Essay on Vietnam War and Its Effect on America

For many in the United States "Vietnam" is a term which conjures up visions of war, anarchy, and finally defeat and humiliation. It was a war that many felt the U.S. should never have gotten involved in, and was a waste of more than 50,000 American lives. And for many years after the war ended the prevailing wisdom remained that the U.S. had failed. But as years turn to decades, and Vietnam is fading into the recesses of history, one can begin to look at the war in an objective manner; as just one part of the larger "Cold War." When viewing Vietnam as part of the larger Cold War, one can see that the United States should not only have been there, but it was necessary as part of the overall strategy to defeat Communism world wide.

The main reason why the US did this was because they didn’t want to be involved in the war. The president during this period, Richard Nixon, didn’t want American troops to be fighting in Vietnam, so he withdrew American troops from fighting there. 17)Communist Vietnam was successfully able to dominate parts of Southeast Asia after the Vietnam War. After the war, communist North Vietnam had conquered Southern Vietnam when the war was over. This was very successful for Northern Vietnam.

The war in Vietnam was a very contestable event for America and an overall major impact of the cold war. Fear of the spread of communism was on the rise again as Ho Chi Minh, the leader of North Vietnam wanted to unite the country under one communist leadership. The United States entered into the war to prevent this spread of communism to further their reputation of containing it as they have done in the past. While there are positives to the war in Vietnam, it seems as if there are more negatives in the situation which include massive casualties on both sides, chemical warfare, and a divided nation back home.

The Vietnam War had so many different strategies. The United States depended on the “Search and Destroy” strategy often. That is where they would do exactly what it wounds like, search for communists then destroy. The more hostile the destroying was getting, made more Southern Vietnamese upset. Not only did that make the people of the United States and South Vietnam upset, so did Ngo Dinh Diem. He became the United States’ next plan. Ngo Dinh Diem, President Diem, “was able to resettle hundreds of thousands of refugees from North Vietnam in the south, but his own Catholicism and the preference he showed for fellow Roman Catholics made him unacceptable to Buddhists, who were an overwhelming majority in South Vietnam” (“Ngo Dinh Diem”). The Buddhists of the south were in a disagreeable state with his choices of the war and beliefs. Not only the people in the land of the war were upset, but most people in the United States were also upset. No one could agree with the choices he made. He never kept his promise of land reform, which is a huge promise to the ones who do not have land. He not only failed people, but his strategies failed. In “Ngo Dinh Diem” it states,“The military tactics Diem used against the insurgency were heavy-handed and ineffective and served only to deepen his government’s unpopularity and isolation.” He just made bigger problems for the United States and Southern

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.

The Vietnam war has been referred to by many names, one of the longer ones was 'the cornerstone of the free world southeast Asia'. It was called that by John F. Kennedy. He was talking about Vietnam being and essential country in a non-communist world. He believed that if Vietnam became a communist country, all of the surrounding countries would also become communists. This is the main reason America was involved in the Vietnam war. Another reason was that America wanted to spread their “political ideas around the globe”. They wanted to do this so that their anti-communism stance was clear. The public also wanted to keep communism from spreading. To soldiers, the war was like a crusade, a great journey to purge the communists from Vietnam.

Firstly the political reasons. The involvement in Vietnam started off with the cold war, when Russia and America the emerging super powers after WW2, two different styles of living had emerged the capitalists (America) and the communist (Russia), both with two different beliefs. The cold war was a war of words, America hated the fact more

Why did the United States Withdraw From the Vietnam War? The United States withdrew from the Vietnam War for several reasons. The Army had to fight in unfamiliar territory, was lacking in moral, were not prepared for the conditions, could not shut down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and were untrained to respond to guerilla warfare. This combination of disadvantages and the loss of public support led to the United States withdrawing from Vietnam. The United States Army was forced to fight in a new land that had different weather and geography than the U.S., and put the army at a disadvantage from the beginning of the war. Vietnam is a very hot, tropical country, as it is fairly close to the equator. It has jungles over most of the land, bit also

