Vietnam: Causes And The Impacts Of The Vietnam War

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

To this very day, The Vietnam War has changed the ways how many civilians live their lives, especially my family. On December 19th, 1946, Ho Chi Minh created a group called, Viet Minh in order to regain control of Vietnam from the French. During the war, France had suffered from many things, although they had advanced artillery and financial aid with the U.S. France had lacked knowledge of Guerrilla Warfare, since they had never experienced fighting in a jungle. They had also had a problem identifying enemies, since most had dressed like citizens, or citizens newly recruited to part of Viet Minh. Eventually, France had fallen to Vietnam on August 1st, 1954 at Dien Bien Phu and is recognized to the French as a free country.

For example, even after the truth was revealed, only “one soldier, Lieutenant William Calley, was found guilty of directing the atrocity” (Foner, GML, 814). With respect to the discussed situation, the people considered it inappropriate for the authorities to refer to thousands of people who died in the war and thousands more who “have been crippled and scarred by war”, and justify the inhumane activities of American troops in Vietnam (Lyndon, Statement, 2). This contributed to the larger extent of division between the opposing sides as far as neither of them was ready to seek consensus and to take the position of the objective truth. In any case, the revealing of the information regarding the My Lai events was an event causing ambivalent reaction of the American

As soldiers were being captured in Vietnam, prisoners of war (POWs) were fearful that the United States would leave them behind and thought of them as expendable troops. This made them feel for the longest time that they were a “nobody” in the eyes of America. As Families rallied behind the POWs movement, the government had no choice but to intervene on the matter (Townley). More movement at home perspired as the government failed to progress on people’s new

His needs for and those of his army landed upon deaf ears. His men needed clothing and was told by Congress that when they were last at war, the men provided for their own clothing. Congress refused to send them such things as meat, medication, gunpowder and even money to pay the troops, to say the least. Although Washington’s pleas to Congress for his troops were that of anger, he kept his composure when it came to his civilian authority. When the war was over, he couldn’t wait to progress home to Mt.

1. 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. The anti-war movement grew increasingly popular in American society, which led to America lost numerous supporters.

Lee’s soldiers march to Amelia Court House, Virginia. Although they were fearful, Lee was hoping to make it there before Grant in order for his soldiers to be fed appropriately. However, the long journey began to break them down. “Mile by mile the march turns into a death pageant” (31). Two days after their journey on Tuesday, April 4, 1865, Lee’s army finally makes it to Amelia Court House, but little do the know, there was no food and Grant and his army were “racing to block Lee’s path” (35).

In the novel The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien expresses to the reader why the men went to the war and continued to fight it. In the first chapter, “The Things They Carried,” O’Brien states “It was not courage, exactly; the object was not valor. Rather they were too frightened to be cowards.” The soldiers went to war not because they were courageous and ready to fight, but because they felt the need to go. They were afraid and coped with their lack of courage by telling stories (to themselves or aloud) and applied humor to the situations they encountered. The men who served in the Vietnam War were just barely men, some of them were just hitting the age twenty.

Unlike Norman who is permeated by the memory of Vietnam, notably the drowning death of Kiowa, the town “had no memory therefore no guilt” (O’Brien 137). While Norman carries the traumatic memory of global warfare with him into the domestic space, there is an unwillingness of the local American space to listen to the realities of war fought abroad. Rather than speak of the trauma suffered abroad, Norman traps his story inside him and allows the wound to destroy him rather break the idyllic American landscape with the reality of the horror of

Unfortunately the Viet Minh was still not capable of threatening the French troops especially due to a lack of arms but Ho did not see any other opportunity than launching a war in 1946 against the French. The First Indochina War had started and was a rebellion against the French 's abandonment of the negotiation settlements and their even more violent and oppressing rule than before the World War. Ho, perceived by many scholars as peaceful, had to accept “the inevitable and issued a personal appeal to the 'entire people ' to wage the resistance war”14. The war was a bloody war, costing many lives on the French but especially the Vietnamese side but eventually, although predicted differently lead to the victory of the Vietnamese over the French. A significant moment in history as it was the first time a colonial power was defeated by its colony.

What president Hoover did was insane, he knew that those people were in need of jobs and homes. All those veterans risked their lives to fight in that war, and many of those veterans were disabled after WWI. Why did the government not help them in that time of need? Those veterans had the right to

In the Shadow of the Greatest Generation: The Americans Who Fought the Korean War, written in 2012, Melinda L. Pash mentions the effect of the conflict on soldiers when they returned. Pash argues Americans were too busy with their lives to even care about the conflict or the soldiers that were gradually making their way back home. Pash acknowledges that even academic scholars had been reluctant to challenge the initial hot war of the Cold War. The historical significance is that these soldiers served their country receiving little acknowledgement for their services and accomplishments. The returning veterans of the Korean War faced a very different America than had the veterans of the two world wars.

Congress could not enforce states to pay taxes. In many cases when Congress asked states for taxes for military reasons, the states would not pay anything. Due to the lack of taxes, many War Veterans from the Revolutionary Army who were promised payment from the Government were barely given anything back, this ultimately lead to protests and rebellions. Congress could not do anything about these rebellions and protests because of their lack of funding from the states, and control over the states, so the States ultimately had to deal with this themselves. The United States then quickly made the new Constitution which balanced the power between the State and Congress.

American soldiers were sent to be stationed in Vietnam, to try to prevent the spread of communism. Many Americans were against American involvement in Vietnam because it cost America about $2.5 billion dollars a year and the money was coming from the taxpayers. Throughout the war, American soldiers faced many challenges. One challenged American soldiers faced was actually reaching the Viet Cong. In order to reach the Viet Cong soldiers, American soldiers known as tunnel rats had to climb down in tunnels to be successful during the war.

The Tet Offensive exposed how weak and unprepared the American forces in Vietnam were, as the attack completely tore apart any hope of a victory against the Communists. On March 25, 1968, two months after Tet, a Harris poll showed that 60 percent of Americans regarded the Tet Offensive as a defeat for U.S. objectives in Vietnam (North). Already, Americans knew that the war was not going to be won so the efforts in trying to continue the war were greatly opposed. Over half the Americans at the time believed that the Tet Offensive was a defeat even though many politicians argued that it was a victory for the United States. The public had no hope in the government and victory in the war after the attack.