The Vietnam War Rhetoric Analysis

In 1954 America thought it to be their duty as “the watchdog of democracy” to enter into the Vietnam War, in order to fight the impending Fall of Communism. Although as the battle continued American society began to separate, as many people started to oppose the war and question the justification behind it. There were many factors, movements and events that helped facilitate the end of the Vietnam War. Though the Student Movement in particular was a very influential opposing force. This was due to many dynamics, such as the magnitude of their support, the method and nature of their protest and the fact that it was their generation that suffered the greatest losses.

The civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. went public with his opposing views to the war on moral grounds, as well as Boxer Muhammad Ali who resisted his conscription into service during the Vietnam War. Ali, declared himself a "conscientious objector," earning a prison sentence and a ban from

Many people know of the Vietnam War and its devastating effect on both the United States and Vietnam, but few know of its effect on Cambodia and the mass genocide following the war. The United States, under Lyndon Johnson’s administration, bombed Cambodian villages believed to be containing Vietnamese communists and supply routes. U.S carpet bombing began to increase in support of the pullout of U.S troops in Vietnam. The B-52 bombing campaign ended as a result of a peace treaty between the United States and the North Vietnamese, but the Khmer Rouge and Lon Nol armies continued to fight until Phenom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge then began their terrible reign and efforts to reconstruct Cambodia resulting in a mass genocide.

Opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War The two events protested the war in Washington, D.C. On 24 April 1971 and Anti-Vietnam War demonstration in 1967 demonstrate a large number of the American population were opposed to U.S. involvement in the South Vietnam during the course of the Vietnam War. Public opinion was strongly against the war from 1967 to 1970, which resulted in only a third of Americans supposed that the U.S made a right decision over participating in Vietnam War. It is why special groups led the anti-war movement to avoid America 's involved in the Vietnam War.

Music As Protest Music has been used throughout many wars and conflicts as a way to protest and share the beliefs of people. I choose Creedence Clearwater Revivals song “Fortunate Son”, because this song spoke to the masses during the Vietnam Conflict taking place on the other side of the world. Creedence Clearwater Revival created a song that shared what the many people believed in the United States and helped get their voices heard. “Fortunate Son” shared the true story about majority of the middle and lower class Americans feelings. Vietnam had just gone through a war through 1954 to push France their colonial ruler out.

The Vietnam anti-war movement is arguably the largest and most effective to date. It began with students on university campuses, but soon expanded to include minority groups, like civil rights activists. It divided the country for a time, but united it after certain events during the war. These included the Kent State shootings and war crimes in Vietnam. The protestors of the war had a massive impact on society at the time; they brought different races, genders, and classes all across the country together to protest the government and its choices.

The Vietnam War took place during the cold war era, which lasted many years and could be described as the clashing of two conflicting ideologies between the communist eastern countries and the capitalist western countries. The Americans aimed at stopping the spread of communism in Vietnam, based on the their policy of containment, which was set up to stop the spread of communism to any other country in the world. Many American citizens opposed the sending of their own troops to fight in a war that was not even theirs to lose. Many of the soldiers being sent to Vietnam were members of the youth, which led to increasingly rapid protest action amongst students, as well as the parents of the young men being conscripted. These American troops were being placed to fight in unfamiliar and harsh terrain – as the majority of Vietnam was overgrown with forests and dangerous wildlife - which negatively affected the Americans morale and diminishing their possibility of success in the war.

A period of purity and trust soon changed into a period of hate and savagery. People in the America challenged to claim justice and put an end to the discriminatory of black citizens led by Martin Luther King Jr., Protests of the Vietnam War increased, and the women want their equality. All the hopes of becoming the new America no longer exist when John F. Kennedy, the 35th President was gunned down in Dallas, Texas. On the other hand, the 1960’s were an extraordinary decade due to numerous of popular culture; The “Hippies” were born and so does the Maxies dresses, two of the leading names in the music industry, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles, won the audience 's heart by only on the early years of 1960, Audrey Hepburn, a remarkable actress who starred in most of Hollywood’s

In this way, those incidents influenced in some parts of the film, at the same time, Travis’ loneliness was also influenced by those social situations. Those important incidents, which had influences in the society, from 1960s to 1970s are roughly separated into two parts, the Vietnam War and political instability. The first, the United States has already intervened in the Vietnam War in the 1960s, and then United States Armed Forces still continued to fight in the early 1970s.

It is not possible for us to understand the significance and impact of Vietnam War through one angle. There were numerous issues regarding veterans of the war. It was first war in history of USA when people of USA took an opposite stance on government foreign policy. Majority of the people were against the war. That is why, they did not any respect to the veterans who returned to the U.S after the war.

The Tet offensive, which took place on the 31st of January 1968, had huge significance on the political landscape of America, and public opinion on the war in Vietnam. After the Tet offensive, public support for the war plummeted, and with ever increasing support in the anti-war movement and protests, the war in Vietnam was no longer justifiable to the American public. As a result of this president Johnson stepped down from running for re-election, leaving an anti-war democrat running against an anti-war republican. This meant that Nixon was elected, which arguably ended the Vietnam War, due to his change in tactics.

V. Conclusion O 'Brien brings up many instances that show how things went wrong in the Vietnam War, not only because important problems were overlooked at the time but also because the American public sought at first to erase the war from their collective memories. Many Vietnam Veterans felt isolated from the American mainstream after they returned from service. After the period of erasure ended, the public commemoration, through movies and stories, sought to supplant the reality of Vietnam with a more endearing story that could be cherished as much as the myths that surround World War II, “O 'Brien points out that the evils of the Vietnam War are not merely forgotten, but all but deleted from American mythology and memory” (Ooms 26).

The US also got involved to stop communism from spreading from North to South Vietnam. Military advisors were sent to South Vietnam in stemming aggression by communist North Vietnam beginning in 1954, during the Eisenhower administration. The number of the advisers grew consistently until numbering over 15,000 during the administration of John F. Kennedy, who succeeded Eisenhower. Lyndon B. Johnson became president in 1963 after Kennedy was assassinated. He continued the policy, but in 1964 he became concerned that South Vietnam was going to be overrun, he was fearful of being considered soft on communism and was concerned

The Roe v. Wade decision had a profound impact on American politics, polarizing much of the nation into pro-life and pro-choice camps. Despite significant public backing in the early 1970s, there was widespread opposition, particularly among those associated with the Christian Right. The Christian evangelicals, who had largely been silent in politics before the 1960s, saw abortion as a threat to traditional values and began to organize against Roe. Members of the Republican Party’s New Right approached Jerry Falwell and encouraged him to create a “Moral Majority” organization that would mobilize conservative Christians to become politically active in the hope of capturing Congress and the White House (McKeegan 1992). United in the belief that all innocent life should be protected under the U.S. Constitution, these two groups formed an alliance that would dominate the Republican Party and revolutionize American politics.

Woodstock: A Rock ’N Roll Phenomenon “Woodstock was a festival that took place in 1969, it gave people a chance to hangout and listen to thirty-three bands play Rock ’N Roll music” (History Channel). The event took place on a 600 acre farm where sex, drugs, and music were done in abundance. Woodstock was an influential event in the history of music because it was a political platform for musicians. It was a major part of the Hippie movement in the 1960s, and it left a lasting impact on Rock n’ Roll for years to come. “Woodstock started with a partnership between four men, John Roberts, Joel Rosemen, Artie Kornfeld and Mike Lang” (History Channel).