The United States intervention in Vietnam is seen by the world as America’s greatest loss and longest war. Before the start of the war in Vietnam, the thought of the United States losing this war was unheard of because America was technologically superior, no country in south East Asia could contend with them. Lyndon B. Johnson announced that he would not be the president to allow South East Asia to go Communist . Why the United States lost the war has been a huge debate since the end of the war, because there were so many factors affecting why they lost; the war was a loss politically, after losing support from not only the American public but also the South Vietnamese and losing a political mandate for the war by 1973, when the last

When Rolling Thunder failed to weaken the enemy’s will after the first several weeks the purpose of it began to change. Bombings then tended to be directed at the flow of men and supplies from the north (Karnow). Damaging as it was to the north, Ho Chi Minh still maintained the same course. Operation Rolling Thunder was a desperate attempt to convince the North Vietnamese to initiate negotiations and hopefully a ceasefire. This operation showed that LBJ was ineffective and ignorant. He was blind to the fact that the North Vietnamese were obviously going to retaliate because of Operation Rolling Thunder.

We did not accomplish what we had set out to. Instead, millions of lives were lost in the ensuing conflict. Vietnam fell to communism, much to America's dismay. All in all, our mission there was a complete and utter failure. The war should be a cautionary tale that the military prowess of the United States is not capable of solving any and all conflicts that arises. The Iraq War is a prime example of this. Our reason for invading Iraq was based on false intel, so from the very beginning, declaring war was a mistake. In the aftermath, Iraq was left without a state, leaving its territory to be taken control by terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS. Like with the Vietnam War, many lives were lost. In the future, we need to more cautious and pacifistic in nature when it comes to dealing with foreign affairs. If we do not, then we will cause great suffering such as we did in Vietnam and Iraq. The Gulf War and the 2014 Liberian military relief aid are exceptions to this. We did more good than harm when we intervened in these two instances. This shows that not all military involvement from the United States will lead to turmoil. It gives evidence and hope that peace and prosperity can be achieved. All it takes is the right decision making. We should not have a hawkish mindset; an altruistic mindset is what we should strive

During the Vietnam War, United States involvement was for personal reasons and fear of communism. Neither the United States or the Soviet Union should have been involved. The War was just used as a cover up for the actual silent, passive aggressive war between the United States and the Soviet. The Vietnam war was started by the North “Viet Cong” and their desire to unify Vietnam under communist rule. The South was against communism, making tensions grow until eventually, a war broke out on November 1, 1955. Five years later in the 1960s, the war was escalated with the involvement of foreign countries. While the North was supported by its communist allies such as China and the Soviet Union. The South was supported by the United States of America. The Americans wanted to halt or prolong the spread of communism. The “domino theory” compelled the U.S. to get involved as soon as possible because if not, the rest of Asia would fall to communism like “dominoes”. The U.S. involvement only started with Eisenhower administration when Vietnam split in half. This action of the United States was only for their own well being and their main goal was not for the good of Vietnam. During this time period the Vietnamese had just united and established the state of Vietnam. The war ended up lasting 9 years with long periods of bitter guerrilla warfare in the rugged jungles of Vietnam which would eventually result in the victory of the North and longed unification of Vietnam

For more than 30 years America had been involved with Vietnam, but in those 30 years they turned to suffering for both the Vietnamese and Americans and many more countries. The fighting lasted for 8 years and mainly only happened in Vietnam where land, air, and water battles took place. Bombings, chemicals, and killing turned into a game for many soldiers which led to lasting suffering even after the war ended. Once the war was over, America had just finished their most unsuccessful war to date. That time gave America important lessons to be learned from the many erroneous things that had been done. Learning from the mistakes made are crucial for America if the country wants to win another war in the future. Many lessons were learned

United States Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy had spent millions of dollars to aid the non-communist South Vietnamese. Before 1964 thousands of American military advisers were training and assisting the South Vietnamese army. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s decision to bomb North Vietnam put the United States in the center of the longest war in the nations history. The Vietcong (North Vietnamese) grew more aggressive after the incident at the Gulf of Tonkin. On November 1964, they attacked the American base at Bien Hoa and destroyed five B-57 jets while damaging twenty more. Since the increase of tension with the Vietcong continued, draft calls had increased substantially in the United States and American casualties were being felt across the country.

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.