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A diary about life in the trenches
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At first I thought we were right, our nation fought to stop the spread of communism but in reality, it wasn’t. Day by day we send more and more soldiers and spend more money to keep the war going on, but did it really accomplish anything? No, just pointless deaths of our soldiers and the civilians in Vietnam. Our young boys could’ve become another lost generation like Germany had during World War 1 if the war kept going on. The bombings in Vietnam accomplished nothing as times where more civilians have died than the Viet Kong. My struck my heart even worst was the My Lai Massacre and may have scarred me and my family forever. We fought to “stop the spread of communism”, but were nothing more than savages. Our soldiers killed nearly 500 innocent civilians; men, women, children, and infants all brutally mutilated. …show more content…
How could we do such a horrendous thing like this, it was wrong, so wrong, what went through the mind of these soldiers? God knows what. The devil may have taken them over at that moment. We could not continue this any longer, we rioted at the Lincoln Memorial, we wanted this war to stop, it wasn’t right, we marched all the way to the pentagon. Even though we were stopped and many people were arrested that didn’t stop us. We kept on repeating until the people of America rose together with us and with that we were able to pull out of the war. Vietnam may have became a communist country but it was a pointless war to begin with, we were able to prevent us from losing a
i. Difficulties faced by soldiers due to the nature of fighting in the Vietnam War - Personnel had difficulties with transportation supplied with adapted vehicles back seat faced rear to provide additional fire power (Source A) – It appears as if the government didn't worry enough to supply men with safe and capable equipment - Threat of traps led to fear as vehicles had to be parked on street at night (Source A) o Check for traps each morning became a daily ritual particularly in fuel tanks (Source A) o A request for a locking fuel cap was denied because weren’t entitled to one” (Source A) • What circumstances would have needed to arise for them to be entitled to one? The Offensive full guard was set up (24hrs a day), personnel got no sleep and were constantly on alert (Source A) – How significant would this have been in the personnel’s mental frame of mind?
The Vietnam War took place in between 1947- 1975. It consisted of North Vietnam trying to make South Vietnam a communism government. The United States later joined this conflict because of the stress North Vietnam was putting to South Vietnam to become a government that America did not want. The main reason why America joined was because of a theory called the Domino Effect. America and Russia were going through what has been dubbed the Cold War. The Domino Effect is the theory that communism will spread form one country to another. United states does not want this because our government is a democracy and communism opposes everything we stand for. America fearing communism was growing, stepped into Vietnam with America’s interest in mind, instead of Vietnam’s. There are several reason why American should have not gotten involved with this war. The most important reason was that America government officials made to much of a big deal about communism. This might sound cynical, but America to a certain degree did over react. Let it be said that it is much easier to say this after the fact. By looking back at McCarthyism, we can see the silliness of this fear. There is a serious side though. Thousands of people dies for a government that has no impact of their daily life. What regime Vietnam was going to change over to had no effect on the every day cycle of the United States. So truly, one can say, this can not one thing to do with America, its government and people.
“We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak of the -- for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours”(King).
Firstly, This war took place from 1962 and finished in 1975 (Australian War Memorial, n.d) and saw a “welcome home” for the soldiers like never before. The Prime Minister at the time was Robert Menzies who believed that we should send troops to Vietnam to help America stop the ‘domino theory’, a theory in which America believe that when one country becomes a communist, surrounding countries will become communist as well, causing the world to become communist and America would no longer be able to trade any material or weapons to other countries to make money, forcing America to become a communist country as well. However a differing view of the Opposition Leader, Arthur Calwell, was equally passionate against sending troops to Vietnam to fight. In Arthur Calwel’s speech, Calwel stated in the Governments’s announcement “We do not think it will help the fight against Communism” (House of Representatives, 1965). The Public opinion was divided over this war and had never been displayed as overtly as it was during ...
