The War Of The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War had many huge battles with very high body counts. Some battles were very brutal. The first major battle of the war was the Battle of Ap Bac (January 2,1962).

“In August of 1964, in response to the American and GVN espionage along its coast, the DRV launched a local and controlled attack against C. Turner Joy and the U.S.S. Maddox , two American ships on call in the Gulf of Tonkin” (Brigham 2). This resulted in the United States government giving Lyndon Johnson the ability to make war under the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. President Johnson then gave orders to perform air raids on Northern Vietnam pushing the United States further into the war. Compared to 1962 when only 9,000 soldiers supported the South Vietnamese, by June 1965 82,000 soldiers occupied the country. The number only continued to rise exponentially, and by 1966 370,000 soldiers had been sent in to prop their South Vietnam allies. President Richard Nixon withdrew American soldiers from Vietnam and as part of the “vietnamization” of the war. Over and 60,000 American soldiers had been lost in a war to preserve the status quo, not to win.

Orders were given during the morning to stop the mass killings. The 2nd platoon stopped at 0920 hours, but the 1st platoon didn't stop until 1030 hours when the orders were repeated. There were only twenty-five or so Vietnamese survivors who excaped by hiding under the bodies of their neighbors and relatives. This was not an isolated incident however, while the massacre at My Lai was taking place there was a similar mission of nearby My Khe of a lesser magnitude. The death toll in My Khe was over 90 women and children, but far less than the estimated tolls of My Lai. The estimates of My Lai deaths of non combatants ranges from 175-450+. Only one US soldier was killed in action, and seven

Initially, the first reports stated that over 100 Vietcong were killed along with 22 civilian casualties caught in the crossfire during the fierce firefight. The operation was seen as a military victory and a strategic success. General William C. Westmoreland even congratulated involved forces for doing an “outstanding job.” However, letters of distraught and remorse from servicemen and soldiers that were previously engaged in the My Lai operation revealed the true nature

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

“There is ample evidence to show that with the support of the North Vietnamese regime and other Communist powers, the Vietcong has been preparing on a more substantial scale than hitherto insurgency action designed to destroy South Vietnamese Government control, and to disrupt by violence the life of the local

Confused by the explosions and machinegun fire coming from both sides, many reporters couldn’t quite tell who had the upper hand. The confusion left many reporters with the assumption that the enemy had taken over the embassy, even though it was an obvious win for American forces. It wasn’t long until a picture of three U.S. soldiers fighting for their life alongside two of their dead brothers was plastered onto the front page of the New York Times. American televisions and newspapers were being filled with the horrible images of the Vietnam War. For many Americans, this was their first glimpse at war, and it was gruesome. Even though the event at the embassy were less catastrophic than the reporters made it seem, the footage of U.S. troops fighting for their own embassy shocked many

Live coverage of the VC attack on the U.S. embassy in Saigon gave the American

Others just refused the orders from their commander. Some were given orders to kill women, adolescents, and geriatrics. But people like Hugh Thompson refused orders from his commanding officers to kill the villagers. He said “Don’t follow the villagers into the bunker… If they follow the villagers shot them, if they try and shot me shot them.” This is the command he gave his crew members Glenn Andreatta and Larry Colburn. The soldiers that were following the villagers did not open fire on Hugh Thompson or the people My

Monstrous acts are not always committed by monstrous people, but from those who have witnessed incomprehensible pain and suffering. It was reported by Jeffrey Kimball that the members of Company C had arrived in Vietnam beginning of December and were struggling to keep alive by March. During their three months in Nam, the Charlie Company had lost four soldiers along with the thirty-eight wounded. To continue, a popular Sargent had been blown to pieces two days before the My Lai Massacre, which could have acted as a triggering device for what was looming in the not so distant future. These soldiers were also fighting against guerrilla warfare, meaning they weren’t able to relaiate their frustrations and angers against the “enemy” because it wasn’t open combat. According to my uncle who had fought in the war, the men in your unit are your brothers, your family. Since soldiers have minimal contact with the outside world, with the exception through letter mail and the very occasional television news broadcasts, the fellow soldiers besides you are what keeps you sane … at least as sane as one can stay in a perpetual state of war. I argue that the men who took part in the My Lai Massacre were not born intrinsically evil, but rather it’s the condition that they

Preceding Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination was North Vietnam’s Tet Offensive against the United States which “signified the beginning of the end of U.S involvement in the Vietnam War” (CNN). Tet, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year, “was a holiday during which the North and South had previously observed an informal truce” (CNN). However, on January 31st, 1968, a “coordinated attack by Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese targeted 36 major cities and towns in South Vietnam” (CNN). Despite the heavy casualties, “North Vietnam achieved a strategic victory with the Tet Offensive, as the attacks marked a turning point in the Vietnam War and the beginning of the slow, painful American withdrawal from the region” (“Tet Offensive”). This attack was a crucial turning point in the war because the ambush resulted in Americans withdrawing their support of the war. Before the offensive, the U.S.

The Vietnam War was a long, immoderate furnished clash that hollowed the socialist administration of North Vietnam and its southern partners, known as the Viet Cong, against South Vietnam and its chief associate, the United States. The war started in 1954 after the ascent to force of Ho Chi Minh and his socialist Viet Minh party in North Vietnam, and proceeded against the background of an exceptional Cold War between two worldwide superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union. More than 3 million individuals (counting 58,000 Americans) were murdered in the Vietnam War; more than half were Vietnamese regular citizens. By 1969, at the top of U.S. association in the war, more than 500,000 U.S. military work forces were included in the Vietnam struggle. Developing restriction to the war in the United States prompted astringent divisions among Americans, both previously, then after the fact President Richard Nixon requested the withdrawal of U.S. strengths in 1973. In 1975, comrade strengths seized control of Saigon, consummation the Vietnam War, and the nation was bound together as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the next year. Amid World War II, Japan attacked and possessed Vietnam, a country on the eastern edge of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia that had been under French organization since the late nineteenth century. Enlivened by Chinese and Soviet socialism, Ho Chi Minh framed the Viet Minh, or the League for the Independence of Vietnam, to battle both

On March 16, 1968. Charlie Company was ordered to enter the Hamlet of My Lai to clear out the Viet Cong's forty-eighth battalion that was believed to be in the vicinity. The soldier's mission would be to engage the forty-eighth battalion and destroy the village of My Lai. The attack was to begin at seven-thirty in the morning. Military leaders believed the women and children would be out of the village heading for the local market by this time, leaving only the Viet Cong. The soldiers were ordered to explode brick homes, set fires to thatch homes, shoot livestock, poison wells, and destroy the enemy.

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

Around midnight on August 4, 1964 American aircrafts began sixty-four sorties (one plane attacks) over North Vietnamese patrol boat bases and a major oil storage depot. During the sorties more than twenty Vietnamese vessels were destroyed, while the oil depot became an inferno of flame and smoke. The events that took place in the Gulf of Tonkin added to years of tension between the United States and North Vietnam.