Essay about Why the U.S. Withdrew Its Forces from Vietnam in 1973

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“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.

The public was on board the war train for the first few years of the war, until they found out what it was actually like in Vietnam. Public view of the war immediately changed negatively. When the news reached the soldiers in Vietnam, reactions were mixed. While they could understand why the people didn't like the prospect of war, they were still killing-even when they didn't want to-for their country. Some soldiers didn't know how to respond. One solder wrote to his mother and told her that for one second he felt as if he was on vacation because it was so beautiful in Vietnam. Another one told his mom “not to worry, there is nothing I can't handle”. While the soldiers could handle the physical horrors happening to them, it was the mental stuff that was breaking them down.

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

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

Many people felt that this was a war of money that the U.S. didn’t need to interfere in and was being fought by North and South Vietnam, therefore we had no business getting in the middle of it. The United States should've thought of themselves and done what was best for them as a country. When Dwight D. Eisenhower left office, a new President came in with the name John F. Kennedy. JFK warns the American public about “Military Industrial Complex”. This affected Americans because we didn’t want all of Vietnam to become communist. From the beginning, the United States was not aware of what they were getting themselves into. Furthermore, they didn’t understand the nature of the war on who and why they were fighting.

America had a few reasons to be involved in the Vietnam War. The big reason was to fight communist power. Countries like North Korea, North Vietnam, Indochina, and parts of Asia were trying spread their communist aggression (Document 2a). In Document 2b, you can see that America wall out the communist aggression, but it just kept coming. The United States was involved in the Vietnam war because we had

The Vietnam War was a conflict, which the United States involved itself in unnecessarily and ultimately lost. The basis of the conflict was simple enough: Communism vs. Capitalism, yet the conduct of the Vietnam War was complex and strategic, and brought repercussions which had never been seen before. The struggle between North and South had an almost inevitable outcome, yet the Americans entered the War optimistic that they could aid the falling South and sustain democracy. The American intentions for entering the Vietnam conflict were good, yet when the conflict went horribly wrong, and the resilient North Vietnamese forces, or ‘Viet Cong' as they were known, refused to yield, the United States saw they were fighting a losing battle.

Social and economic tensions were not the only things strained because of the war, political activities were on the brink as well. The Domino Theory, speculation that if one country takes another to communism, the surrounding countries will fall to it as well, was one of the main reasons for starting the war. If the Domino Theory had occurred, the United States would suffer a horrible loss to foreign affairs, something they were not able to handle at that time. When the affair in the Gulf of Tonkin happened in 1964, the U.S. government jumped on the idea to stop Vietnam. In the Gulf of Tonkin, a ship, the U.S.S. Maddox, was attacked by Vietnam patrol boats. Even though the Maddox was unhurt, the LBJ jumped on the opportunity to squash the Domino Effect before it started. Soon after the attack, Lyndon B Johnson got the ‘stamp of approval’ from Congress to counter attack. He was allowed to “Take all necessary measure to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.” (Doc A) Little did they know that their

Kara Hinson The war in Vietnam started in 1955 and lasted until 1975. Many Americans believed it was a pointless war that had no meaning. The United States became involved in the Vietnam Warbecause they wanted to stop the spread of communism. This war took 50,000 lives and wounded 300,000 American men. Due to the My Lai massacre which killed hundreds of innocent and unarmed Vietnamese civilians, protests about the draft start all over the country, because of draft dodgers and draft deferment, and the government misleading people back home, this was known as the credibility gap, Americans are turning against the war in Vietnam. This leads to anti-war protesters, known as doves springing up across the United States demonstrating their opposition to the war.The Vietnam War is one of the most known wars in history, many innocent people were killed that had no involvement. United States soldiers came up with strategies to kill off the Vietcong, but occasionally the United States was not sure who were Vietcong and who were not. Napalm was a jellied gasoline that explodes when dropped in large canisters the napalm was usually dropped on villages. When the napalm was dropped on the villages, the Vietnamese houses and vegetation were destroyed. Napalm burned men, women, and children who were in the villages the clothes would burn completely off their bodies. Agent orange another substance used this was sprayed by an aircraft over the jungle. Agent

The U.S. was going to the extreme using chemical warfare tactics; this was counterproductive, riddling fields useless and sickening or killing not only the Viet Minh but also the Reunified Vietnam. At this point, they could not distinguish the enemy from the people they were trying to save. They angered the people of the Reunified Vietnam to the point of where they were switching to the communist side with a goal of getting the United States out of their country. Many United States citizens worried about what would happen if we pulled out of the war. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of the State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, wrote in a speech “if they [Viet Minh] achieved military or political success, it is certain that they would subject the people to a cruel Communist dictatorship taking its orders from Peiping and Moscow.”(Document F). He like many others knew that if the U.S. abandoned the Vietnam War they would encourage communism to continue its infectious spread through Asia and Europe. Ultimately, The United States intermeddled with countries in attempt to help but failed, giving them over to communism

Throughout history the US has fought many wars for example, the US revolution, the Civil War, WWI, WWII and the cold war these are all wars, but none of them compare to the war between the US and Vietnam. Why would the world most powerful country see Vietnam as a threat? This is the question that many were asking. After World War II US feel threaten by the rise of communism in Asia Vietnam just happen to be one of these countries that US feel threaten by. Many people refer to the US and Vietnam war as one of the most bloodies war the US have ever fought. I got the chance to interview Sharon Meeker who happen to live during the Vietnam War. She explains the reason many people die during the Vietnam war was because most of the US soldiers were

Which would create a large threat to the United States and the amount of power they held. They felt Vietnam would create a blockade and stop the spread of communism. The American people were upset because they were being sent hundreds of miles away to fight a war, which had nothing to do with America. The media played a large role in turning Americans against the war.

Vietnam was a country divided into two by communism in the North and capitalism in the South. The Vietnam War, fought between the years 1959 and 1975, was, in essence, a struggle by nationalists in the north to unify the nation under a communist government. This was a long standing conflict between the two sides that had been occurring for years. It wasn’t until 1959 when the USA, stepped in, on the side of southern Vietnamese, to stop the spread of communism. It was a war that did not capture the hearts and minds of the American people as it was viewed as a war that the US army couldn’t win and so the government lost the peoples support for the war. This ultimately led to the withdrawal of the US army from Vietnam. Some people, like

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