Vietnam War Essays (Examples)

In comparison to ovic, Reynolds joined the war precisely because she was acquainted with its unjustness and with the suffering that it provoked. She too had initially been inclined to support the war, particularly considering that her brother was already on the front and her father performed efforts with the purpose of having more Americans involved in the conflict. However, as time passed, she realized that the war was immoral and that the government was practically encouraging young people to risk their lives for an absurd cause. Moreover, when she actually came to witness the war directly, she discovered that the U.S. showed no interest whatsoever in the fate of people in Vietnam. Its only purpose was apparently that of eradicating communism, regardless of the consequences of such an act. The war no longer seemed to be glorious when considering that U.S. soldiers were reported to have committed war crimes.…

Vietnam ar - eb Sources

Type in 'the Vietnam war' on the Google search engine and 9, 470,000 web sites will pop up. Aside from being the longest war involving American troops, it has become to be known as the most unpopular war.

The first site listed is "The American Experience: Vietnam Online" at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/which provides an extensive detailed history of the war. There are numerous information links on the home page, such as an in-depth introduction, a timeline, a who's who, reflections on the war, and a link called 'In the Trenches' which provides information on the My Lai Massacre, the M.I.A. issue, and a listing of weapons possessed by each side.

It also provides links to the program transcripts of the PBS special, including "

Roots of a ar, America's Mandarin, LBJ Goes to ar, America Takes Charge,

America's Enemy, The Tet Offensive, Vietnamizing the ar, Cambodia and…

This ability to use the bipolar system to its advantage helped North Vietnam to win its war for independence and to take over South Vietnam in 1975. Realism not only fully explains the actions of each state in this conflict, but it also predicted the outbreak of war as soon as ideology became the focus of the debate on Vietnam.

In Conclusion, the Vietnam War was an excellent example of the interconnected nature of international relations theories, and each of the three theories applied explained at least a portion of the war's significance to its main actors. Realism, however, is a universally applied theory during state on state conflict, and the importance of maintaining stature in international affairs ultimately reigns supreme in the minds of policy makers and world leaders in all states.

"Vietnam." (2011). InfoPlease Website. Retrieved August 28, 2011, from http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0108144.html .

"Vietnam." (2011). InfoPlease Website. Retrieved August…

Vietnam: An Unpopular War

VIETNAM WA 12

The paper takes a look into the unpopularity of the Vietnam War and the failed strategies, which resulted in the defeat of the U.S. army in Vietnam.

A lot of news and opinions exist regarding the Vietnam War, which tells us about its unpopularity (Writer Thoughts). Several reasons exist about this specific topic and this paper addresses those reasons.

Different scholars have put forward arguments regarding the strategy of America, who used a conventional military strategy, rather than the one formed on the counterinsurgency principles, during the war in Vietnam. Jonathan Caverley, in his recent article, talks about a very strong challenge towards Vietnam War's historiography. Caverley rejects the focus of standard history on the strategic perspective, and organizational culture of the American army and General William Westmoreland, and presents an argument that the foundation of the American strategy in that war can…

Introduction
The American Vietnam War (1965-1975) was a complex affair that encompassed many themes and issues—from the fight to contain Communism, which was very much on the minds of many Americans especially since Kennedy had been said to have been assassinated by one, to the problem of the draft and rising protests against the war. As perception of the war changed over time with the help of media interventions, both the myth of the war and the reality of war intersected and became interwoven in a complicated tapestry of conflicting ideas, rumors and facts. The Vietnam War was both a war of political incompetence, military atrocities and government lies and also a war in which heroism still appeared and American ideals were pursued.
The Role of the Media
Following the conclusion of the “Good War,” American soldiers were idolized, their heroics and charisma captured in iconic images like the hoisting…

World War I, Americans realized their mistake in participating in the war. The country did not wish to repeat the same mistake again. Therefore, during the 1920s and 1930s, America aims to pursue numer of approaches intended at preventing war. The first significant players towards this effort were American peace societies, numerous societies elonging to this causes were a part of a igger set of gloal movements. Their efforts saw to the signing of a significant agreement in 1922 etween the great powers in order to minimize their quantities of attleships (Karsten, 2006, p. 36).

The attack on Pearl Haror y the Japanese prompted America's participation in WWII. Prior to this, America remained neutral, even with attacks from German torpedoes on USS Reuen (Beard, 1948, p. 148). Although neutral, America still took some offensive tactics when the Kearny incident involved an attack on an unmanned German weather station.

