Vietnam: Causes And The Impacts Of The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a war the United States should have never been involved in. The

It was 1965 and the first U.S. troops were landing in South Vietnam, there were 3,500 U.S. Marines added to the already 25,000 advisers in the country. This war would define how we view life for decades and generations. Most people thought it was a mistaken war with no purpose other than to stop the flow of communism in Asia and the fear of others would follow, and add to the strength of the Soviet Union during the height of the cold war. Some people turned the war into a racist battle ground to justify the uprising and protest against the war. The troops were poorly armed and on average fought 240 days a year when compared to WW2 with only 40 days a year for infantrymen. One out of ten people in Vietnam was a casualty which leads to the 58,000 dead and rising in Vietnam. The 21 first century was defined by this war, which resulted into the carelessness in our defense of our country. We were pulling out of countries and some of them were retaliating and painted a target on the U.S.”s back. Our generation would not be the same without this defining war of a new age.

In A Viet Cong Memoir, we receive excellent first hands accounts of events that unfolded in Vietnam during the Vietnam War from the author of this autobiography: Truong Nhu Tang. Truong was Vietnamese at heart, growing up in Saigon, but he studied in Paris for a time where he met and learned from the future leader Ho Chi Minh. Truong was able to learn from Ho Chi Minh’s revolutionary ideas and gain a great political perspective of the conflicts arising in Vietnam during the war. His autobiography shows the readers the perspective of the average Vietnamese citizen (especially those involved with the NLF) and the attitudes towards war with the United States. In the book, Truong exclaims that although many people may say the Americans never lost on the battlefield in Vietnam — it is irrelevant.

One of the most profound effects the war had was the way it made the soldiers see human

Stickoff has very strong points. The vietnam war overall caused many deaths. For some, a war is very scary especially for the ones in it, but at the end of the day soldiers from both sides of the battlefield are affected. Just like any other traumati situation in life, like losing a loved one, will cause psychological damage. At the end of the day, every soldier is seen as a heroe by their own country. Both sides are fighting for what they believe in and both sides get affected from it.

The Vietnam War was fought to stop the spread of communism that threatened the United States way of life. War strategies that were used were harsh, major battles bloody, and war opposition at home was high. The leaders of our countries decisions caused devastating effects that not only shook our country but the whole world.

The Vietnam war took a major death toll in Vietnam, United States, South Korea, Thailand, New Zealand, and Australia. Just in the U.S., “more than 58,000 American soldiers were killed while more than 150,000 others wounded”. On both sides, there were almost 2 million civilians dead and 1.1 simply on the Vietnamese side. The My Lai Massacre, where soldiers brutally killed Vietnamese children and mothers, presents an example where the war mentally changed the soldiers in the war in a very horrendous way. On the other hand, the United States took brutal losses in the Tet Offensive, where the Vietcong slaughtered over 100 towns and twelve United States air bases.

The My Lai massacre was a point of changing views and perspectives of the American public on the Vietnam War (Source A). The violence of the actions taken were too extreme for many Americans to ignore. The massacre came to represent the war as a whole and the soldiers that were supposed to represent America’s heroes for a number of citizens no longer maintained this hero status but rather were seen as criminals (Source B). The massacre started nation-wide questioning about America’s involvement in the war and even people who were extremely pro-Vietnam war had to reanalyse their rationalisation for the American military presence in Vietnam (Source B). There was an increasing divide in the opinions about the war that only increased after the

The top reasons that United States of America lost in Vietnam War was because, corruption, climate and the lack of interests. The people in the United State of America did not support the war and certainly did not appreciate how the government decided to put their hands in the foreign countries. The young soldiers when they first arrived Vietnam their bodies did not adjust to the temperature and weather in Vietnam. When the United State government sent supplies and money over to the South Vietnamese military the money went to the pocket of the people in the upper power.

The American’s setback in Vietnam War is already tattooed in their history. It triggered shameful criticism both to General William Westmoreland and the US government. Even today, many Americans still ask whether the American effort in Vietnam was a sin, a blunder, an indispensable war, a noble cause, or an idealistic campaign (History Learning Site, 2015). Instrumental to this campaign was American General William C. Westmoreland who engineered the build-up and consolidation of U.S. military forces in South Vietnam. He is considered to be the primary reason why he was not able to win the war in Vietnam as he overestimated the American people’s patience and tolerance of friendly losses.

The conflict in Vietnam left numerous of returning American soldiers with both physical and psychological scars from their brutal first hand experiences in war. A large handful of veterans also suffered effects from agent orange. Agent orange was a chemical defoliant in which military aircrafts would drop over heavily wooded areas to destroy the NVA and Vietcong's natural cover of the dense jungles. Agent orange proved itself useful when used against the enemy, although this wasn't always the case as friendly fire often occurred leaving American soldiers with skin diseases and cancers. Psychological problems sadly stuck with veterans after the conflict.

The men in the Vietnam War had to deal with the painful memories and stress for the rest of their lives, however long those ended up being. The war’s strains weighed down the soldiers throughout their lives. One would think that the end of the war would have been a relief for the soldiers, but this was not always the case. When the soldiers returned

Ho Chi Minh, Former Prime Minister of Vietnam, once said: “You can kill ten of my

For young people, the Vietnam War is a thing of the past that they can only learn about it from second hand sources. In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, it becomes very apparent that the Vietnam conflict has proved to be one that many of the participants have not been able move away from. Throughout the 60s people were constantly fighting for their rights as citizens to protest war. It was more common than not for soldiers to never return home and many tried to keep the youth from going. The 60s was a time for change, a time for people to stand up for what they believe.

What has distinguished Vietnam veterans from most of their predecessors is that the public 's detestation of the war seemed to be directed onto them, as if it was their fault. Thus they did not return as heroes, but as men suspected in participating in shocking cruelty and wickedness or feared to be drug addicts. The combination of society rejecting them, the government ignoring them, and their families not understanding to them, caused Vietnam veterans to self-destruct both mentally and sometimes physically.