Vietnam War Dbq Essay

Alongside these soldiers, there was a reporter sent out as former President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Average Citizen” in battle. Walter Cronkite was a journalist who filmed and recorded different events in the Vietnam and reported them back to the states through CBS Evening News. According to Walter Cronkite, “it was increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out … will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could.” (Document D). Soldiers fought, killed, and died in this war but as Cronkite stated, the war was a lost cause in a sense that there was no way out except a stalemate, or a draw, on both parties in order to halt the casualties

As Cronkite reports this back to the U.S., it reveals yet another reason to be against joining the war. Many people have gone and fought in this war, but too many lives have been lost without any gain. Too many lives were put on the line for a war to end on a stalemate, though, that is what the proceeding President Richard Nixon, is forced to do. With millions of lives lost, there is no longer a purpose for enlisting in the war and the draft dodgers have been proven correct in protesting against the Vietnam war.

In this drawing titled (left, document D) “But How to Let Go-- Gracefully” by cartoonist Vaughn Shoemaker (Document D), the tiger represents the ferocious Northern Vietnamese armies and Guerilla regime while the people hanging onto its tail represent Southern Vietnam and the American military. The tiger represents North

There, volunteer Doctor Veale Rogers encountered many patient and injured Vietnamese people: “I remember one cute little bright eyed… kid… who’d been shot through the lung. I operated on him and the dressings were painful. I had nothing for the pain, so I would talk to him… I knew I’d hurt him. I could see the tears in his eyes, but he would not call out…” (Document G) A volunteer doctor shares his experience with his patients in Vietnam. They waited patiently at eight o’clock in the morning for someone to come and help them seal their wounds. The countless lives lost or broken from this war will never make the war worth fighting. There were too many lives lost, too many lives and families torn apart on both sides fighting in this war. Senator Eugene McCarthy spoke on the news of the state of the war overseas: “In 1966, 1967 and now again in 1968, we hear the same hollow claims of victory. For the fact is that the enemy is bolder than ever while we must enlarge our own commitment.” (Document H) In this statement, though he says we must enlarge our commitment in the war, he states that for three consecutive years, the American people were given hollow claims of victory. These three years were three too many with the U.S. involvement in the war for 1966, 67, and 68. Within this statement, McCarthy both supports and opposes the war. The U.S. stands no chance