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How Did The Tet Offensive Influence American Politics

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The Tet Offensive was one of the largest military campaigns in the Vietnam War launched by the Viet Cong and North Vietnam People’s Army which killed over five thousand American soldiers. How did the Tet Offensive influence American politics, society, and the overall development of the war in Vietnam? This question plagues many historians, politicians, soldiers, and veterans. The Tet Offensive influenced American politics by forcing politicians to take a stand one way or another on the viewpoint of the war, influencing American society by causing people to see the reality of war itself, and influencing the overall development of the war by showing that the enemy was not, in fact, about to collapse in defeat as the government had told the public for years. Firstly, the Tet Offensive influenced America’s politics by forcing politicians to take a stand on their viewpoint of the …show more content…

There was a variety of ways that American society realized that war was not a fight that the soldiers should not have been there in the first place. Because of the new modern-age televisions, many people and families could see soldiers interviewed in the middle of battle and even killed. The Tet Offensive was one of the main turning points in the war because of the media coverage, because there were traumatic images being shown all across the country, which made the people realize that they should not have been part of this war by showing that more U.S. soldiers were being killed than we could replace. There were many news reporters that were in the jungles of enemy territory (“Media”). These men were not supposed to record the battles themselves, just the “body counts” of how many enemies the troops had killed that day. The media was never allowed in the battles so the government could assure that the American public did not know how badly the Tet Offensive had affected the

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