Pearl Haror…

Vietnam War on the issue of class and race on the Black Americans who participated in the war too.

Vietnam War

America has in many wars, starting from the evolutionary era to the war in Vietnam. These wars have inflicted the American society with frequent problems related to paranoia, racial prejudice and discrimination. In any war, the racial groups, ethnic minority or beliefs are discriminated against the enemy from that period, whether the enemy has been the Southerners as in the Civil War, or the Japanese in WWII, Germans or communists. However, the reality is that the Black Americans have suffered from never-ending and unprecedented discrimination irrespective of the enemy in the war. This essay highlights the issues of class and race and its affects during and after the end of the cold war in Vietnam. This paper reviews the history of how their involvement and what their treatment was…

Vietnam War [...] what role the United States should have played in the Vietnam War.

role in the Vietnam War was controversial from the first. Thousands of Americans protested the war while thousands more lost their lives in the fight. The war killed 58,000 Americans, and cost Americans about $150 billion dollars. America first sent troops to the war because leaders felt it was the only way to stop the spread of Communism in Southeast Asia (McCullough). The role of the United States as a co-defender of South Vietnam against the spread of communism did not end well, and why the U.S. was involved in the war is still a pressing question.

In retrospect, it is simple to say the U.S. had no business in South Vietnam, and ultimately the U.S. presence meant nothing, and the South fell to communism anyway. The U.S. role in Vietnam should have been much…

It did not help matters that America seemed to be floundering in Vietnam. Things were not good for the soldiers and there was no plan for things to get better. This state of affairs in ashington only made tension in America worse. As time went by, "key moderates within and outside the government became convinced that victory was beyond the resources of the United States" (1207). Davidson writes that student protests "forced policy makers and citizens to take a sobering look at the justice of the war" (Davidson 1206). Robert McNamara, Defense Secretary, was the "most dramatic defector from the establishment position" (1207). McNamara eventually came to doubt the success of America and finally began to question the morality of the situation. In 1968, things took a turn for the worse when television reports showed the "Vietnamese side of the war" (1208) and this event was followed by the Tet…

Vietnam war history I thing. The assingment follow: Assignment Question: By

Based upon my own orientation to cooperative efforts required to sustain a mission driven organization such as the armed forces, I would say that my role in this process is most like that of a logistician. The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics defines a logistician as someone who works to "analyze and coordinate the logistical functions of a firm or organization (BLS, 2011). My occupation as a registered nurse actually serves the exact purpose for my organization. There are numerous job functions that a registered nurse must perform. The vast majority of them are inherently related to the duties of a logistician as defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. One of those job functions that directly relates to registered nurses is the degree of organization that this profession is responsible for. Each and every day, I am…

Vietnam War which was a legacy of the inability of the French to suppress the nationalist movement in Indochina. The article contains five references.

The Vietnam War was a legacy of the inability of the French to suppress the nationalist movement in Indochina and the colonial power had been struggling to restore its dominion after the Second World War. In 1954, France was ousted from Indochina after a communist-dominated revolutionary movement led by Ho Chi Minh frustrated the French attempts to maintain their presence in Indochina. Vietnam was divided into two parts. North Vietnam had a communist government led by Ho Chi Minh while South Vietnam had an anti-communist government led by Ngo Dinh Diem. [Vietnam War Internet Project 2003]

The involvement of the United States in Vietnam was a result of the desire to contain communism and to contain China after its intervention against the United Nations in Korea.…

" (The Wars for Vietnam) There was also in increase in bombing and the air war over North Vietnam. Conflict intensified and Nixon severely bombed targets in Hanoi and Haiphong in 1972. This action brought condemnation for the international community and further increased the problematics for America of pursuing the war. This was to have the effect of forcing the Nixon administration to reconsider its negotiation strategies.

After fifteen years of war which had resulted in a large number of both civilian and military deaths, the direct involvement of the United States ended with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in 1973. Fighting was to continue between the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and the combined People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN). However the Viet Cong forces were victorious over the RVN and the war was brought to a close. The country thereafter became "... unified as the Socialist Republic of…

Academic writing also requires a special set of terminology. Even when writing for the political arena, terminology is important and effective in good writing.