I was against the war over in Vietnam. Part of that reason was because I didn’t think that the fighting over there was all that necessary but the real reason was because my brother Mack was drafted into the war. He was drafted pretty early on when they started the draft so when he was killed that’s where my hatred for the war.. really came from. *She actually got a little quiet here so I did my best to avoid talking too much about her brother (Keeping in mind I didn’t know this happened at the beginning)*
We lost many men fighting in pointless situations trying to fight for sections of a jungle, which would just be lost the next day. Another point of frustration was the technological dominance over Vietcong; however, the USA army was not able to effectively use this advantage to win the war. Americans were not accustomed to losing a war. Looking back at WWII, America was fighting a just war, against an evil force. But in Vietnam, the enemy was in the shadows, unknown. In fact, the enemy wasn’t really the Vietnamese, but it was Communism. An idea cannot be destroyed by a war machine, especially in a foreign country. The anti-war music during the Vietnam-War era caught fire because the people agreed with the ideas presented in the music. The American people wanted
Even with these contradictions, the results are obvious. The question that must be posed is whether these results make the American soldiers involved that day “guilty”. There is the fact that the environment of the Vietnam War made it very confusing for the soldiers to know exactly who the enemy was, as well as providing pent-up frustration due to the inability to engage in real combat with the enemy. If this is the case, though, why did some soldiers with the same frustrations refuse the orders and sit out on the action? Why did some cry while firing, and why then did one man go so far as to place himself between the Vietnamese and the firing soldiers?
The Vietnam War was the longest and most expensive war in American History. The toll we paid wasn't just financial, it cost the people involved greatly, physically and mentally. This war caused great distress and sadness, as well as national confusion. Everyone had that one burning question being why? Why were we even there? The other question being why did America withdrawal from Vietnam. The purpose of this paper is to answer these two burning questions, and perhaps add some clarity to the confusion American was experiencing.
From 1965 to 1973, the United States military sent over 536,000 combat troops into the jungles, villages, and swamps of Vietnam. Of these 536,000, over 58,000 men would never return. Despite air superiority, artillery, and the most technologically advanced armed forces in the world, the United States slumped to defeat by the hands of both their enemy and themselves. Unpreventably so, the United States of America was defeated in Vietnam due egregious errors in political and military judgment, lack of popular support and an extreme unpreparedness to fight the Vietcong and North Vietnamese in a guerilla war.
The Vietnam War was the longest and most unpopular war in which Americans ever fought. And there is no reckoning the cost. The toll in suffering, sorrow, in rancorous national turmoil can never be tabulated. No one wants ever to see America so divided again. And for many of the more than two million American veterans of the war, the wounds of Vietnam will never heal.
It was the evening of Christmas, 1776. The voice of an army sergeant shouted, “Everybody, up this instant! We’ve got a battle to win!” George Washington’s order awoke us soldiers, and we prepared for a rough night, as General Washington knew it would be more than strenuous to get the Continental Army, made up of 2,400 men, across the Delaware River especially in such harsh weather conditions. The plan was to attack in the morning since the Hessians would be celebrating Christmas tonight, they will hopefully be too tired to put up a fight tomorrow morning. The cold, brisk air intruded into the tent, as the rest of the soldiers arose from their slumber, not knowing what the day would bring them, or should I say, night.
The Vietnam War has had its effects on America, both good and bad. We can ridicule it, we can deny it, we can say it was for the best, we can say we shouldn't have even gotten involved, but the one thing we can't do is ignore it. Because it's become an unforgettable part of history, and we all need to remember Vietnam.
As we sum up the causes of war, one can only see them as excuses for rationalizing the killing of own kind. The lack of world sovereignty, the presence of a nation-state and human nature of individuals can be studied, revised and studied again. But one situation remains clear. War sucks. The Vietnam War will be remembered by the families of the soldier who died and by the individuals who experience the war first hand. This war might have been avoided if a world government had been developed and foreign policy established. But one will never know.
Many believe that America's involvement in the Vietnam War was a disaster. The majority of the men and women fighting in the war had little or no idea why they were there in the first place. The staggering number of lives that was lost cannot and will not be overlooked. The importance of this war was decimated, and the actions of political leaders were scrutinized by there own people as well as other countries. One question that comes to mind when thinking about the Vietnam War is our reasoning for entering the war and what our enemies thought about America's intervention in the war. America's intervention in Vietnam changed the lives of many people and families in our country today.
The Vietnam war had different outcomes for everyone involved. The war had both a positive and negative outcome for the United States of America. The outcome was more on the negative side than positive, the soldiers went in the stop the spread of communism and failed. It cost the U.S billions of dollars and millions of lives.(DeLeon,2014) The war taught us a “lesson” that getting out