Thesis statement: The US objective was to keep all countries from turning to "communist" and being controlled by primarily communist governments.
Throughout Vietnam’s history geography has play a role during it and because of it’s location, climate, soil it was an ideal place for farming which would soon attract invaders. The Chinese, French ,and Japanese all wanted something from Vietnam which included agriculture abundance, colonial possessions, and natural resources. They all controlled Vietnam at this time. Japan surrendered when vietminh declared it’s independence and the United States did not support this independence. The French and Vietminh went into war where the french had lost and Vietnam was divided ( French took control of
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south Vietnam and Vietminh controlled the north). In 1960 South Vietnam formed NLF with a goal of overthrowing diem, the the NLF became known as the vietnamese communist or VC (vietcong) where many south vietnamese joined. The United States commit 900 military advisors to train ARVN forces and during the next few years, President Kennedy increases the number of United States troops when VC began guerrilla welfare. Diem cracks on United States so they (United States) pull support for diem and aid in a plot to overthrow him. In November 1963 ARVN army officers assassinate him, the in 1964 the United States began to increase it’s involvement in Vietnam. President John begins to increase the number of United States troops in south Vietnam to prevent communist takeover which he would need a congressional backing. He asks congress to authorize use of military to prevent further aggression, congress pass the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. Johnson also calls for a “buildup” of United Staes forces in Vietnam, to help with this Johnson reinstitute the draft. There were 1084 thousand in Vietnam (184,000). February 1965 the United States begins strategic bombing of North Vietnam called rolling thunder. The key target was the Ho Chi Minh Trail and it was bombed repeatedly and the goal was to expose jungle supply routes hiding places. Johnson was forced to step up ground war when failure of air war was to produce quickly. The United States used search and destroy mission to flush VC from their hide outs, they also used free fire zones that are areas in which that anything that moved was was assumed to be hostile was destroyed.
16,000 United States service mean were killed in 1968, some criticized the government handling of the warned said that they didn't do enough. The government had said that according to body counts the United States were winning the war, but that really wasn't the case. At the end of January was marked the Tet the Vietnamese new year, and on the night of January 30th 1968, the north Vietnamese army and VC launched a countrywide attack against the United States and South Vietnamese controlled posts, villages, and cites. The attack was known was the Tet Offensive. North Vietnam expected the Tet Offensive to bring down South Vietnam government by causing South Vietnamese to rally behind them as liberators. But it FAILS! Military Tet was a failure but politically it was a huge success.
In the 1968 election Nixon made Vietnam a campaign issue promising to win the war, but he also planned to expand the war by bombing neutral Cambodia to cut off the North supply lines along the Ho Chi Minh trail. He wanted to show North Vietnam that the United States was willing to purse “peace with honor”. Nixon went public with the bombings and sent troops into Cambodia, NVA invaded
Cambodia. January 27 1973, United States- North Vietnam announced cease fire , were United States agreed to withdraw troops and to help rebuild Vietnam. Prisoners were exchanged and 185,000 South Vietnamese soldiers were killed and nearly 1 million in North Vietnam. There was more than 2 million Americans who were involved in the war and 58,00 died. When the remaining vets came back home from Vietnam they had the worst treatments ever towards them and it was one of the biggest tragedies they had to face. The Vietnam War marked a turning point in the history of modern conventional warfare in both in the extent of guerrilla and anti-guerrilla combat involved and in the increased reliance in helicopters, which afforded mobility in a difficult terrain.
After World War II, the French began a fight for their former colony of Indochina, which included Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The French and other countries failed to see at that time the will and desire of the Vietnamese people to gain independence from foreign rule and to have their country unified. Ho Chi Minh, a Vietnamese nationalist, fought the French and overtook the North Vietnam capital of Hanoi with his followers, the Viet Minh, declaring the area the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. (Anderson, 2002) The French were unwilling to give up their colony and drove the Vietminh from many of the larger cities in the south. The United States entered the Vietnam struggle in 1950 when $15 million in aid was pledged to France in order to fight the Vietminh. (Anderson, 2002) The rationale was to align with France and keep the Soviet Union from expanding in Europe and to keep another country from falling into communist rule.
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?
