The Vietnam War

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This essay is about talking and analysing the Vietnam War. This civil war was between the Communist North and the Democratic South because of the fear of communism spreading to the South. Other Western countries also helped in this war because they too were afraid of communism spreading, and so they sent money and troops to aid South Vietnam. Some of these countries included America, Australia, and New Zealand. This war was one of the most divisive events in history and I am going to talk about why this is so.

For most of Vietnam?s history the country has been under foreign rule, primarily by the Chinese. Domination of the region by the French began in 1860, and by the late 19th century they had colonised a number of places around the Gulf of Tonkin. In World War II, however, the Japanese government took control of much of the area, and set up a puppet regime that was eventually forced out by the Vietnamese at the end of the war in 1945. After the war, France fought hard to regain their former territories in the region, but because they had a poorly organized army and little determination amongst its troops, their plans soon collapsed. The North Vietnamese tried to take over the government in South Vietnam between 1955 and 1960, and in 1964, with the help of China and Russia, North Vietnam began a large scale drive to conquer the whole country. This is when the Vietnam War really began.

The Vietnam War started around the 1950?s, a time when communism was gradually spreading across the world. By 1954, Vietnam was separated into two parts, the democratic South Vietnam and the communist North Vietnam. Soon violence began to break out and tensions began to rise even more between the two. This was because the South was scared ...

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...help for the stress they felt. It was only on the 3rd of October 1987, fifteen years after the veterans had returned from the war, that a ?Welcome Home? parade was finally held for them. This was when attitudes towards the people who had participated in the unpopular war began to change. Today Vietnam veterans can enjoy respect coming from their community but many still feel the bitterness over the impact the war had had on their lives.

In conclusion, we can say that the Vietnam War was one of the most violent and divisive wars of all times. This battle of ideology and false fear of being dominated by principles dissimilar to the Western capitalist value system, led to the death of many innocent people and destruction of property that could have been spared otherwise, with a bit of benevolence in the heart of the politicians who were responsible for the war.

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