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Vietnamization (real Version) Essay

Decent Essays

Vietnam Controversy

It’s January 27th, 1973 and the Vietnam War is over. Peace agreements were signed in Paris by the South Vietnam Communist forces, North Vietnam, South Vietnam and the United States. The meeting lasted for several hours and in that time they agreed on many objectives, including: that U.S. troops would gradually withdraw from Vietnam and all prisoners of war would be released, South Vietnam had the right to choose their own future (whether or not to unite with North Vietnam), and North Vietnamese troops were given the right to remain in South Vietnam with idea that the troops could not be reinforced (“Vietnam War”).

Even after the peace talks, fighting continued between the North and …show more content…

“In Our Times” is only different because of the time it was written and has a more “big picture” perspective. So, with both in mind I was able to pinpoint the problems from my own perspective.

The takeover by the North Vietnamese and the South Vietnam Communist forces were in part the faults of the US. If we had stayed and better assisted the South Vietnamese, which the US government called Vietnamization, South Vietnam might still be in existence today. Vietnamization was in a sense the process of preparing South Vietnam to be able to take care of itself mainly by building up South Vietnam’s military defenses and was supposed to prepare South Vietnam for the long term defense it needed to hold up to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Vietnamization included the giving of heavy artillery and military supplies to South Vietnam, but some South Vietnamese referred to Vietnamization as a "U.S. Dollar and Vietnamese Blood Sharing Plan” (“Vietnam War”). A South Vietnamese military general accounts the events leading to the takeover in his journal and writes: “To give an idea of our abominable condition, a unit of rangers there had no communications equipment and thus had to abandon their positions; a battery of 105-mm howitzers could not shoot because they had no sights for the guns; and the aircraft had no bombs available to drop on readily identifiable targets” (Van Don). This proving the state of confusion the South Vietnamese military was in. They were

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