While Nixon was in office, he used the war to his benefit, helping him win another term in office. Nixon’s plan was to use “Vietnamization,” a process in which American soldiers would train South Vietnamese to fight for themselves and eventually drawing American troops out of the war (Vietnamization). At first, General WestPoint was in charge, raiding Vietcong bases and trying to eliminate them. The original plan was to use the body count to discourage any more NVA troops from fighting, but this strategy backfired because both Vietnamese and American troops had high body counts. General Abraham was appointed as commander and began the “Vietnamization” strategy, which only seemed to work in the public’s eyes. Nixon made a treaty with South Vietnamese President, to have a ceasefire to withdraw American troops and release American POWs while South Vietnam took over the war (The). Nixon planned to use this strategy to withdraw all American troops, however it was “worse, Nixon would leave North Vietnamese troops occupying and controlling much of the South, while withdrawing all remaining American ground forces (Hughes).” Nixon’s use of Vietnamization helped to further his political resolve. He “sacrificed the lives of American soldiers to further his electoral ends (Hughes).” The ...
North Vietnam came under the control of the Vietnamese Communists who had opposed France and aimed for a unified Vietnam under Communist rule. Vietnamese who had collaborated with the French controlled the South. For this reason the United States became involved in Vietnam because it believed that if all of the country fell under a Communist government, Communism would spread throughout Southeast Asia and further. This belief is known as the domino theory. The decision to enter Vietnam reflected Americas idea of its global role - the U.S. could not recoil from world leadership.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the most controversial war the United States had ever been involved in during its rich two-hundred year history would engulf the country, ultimately leading to the collapse of a president, and the division of a nation. The Vietnam War was a military struggle fought in Vietnam and neighboring countries from 1959-1975 involving the North Vietnamese and NLF (National Liberation Front) versus the United States and the South Vietnamese ("The Vietnam..."). In 1969, newly elected President Richard M. Nixon, aiming to achieve "peace with honor" in Vietnam, began to put his "Vietnamization" policy into place -- removing the number of American military personnel in the country and transferring combat roles to the South Vietnamese ("Speeches..."). But at the same time, Nixon resumed the secret bombing of North Vietnam and launched B-52 bombing raids over Cambodia, intending to wipe out NLF and North Vietnamese base camps along the border. The intensive secret bombing, codenamed Operation Menu, lasted for four years and was intentionally concealed from the American public; meanwhile, Nixon ordered the invasion of Cambodia by United States troops, arguing that it was necessary to protect the security of American units. This invasion into an allegedly neutral country was cause for much protest in the States, especially on college campuses such as Kent State University, where students rioted and held walk-outs. Ultimately, the secret bombing of neutral Cambodia was deliberately conducted without the consent of Congress, violating the articles outlined in the United States Constitution, and would have been grounds for impeachment had Nixon not resigned under the cloud of the Watergate scandal in August of 1974 ("Richard M....
Vietnam has a very rich and cultural diverse background dating all the way back to 1066 when William the Conqueror invaded and paved the way for English colonization. The French had been colonizing since the 19th century. The French role in Vietnams history is critical; they started out by bringing these simple peasants to the latest technology of farming and hunting (Yancey 37). The French helped these people out greatly in the beginning, but like all stories of occupation go they just got worse. They started forcing rules and laws on the people of Vietnam. Thus started the First Vietnam War, also known as the Indochina War between France and Vietnam. "The French possessed military superiority, but the Vietnamese had already the hearts and minds of the country. (38). Even from the beginning the Vietnamese had the odds to there favor. The French looked at the wars in numbers and how many lost on each side. They gathered from all the battles that they were winning because the Vietnamese casualties far outweighed the French; nonetheless they were wrong. To a certain point the French were fighting a game that they could not win at any cost. The French had the military superiority but the Vietnamese had the manpower and the Guerilla tactics. The Indochina War ended with French loosing terrible at Dienbienphu, where a whole French garrison was wiped out.
The political and societal ramifications of Vietnam's Tet Offensive indubitably illustrate the historical oddity of 1968. 1967 had not been a bad year for most Americans. Four years after the profound panic evoked by the assassination of John Kennedy, the general public seemed to be gaining a restored optimism, and even the regularly protested Vietnam War still possessed the semblance of success (Farber and Bailey 34-54). However, three short weeks following the eve of 68, Americans abruptly obtained a radically different outlook. The Tet Offensive, beginning on January 30, 1968, consisted of a series of military incursions during the Vietnam War, coordinated between the National Liberation Front's People's Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF), or "Viet Cong," and the ...
