America During the Vietnam War

The Vietnam war is one of the world’s most famous war and also one of the most

critcized wars in modern history. According to Vietnam-war.info (philadelphia

website design 2009) the casualties are estimated to be at least 2million people

around 60.000 of them were american soldiers. It was caused because of different

political views and fear to give up old colonies to people that in the future could be

your enemies.

Background

According to John Simkin for European Virtual School, (n.d)Vietnam

www.spartacus.co.uk french missionaries went to Vietnam during the 17th Century

and they were greeted very well. However as Simkin goes on, after a couple of

years the Vietnameese government realzies that the reformation to chatolism

changed their soceity drastically, the christians would only marry one wife and

they would send their prayers to God rather than the emperor. This made the

Vietnameese government agressive against the Catholics. This resulted in the

french government sending troops to Vietnam in order to be able to ensure the

safety of the missionaries/catholics.

Ever since 19th centurary Vietnam was a colony owned by the Japaneese and the

French. After WW ll Vietnam was under total control by the French who had placed

a french-friendly government to rule Vietnam for them. However not everyone in

Front (from hereby known as NLF) mostly consisting of communists and nationalists

was created. NLF started a guerilla war against the government and they were very

successfull and they got control over the northern parts of Vietnam. The NLF chose

Hanoi to be their main base under the management of the communist Ho Chi Minh.

South Vietnam’s leader president Ngo Dinh Diem was positioned in a city called

Saigon.

The Theory of Containment

The Containment was a policy issued by Harry Truman who was the president of

USA 1945-1953. It was a policy that was launched to prevent communism to spread

through out the world. It was enforced with military, economic and diplomatic

actions to prevent what was describe as a the domino effect, If one country fall for

communism others will follow.

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Propaganda containing theese kinds of messages was sent to whole of America

using radio, television and flyers making the americans afraid of everything related

to communism.

This later become known as a part of the Truman Doctrine which was president

Trumans thought of how america should handle their foreign politics.

This theory was used to justify the ongoing war in Vietnam. Letting the american

people know that you’re not just saving Vietnam but in the end you’re also saving

america from communism.

According to NSC-68 the decleration of United States Objectives and Programs for

Ntional Security (found at http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsc-hst/nsc-68-4.htm)

NATO was formed as a step to make sure that west Europe was still loyal to the US

and to prevent them from applying communism. Making them allies with america

prevented them from becoming a part of the rising russia.

The military response

Public Library and Macmillan Inc. With foundings from Tilden Foundations ISBN 0-

02-861322-8) 1962 the troops in Vietnam were told to fire back if fire upon and a

military command was set up in South Vietnam.

1964 President Lyndon Johnsson asked the senate to allow him to aid the french in

Vietnam. Alreday at this point there were protests in the US against going to war.

However by the end of the year more than 180 000 troops were deployed to

Vietnam and the number was still increasing

1966 There was 385 000 troops in Vietnam and the US were consistently launching

air strikes against communist strongholds in North Vietnam, parts of Cambodia

were also bombed since the regime allowed NLF’s soliders to walk through their

border to be able to flank the americans. It is by many belived that the American

government have tried to alter the numbers of civilian cassualties sustained,

however needles to say there were many civilians that were seriously injured both

in Vietnam and Cambodia. This makes the NLF more popular and they increase

their armies of militias. President Johnson therefore restricts the

bombings(allthough not completly) while engaged in peace talks. Since this came

without results they resumed the air strikes. According to the American History

Desk Reference (printed 1997 by The New York Public Library and Macmillan Inc.

With foundings from Tilden Foundations ISBN 0-02-861322-8) the NLF anwsers with

an military offensive operation called the Tet Offensive which was a 3 weeks long

military raid. The US forces were able to maintain most of their military positions

but the psychological losses were servere. More and more people back in America

started questioning the war. How many american lives were the freedom of the
Vietnameese people worth? Most people back in America had expected a swift

outcome but the NLF were more determined and clever than anyone had

anticipated. Shortly after theese events America peaked thier military force with

more than 500 000 soldiers.

Later on the same year a group of american solderis went on a search-and-destory

mission in one of the villages in South Vietnam that resulted in near 500 civilan

casualties most of them were women and children. This leaked to the press who

called it the ’’My Lai massacre’’ . The troops involved are brought to court and

were charged with war crimes and murder. Only one man is convicted. This was

ofcourse undermining the government since they claimed to be there to protect

the civilian population.

The End of the War

1970 The protests among students are rising and 4 students from the Kent State

University are killed by National Guardsmen during a protest. The protests had now

escalated so much that the white house had no choice but to listen to the people.

The same year almost 200 000 troops are withdrawn from Vietnam, around 300 000

were remaining. In order to be able to withdraw the remaning troops President

Richard Nixon reveales a new policy, the policy of Vietnamization, meaning that

gradually military responsability should be turned over the armies of South

Vietnam. The Congress repeals the reulution that gave the leagl rights to start the

war but President Nixon ignores this fact and continues to bomb Cambodia and

North Vietnam bu the is still withdrawing american troops from the area.

January 27 1973. United Sates, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the Vietcong

signed a peacetreaty. This is the end of the American involvement in Vietnam and
all troops are withdrawn. But the NLF had no intentions of honoring this treaty and

1975 they invade Saigon. The North Vietnam had won and the war was over.

Summary and Thoughts

It is easy to say that american shouldn’t have gone to war in Vietnam and allthough

I can understand people saying so but things like theese are always very

complicated. America wanted to demonstrate that their military forces were still

intact after WW ll and they wanted to make ceartain that the Soviet Union did not

get more allies. The Theory of Containment brainwashed the american people to

attack anything related to communism even though many probably did not even

know what communism really meant. This is most likely because that is nothing

that you learned in american schools and as they were fed with propaganda from

the government this was the result.

The Vietnam war with its 11years is the longest lasting war in Americas history and

the second most expensive according to doccuments from the american

government over 8.500 000 soldiers served in the war. Many of them today suffers

from psychologial traumas. Many soldiers were also wounded during the war. This

forced America to become more friendly to the handicapped. When you look at the

charts you see that the costs for the war were 140.6 Bil.$ + Veterans payments 130

bil.$=270.6bil.$ this is ofcourse excluding all the factors comming from facts like

how many veterans that couldn’t work when they came back because of traumas or

injuries. The people that were affected by loss of family member, making them
less effective at work. The costs of this are simply not messurable and you would

think that American should have changed the way they look upon war but as we

can see, America is still involved in several wars today, even though many

americans are against the war.