as a form of the “white man” burden for the English. The imperialists from France made claims that they had the responsibility of colonizing the regions in Asia and Africa,

It was as if we had been transported to Saigon, Vietnam. As I walked into the elegant colonial villa lookalike, the fans, suspended from the ceiling, turned slowly. The crudely painted walls were decorated with louvered bamboo shutters and bleached sepia photographs of antique Vietnam; the interestingly patterned tiled floors were suddenly broken off by the steep, creaky wooden staircase; and the woven rattan furniture was accompanied by potted palms, banana trees, and purple Dendrobium orchids.