The Vietnam War was the longest war in America's history of involvement. Twenty years of hell, land mines, cross-fire, and death. Vietnam was divided by the Geneva Accord. The north being communist run by Ho Chi Minh. The south being anti-Communist run by Ngo Dinh Diem. Before Vietnam was separated, it was run by France. France had ruled most of Indochina since the late 1800s. The Vietnamese were unhappy with the way the French were controlling, therefore, many of them took refuge in China. When in China, they began to follow the lead of Ho Chi Minh, who wanted to model the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence as that of the U.S. version. In the 1940s, Japan had taken over Vietnam which upset Ho Chi Minh and his revolutionaries when they had returned a year later.
It is understandable that some Americans strongly opposed the United States getting involved in the Vietnam War. It had not been a long time since the end of World War II and simply put, most Americans were tired of fighting. Mark Atwood Lawrence is one of the people who opposed our involvement in the Vietnam War. In his essay, “Vietnam: A Mistake of Western Alliance”, Lawrence argues that the Vietnam War was unnecessary and that it went against our democratic policies, but that there were a lot of things that influenced our involvement.
The speech that I chose to analyze and critique is from John Forbes Kerry “Vietnam Veterans Against the War” to the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. In this speech he did not represent himself, he represented the group of 1000 veterans that feels the same way he does about the war.
At first, he was a strong supporter of the Vietnam War but then became a strong opponent. The Department of Defense continued to lie to the people about the hype about the war. The government continued to say that the war was under control. The Pentagon Papers already have statistics on the Vietnam War. As soon as Nixon saw the paper, he went to his Attorney General right away to stop the printing of the New York Times newspaper. Daniel Ellsberg knew that he would get arrested for making copies of the papers.
Another military that occurred in 1968 was the Tet Offensive that happened in Vietnam. On the morning of January 30,1968 13 cities went under attack by Viet Cong forces. They attacked cities, towns and government buildings and US military bases in south Vietnam. The U.S. Embassy was also attacked. Close to 150 U.S. Marines were killed in the Fight of Hue, along with some 400 South Vietnamese troops. The Tet Offensive marked a crucial turning point in American participation in the Vietnam War. It was a war disliked by many Americans.
On January 31, 1968 The Tet offensive was a surprise attack in hopes for the American soldiers to back out and stop their support of South Vietnam. The North Vietnam along with Viet Cong main goal was to turn Vietnam fully communist, but in order to succeed they had to defeat South Vietnam and try to intimidate the American leaders out of Vietnam. They believed that the Tet offensive would cause the Army of the Republic of Vietnam forces to collapse which would weaken the Saigon defensive positions and disrupt South Vietnam and the U.S plans in attacking North Vietnam. The Tet offensive approximately sent 80,000 National Liberation Front soldiers to Central South Vietnam, these soldiers started to attack at 13 cities and lead to 100 cities, towns, military bases and many other places. Four thousand National Liberation Front soldiers were sent to Saigon in which this actually weaken Saigon control. Tet offensive was a surprise but the U.S. soldiers managed to fight back in which caused numerous of Viet Cong losses. As a result the National Liberation Front suffered as many as 40,000 casualties. During the attack Charlie Company had several of its soldiers killed in the area during the preceding weeks and were down to just about 100 men. The Tet offensive heated things up between the Charlie Company and Viet Cong soldiers (Abdul
One of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War was called the Tet Offensive. The Tet Offensive was to protect against the forces of the South Vietnam, United States Armed Forces, and their allies. The Vietnam war in 1968 was the bloodiest year which shocked the public because American soldiers killed hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians. The North Vietnam attacked in the late night and it did not do much damage versus when the main North Vietnamese operation attacked because it was very effective and was countrywide. It was the largest military operation which stunned both the US and South Vietnamese armies, which caused them to lose all control for the time being.
Kennedy and Diem were both killed in 1963 and 1964. Johnson took control of the situation by increasing the amount of money and manpower put into Vietnam. Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving the president full military power. After Johnson dramatically escalated the amount of soldiers in Vietnam, The North Vietnamese mounted a surprise attack during the Vietnamese new year, and this strike was called the Tet Offensive. It made America more aware of what they were up against, that the communists were capable of fierce, guerrilla warfare, unlike anything Americans had ever fought before. Images of the terror and disarray reached back home, and the U.S. began to wonder how effective their involvement in Vietnam really was.