The Vietnam War Was The War Essay

Vietnam was a divided country with the North supporting communism and the South opposing it. The United States was an ally to South Vietnam, with the goal of assisting them to avoid a communist takeover. The United States involvement may have started out with an honorable intention; however, there are many reasons the United States should not have become involved in the conflict, such as it was no business of the United States, it was very costly, many lives were lost, there was no victory in sight, and it went against the United States ethics and standards. Many would argue that the U.S. involvement was crucial, but many more would

Many people felt that this was a war of money that the U.S. didn’t need to interfere in and was being fought by North and South Vietnam, therefore we had no business getting in the middle of it. The United States should've thought of themselves and done what was best for them as a country. When Dwight D. Eisenhower left office, a new President came in with the name John F. Kennedy. JFK warns the American public about “Military Industrial Complex”. This affected Americans because we didn’t want all of Vietnam to become communist. From the beginning, the United States was not aware of what they were getting themselves into. Furthermore, they didn’t understand the nature of the war on who and why they were fighting.

Secretary of State John Kerry once said “I saw courage both in the Vietnam War and in the struggle to stop it. I learned that patriotism includes protest, not just military service.” The Vietnam War was a conflict that lasted from 1956-1975 which the United States participated in along with the South Vietnamese who fought against the Communist North Vietnamese. Many Americans strongly disapproved of the war which caused many protests and riots. The war lasted 25 years killing many people and eventually the North Vietnamese won. The Vietnam War was important to Americans back home because it tested the citizen’s right to free speech, effected future foreign policy, and created many issues for returning veterans.

Gonyea, D. (2014). LBJ Legacy: Vietnam War Often Overshadows Civil Rights Feat. Retrieved from: http://www.npr.org/2014/04/09/300836769/civil-rights-act-anniversary-may-polish-lbj-s-image

Within one generation, The United States have experienced The Second World War, The Korean War and fifteen years of The Cold War crisis. The Vietnam War was the last drop into the cup of American patience. The costs of The Vietnam War were intolerable, because they contravened traditional American values and hopes.

According to A&E Television network “ North Vietnam government and Viet Cong were fighting to reunify vietnam”. “The U.S didn't want Vietnam to become a communist state because they thought it would lead to communism spreading throughout all South Asia” wrote A&E Television Networks. The war started November 1, 1955 and the U.S joined the war March 8, 1965 by U.S president Richard Nixon. According to A&E Television Network “This was the first war that the U.S lost”. With bad conditions this was the start of a long, expensive, and deathly war for the soldiers in the war and the people back home in the

A secondary source (Website), which provides relatively unbiased and concise information of each president’s role during the war, as well as an overview of the war. The Vietnam War took place in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975. There were five American Presidents in power during the war, starting with Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961), John F. Kennedy (1961-1963), Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969), Richard Nixon (1969-1974) and Gerald R. Ford (1974-1977).

The first American troops arrived in Danang, South Vietnam on 8th March, 1965. The troops’ mission was to defend the American airfield from the Viet Cong insurgents. However, their mission gradually extended to defensive patrolling and later on taking the offensive. As such, the number of US troops swelled to 184,300 by the end of the year and by1969, the number of American soldiers had swelled to 543,000. Correspondingly, opposition against the mission, which was previously minimal, rose magnanimously. In April 1967, a crowd of over 100,00 people marched from Central Park to the United Nations Buildings to ask for the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam. By this time, over 8,000 American troops had been lost in the war. Following the protests, six Vietnam Veterans, among those who had returned home formed the organization Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). They wanted the government to “bring their brothers back home.”

The Vietnam War: Was it Worth it? By Dalton McLane The Vietnam War was not worth the United States getting involved in because the tactics used Vietnam impacted a lot of soldiers physically, emotionally and financially. The United States had over 58,000 casualties and more than 150,000 soldiers injured, and the My Lai massacre made American citizens begin to question the government.

The Vietnam War was considered America’s longest war lasting approximately 15 years. The war began in 1954 as a result in an arising conflict between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The North were communists fighting to take back their country from under the rule of the South. The United States troops entered into the war in 1961 to support the South. The battle was a long, drawn out, costly war which merely left America with less population and the reason was not well justified nor in the best interest of the American people.

The Vietnam War was fought between North Vietnam communists led by their leader Ho Chi Minh and South Vietnam anti-communists led by their president Ngo Dinh Diem. North Vietnam was trying to taking over South Vietnam to make it a communist country. That is when the U.S. came knocking on South Vietnam’s door and gave them much needed help in 1950. In Eric Foner’s and John A Garraty’s essay, “Vietnam War,” they explain, “from Washington’s perspective, . . . [a]ny communist anywhere, at home or abroad, was, by definition, an enemy of the United States” because of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “domino theory” (Foner). Eisenhower’s “domino theory,” was a theory that if communists took over Vietnam, they would gradually control all of Southeast Asia. The first aid given by the U.S. was to France. Willbanks explains in his essay that the U.S. provided France, a South Vietnamese ally, $2.6

The Vietnam War started in 1945, resulting in almost 60,000 American deaths and nearly two million Vietnamese deaths, according to Mintze. Years after combat countless Vietnam veterans suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder in every aspect of their lives (Price). Posttraumatic stress disorder is an illness that can happen to anyone who has gone through a horrifying experience. It has been documented in all forms of literature and films the brutality of the war and the side effects it came with. The history of Vietnam is quite long and winding and leaves one to question its purpose (Mintze).

In the middle 1960s, every male in America had to register for Selective Service Draft at age 18. He would then be eligible for the draft and could be inducted into the Army for a period of two years. If you were a college student, you could receive a deferment and would be able to finish college without the fear of being drafted. However, once finished with college, a students name would be put to the very top of the draft list and could be deployed at anytime. The anti-war movement was about young men being drafted and then sent into war that most Americans did not believe threatened the security of the US. The Vietnam War was America’s rebellious war, a war without popular support

This paper will be explaining the similarities, and differences, between the Vietnam War and the War in Afghanistan. There are many topics that bring these two wars together. However, I am only going to be talking about public support, policy objectives, military strategy, weapons, fighting spirit, links to home, and death totals. These topics have a lot of information about them, but there is too much to write about every little detail, so I will cover the broad overview of them. Each paragraph will be about one of the topics. There will also be a discussion about insurgencies and counter insurgency operations. These are two big topics in Vietnam and Afghanistan since almost all of the enemy in both wars were, and are, comprised of insurgents and different types of militia groups.

In the 1950's, the United States had begun to send troops to Vietnam and during the following 25-year period, the ensuing war would create some of the strongest tensions in US history. Almost 3 million US men and women were sent thousands of miles to fight for what was a questionable cause. In total, it is estimated that over 2 million people on both sides were killed.