Us Involvement In The Vietnam War Essay

France had control of Indochina which later became the countries Laos, Cambodia, North Vietnam and South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh, who was communist, and his followers, who were called Viet Minh entered into war with the French from 1946 to 1954. There was a conference to decide the fate of Indochina, which was determined in the Geneva Accord. The Geneva Accord divided Indochina into 4 different regions which were Laos, Cambodia, North Vietnam, and South Vietnam. Laos and Cambodia were both meant to be neutral. An election was planned for 1956 to reunite North and South Vietnam under the same leader.

U.S. leaders were worried about the influence North Vietnams communist leader, Ho Chi Minh would have on South Vietnam. Eisenhower had the “falling domino” theory he said “you have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly.” (1290) What he meant by it was if South Vietnam became a communist nation they worried other nations in Southeast Asia would as well which was the last thing the U.S.

However, I think the U.S. was too involved in the war, at onr point we had 530,000 troops in Vietnam which I think is just too many. We could have helped by sending less troops and having them train the Vietnamese, which could have potentially saved the U.S money and would have saved U.S. lives. By the end of the war 58,000 Americans had died and many more had been wounded. “The massive, prolonged war had cost taxpayers $150 billion…” (1399) In addition, “in 1968, the United States was spending $322,000 on every communist killed in Vietnam; the poverty programs at home received only $53 per person.” (1342) We were spending way too much money on the war. In my opinion we should have been involved but we should have sent significantly less troops and spent less