Vietnam War -Students Vs Politics Essay

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.

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 passage made me connect the Vietnam War and the Iraq War with my own life. I continue to live my life day by day without the acknowledgement of the war going on in Iraq at this very moment. The war in Iraq is broadcasted daily but it seems only a reality to the soldiers participating. While I continue with my daily activities the soldiers in Iraq are fighting for their own lives and country. It seems as if it is just an alternate world in which I am privileged to view and do not have to live the reality of being in the war myself.

The first thing that one must do when discussing Vietnam is remember the historical context in which the conflict took place. The United States and it's Free World allies were attempting to confine the Communist Bloc, which by this time included both the Soviet Union and China, and keep it from expanding into surrounding nations. The U.S. felt that if the Communists were not allowed to expand, they would eventually collapse under the weight of their centralized economy. So in order to accomplish the policy of containment, the U.S. need to ally itself with nations bordering Communist ones. However, one of the most important aspects of political alliances is the trust each must have in the

Vietnam was so significant to the United States partly as it would be the first war they would lose. It also had a tremendous financial impact on the country and the casualties were also more in the public eye than ever before due to the media. They learnt that: "a long war for limited objectives, with its steady stream of body bags, will not be supported by the American people" (Martino, 1996, p37). Some suggest that the US should have avoided any involvement in the war.

In Nixon’s effort to end the war, his first policy was to send a message to Hanoi that he meant business. His policy consisted of escalated strategic bombings near the border of Cambodia in hopes to get the North Vietnamese to fear that the United States was capable of doing anything to achieve victory. Even Johnson was skeptical of expanding the war into Cambodia but Nixon’s first policy in full effect. Unfortunately, America was blinded by the corruptness of Nixon’s “peaceful presidency” since

They have enforced inhuman laws; they have set up three distinct political regimes in the North, the Center, and the South of Viet-Nam in order to wreck our national unity and prevent our people from being united.

that the way the war was handled should have been differently. Some ask why bother, the war

On March 29 in 1973, the last American troops left Vietnam, leaving thousands of missing behind. The same day, a few hundreds of war prisoners were released in Hanoi. Within a couple of months, the war between the North and the South was restored and it was soon apparent that the communists are more unified and have a military dominance. In Cambodia and Laos, where the fights were not so strong, the communist victory also seemed unavoidable. In March 1975 the northern Vietnam commenced a complete military invasion in the South. Southern president Thieu asked Washington for help, but the democratic majority in the Congress refused and on March 30, the Americans could watch on TV how North-Vietnamese tanks enter Saigon, which was soon renamed to Ho-Chi-Min’s town. Scenes in American embassy in Saigon, where thousands of scared Vietnamese fought for places on board of last American helicopters were a sad ending of the biggest American foreign policy catastrophe.

--We saw a prelude of what would happen in South Vietnam when the Communists entered the city of Hue last year. During their brief rule there, there was a bloody reign of terror

The history of recent years in the Indochina conflict has been an eventful one. It will exhibit to the eyes of the future student some of the most remarkable instances of a ruthlessness and indifference to common humanity. Moreover, it will, I believe, demonstrate that North Vietnam has, for a long time, steadily pursued a communist regime which was deliberately designed to produce a subjugation of other countries by the threat of communism.

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.

The international affairs and the involvement of America during the Vietnam War was one of the greatest involvements in American history. Not only was America involved with Vietnamese affairs, but the U.S. was also involved in Cambodian affairs as well. The historical relevance of Cambodia is often overlooked when discussing the war as a whole. The events in Cambodia were events marked in history as side effects of the Vietnam War; however, Cambodia is more that just a side effect of the war. The secret bombings, the great Pol Pot genocide, the killing fields and the strict communist society that developed should not be marked as a mere side effect of Vietnam War history. The documentation and the reportings

Located in Southeast Asia between Thailand and Vietnam, Cambodia was home to one of the bloodiest political regimes to exist in the 20th century. In a country, in which American government reports in 1959 documented, was full of “ ‘docile and passive people…[who] could not be counted on to act in any positive way for the benefit of US aims and policies’”, the United States conflict in neighboring Vietnam brought about incredible changes to an unsuspecting people (qted. in Dunlop 70). The countryside was bombed by the United States in order to uproot suspected North Vietnamese holdouts and supply routes starting in 1969. These bombing raids, which devastated

During the Cold War, Cambodia unfortunately found themselves caught in the crossfire. Two of the world’s super powers fought each other by supporting other countries. Vietnam was split; the north was communist while the south was capitalist. This caused a huge problem for their neighbor Cambodia. Originally they tried to stay neutral but eventually they joined the American’s side. Americans brought their troops into Cambodia in order to fight Vietnam. This caused major conflict and turned Cambodia into a warzone. As depicted in The Killing Fields and the articles we read for class, bombs were killing hundreds of Cambodian civilians. Their hospitals were overflowing with wounded and dying men, women, and children. Cambodians desperately wanted American troops to leave so they gathered around Pol Pot. Pol Pot was the leader of the Khmer Rouge, a small communist organization. Once Pol Pot was in control he immediately sealed the borderes to Cambodia and started attacking his own people. As illustrated in some eyewitness accounts, many villages were dispersed and some were even burned to the ground. Within the first twenty minutes of The Killing Fields a bomb goes off in the middle of the street in the middle of the day with no warning whatsoever. The Khmer Rouge would invade villages and impose strict rules. Everyone was now required to work in the fields and they received little breaks. By 1975 the Khmer Rouge was out of control. Television and radio were shut down, bikes were