Vietnam War Essay

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

I have learned a lot about what life was like at the time of the Vietnam War by interviewing my grandfather. My grandfather, Franklin Torr, was living in Dover, NH at the time, in his late thirties, married, and had three young children. The Vietnam War impacted my grandfather’s life in a unique way. One aspect of his life that changed at the start of the war was that a lot of his tenants, in the mobile home he owned, were in the New Hampshire National Guard and were stationed in Vietnam, flying missions, and some were advisors. He said the following about them; “Of the tenants that fought in the war, they thought they were doing the right thing at the time” When asked if he could provide a story of one of his Vietnam War veterans, he said that not a lot of them liked to talk about their war experiences in depth, two of his tenants that served in Vietnam died in Vietnam. One of his former classmates was a Marine Colonel, one thing he remembers this man mentioning was; “the troops did a great job while they were there”. The most shocking thing that he remembers from this

During the Vietnam War, these soldiers has shed their blood and sacrificed their future for their homeland, but their government, their society and their families alienates and forsakes them. Unlike any other wars happened throughout the history of America, the reason for United States to get involve in the Vietnam War is to stop the spread of communism, a very simple but also very unreasonable. Instead of volunteer, the majority of the soldiers in Vietnam War were drafted without any prior notice. Hence, before going to war, the soldiers find themselves having a difficult time of trying to seek for a reasonable purpose of going to war. Some people try to escape from the drafting process and stay home or continue their education. Other people, who actually go to war say “’I just want

Problem that the Vietnamese war veterans faced was the psychological effects which was very common for Vietnam veterans to have. The main cause of this is because it was different compared to other wars in the past like the condition that the soldiers were in. Studies has shown that a World War II soldiers experienced up to a total of 60 days under combat like conditions. A Vietnam infantryman endured on a comparable basis 300+ days therefore Vietnam veterans have more likely to develop psychological problems than a World War II veteran. (POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER (PTSD), 2001)

Wars are a difficult place to be. “THE VIETNAM WAR transformed a generation” (Roberts 1). With all that happened during the war such as exposure to

Vietnam was an entirely new type of war for the United States. It still remains morally and historically problematic in today’s society. The Vietnam War had a tremendous impact on American society and culture, primarily because it was the first war to be televised. The American press played a significant

The war in Vietnam was a war against communism that tore apart the US. The United States of America plunged together with its allies and played a tremendous role as far as fight against communism is concerned. A huge number of American soldiers were deployed in Vietnam a practice that coupled with much unpreparedness. The soldiers were not aware what exactly they were up to in Vietnam. Most Americans at the time were very much against the act. It was one of the most deliberating wars America plunged herself into and the only one to have been lost. Most intriguing is the amount of publicity and media buzz created by the film industry. Vietnam War was the topic of many television networks, music and Hollywood. Journalist and veterans and scholar were never left behind and went ahead to produce tones of literature on the legacies and lessons to be learnt from the war (Hochgesang, Lawyer, and Stevenson). The exploitation of the soldiers and rejection of the veterans created just as much interest as the war had created. One such commentary came from George Kennan, who depicted the war as one of the most disastrous mission The United States has ever undertaken (Westheider 155-159).. This essay will establish the effects the war had to the US soldiers.

The soldiers that were in Vietnam were subject to horrors that they should not have because it was useless and their time in Vietnam turned to communism anyway. In the book Fallen Angels the soldiers in it had to

The Vietnam War is probably the worst war that the men in America have ever had to fight. These men not only had many struggles and extreme stress brought on by the war, but when they came back home, the people of America treated them like dirt and they were not thanked for the service they did for their country. Dr. Andrew Wiest’s novel The Boys of ’67 Charlie Company’s War in Vietnam gives a first hand account on what it was actually like to be in the Vietnam War. Many men in the Charlie Company are mentioned throughout the book, which tells each of their stories that they experienced throughout the war. Each and every one of these men

War Is Not The Answer War is never the answer. People can never get anything out of it because in the end, there is just going to be more chaos. In the book, My Brother Sam Is Dead by James and Christopher Collier, a lot of the hard times for the American Revolution are presented with the Meeker Family. The main characters are Sam and Tim Meeker along with the supporting characters, Mr. and Mrs. Meeker. In My Brother Sam Is Dead, both sides of war are shown, author's Collier and Collier ultimately argue that war is not going to achieve anything.

The person I interviewed was the daughter of a Vietnam War veteran. The interview was conducted where I gave her questions about the life her father had and how it felt when she was in the United States going to elementary, high school, and college. She was not a veteran but the effects of her father’s participation in the war affected her greatly throughout her school and personal life.

Bullets whiz by his head as soldiers drop to the ground around him. Some are shot dead. Some are wounded. Some are cowering in fear, trying to preserve their lives. Blood, limbs, smoke, and fire stain the battlefield like a painters’ canvas. Some try to carry on, leading their brothers to victory. Others stay still, crying to themselves about loved ones back home. War has everlasting traumatic effects on people. The soldiers that do survive will never live the same lives they did before the war. Tim O’Brien’s book The Things They Carried does a great job explaining the effects of war on soldiers through many stories O’Brien experienced during the Vietnam War. From trying to escape the war, to his buddy Kiowa dying in muck, O’Brien expertly

One example of how the soldiers were affected mentally was when the soldiers lost all hope after the war was over. For example, O’Brien stated "Now, the war ended, all I am left with are simple, unprofound scraps of truth. Men die. Fear hurts and humiliates" (pg 23). The soldiers found out the hard, dark truth about war. They had different views about the war and came out with about one view, the war was not bad until you know when all the truth about it. Another example of how the war affected the soldier mentally was when they reflected on all the things they did, making them change their mind about the war. For instance, O’Brien expressed, “But, still, none of these notions seem right. Men are killed, dead human beings are heavy and awkward to carry, things smell different in Vietnam, soldiers are afraid and often brave, drill sergeants are boors, some men think the war is proper and just and others don't and most don't care.” Many soldiers have different views on the war, but after all, they have done their view on the war starts getting dark. Another example of how the war affected the soldiers mentally through the war was when they wouldn’t care anymore about what would happen to them. For instance, O’Brien expressed “Some guys are just numb to death” (131). This explains that some soldiers were so done with the war that they thought they were bulletproof in a way that they

It can be hard to fully comprehend the effects the Vietnam War had on not just the veterans, but the nation as a whole. The violent battles and acts of war became all too common during the long years of the conflict. The war warped the soldiers and civilians characters and desensitized their mentalities to the cruelty seen on the battlefield. Bao Ninh and Tim O’Brien, both veterans of the war, narrate their experiences of the war and use the loss of love as a metaphor for the detrimental effects of the years of fighting.

This site does not try to document the entire history of the Vietnam War but is intended as a picture essay, illustrating some of the incredible conditions under which soldiers from both sides lived, fought, played and ultimately died. Almost all of the images shown were taken by the legendary combat photographer, Tim Page; they are nothing short of