14. I will probably be inclined to write in academically. My strategy will be to read as much from academic publications as I can.

15. Below are examples of AA style:

Bailey, Ronald. (1998). "Human Cloning Experiments Should be Allowed." Cloning. Winters, aul, ed. San Diego: Greenhaven ress.

Ardolino, Frank. "I'm not a Dime a Dozen." Journal of Evolutionary sychology. (2002) 174.11. Retrieved from the roquest database.

resident Bush Calls on Senate to Back Human Cloning Ban." (2002). White House ress Release. Retrieved from http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/04/20020410-4.html

Reeves, Dana. (2008, January 10). A Difference of Opinion. Songwriters, 13, 4. Retrieved from the Academic Search remier database.

16. One of the AA style tips I found useful was when to use the comma. For this style, it is incorrect…

popular painting of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial features a lone man in a business suit, his head bowed, placing his hand on the dark, black granite wall of the memorial on which are written the names of the dead and missing. Reflected in the monument are the images of the men he remembers that were stationed with him. Such powerful emotional images are not uncommon to veterans who share the usually painful memory of having served in the military action that lasted from 1959 until 1973 and claimed 58,226 American lives.

According to the National Park Service, the Memorial is not a war Memorial but rather a Memorial to those who served in the war, both living and dead. his follows a popular theme of creating holidays such as Veterans Day and Memorial Day that attempted to recognize the contributions of servicemen rather than to glorify war. his idea is…

Vietnam War

The lessons from Vietnam War

The quest for independence in Vietnam m was widely violent and involved factions arming themselves to face the other. Ho Chi Minh who was a communist activist by 1941 sneaked back to Vietnam after 30 years in exile and helps put together Vietnam Independence League. Immediately after World War II, Ho Chi Minh sent his guerillas to help free some captured American pilots from the Japanese. The year 1945 was an action packed year in the history of Vietnam. It was the year of the global World War II and the issue of global influence was the agenda for every country. Vietnam was drawn into the global event in 1945 since it was during this year that rumors about an imminent American attack of Japan that Japanese ousted the French colonialist so as to have control over Vietnam and installed Bao Dai as…

Vietnam ar

A Short Analysis of the Economic Impacts of a ar that Changed a Generation

The Vietnam ar is a very recent conflict. It is remembered not just by grandparents, like orld ar Two, but many still have living parents who recall with horror the ordeals of this war upon this country, many of which were emotionally exhausting, as well as financially and economically depleting. Many individuals, especially veterans, do not like to discuss the war, for it was not only an embarrassment for this country, but also a painful ordeal through which to live, as countless numbers of young Americans died. This, then, is where the emotional part comes in; the Vietnam ar pictures alone, many of the award-winning, for instance, show the horrors of the war firsthand, and are often difficult to look at. One could say, however, that this is the price of war.

He would…

Vietnam War and the Media

The Vietnam War and the United tates media engaged in a complex relationship in the 1960s and 1970s, and for the first time, Americans witnessed the influence of the media on the outcomes of an unpopular war. The core of their association was based upon the necessity to keep the general public informed on the events of the war and the devastation experienced by American soldiers, including dramatic loss of life, life-threatening injuries, and intense violence. While many Americans believed that the media coverage was too intrusive and disrespectful, the journalists and television reporters were often required to defend themselves to a disgruntled audience, who virtually witnessed many key moments of the war on their television sets. It is widely believed that because of the tremendous coverage presented on television during the Vietnam War, media coverage of major events would never be the same. The…

Vietnam War Lessons

Lessons to Be Learned from the Vietnam War

The United States officially ended the war in Vietnam four decades ago, but the shadow of Vietnam looms in American consciousness still today. The war and its legacy continue to affect American society and its engagement with the rest of the world. For a historian, the important question about the Vietnam War and its legacy is the following: what lessons can be learned from it? The Vietnam War can offer several lessons if we analyze it closely. One can learn lessons about America's diplomatic negotiations with other countries, Presidential leadership, and how understanding the culture of the foe can be crucial to the war effort.

eading Moss (2010) clearly demonstrates that the United States lacked proper diplomatic strategies during the Vietnam War. Partly burdened by the mission of fighting Communism everywhere and partly because of arrogance that came with…

Vietnam: Weighing the Perspectives

According to Taylor, the view of the Vietnam War was greatly impacted by the Anti-War movement and its politics. There were "three axioms" that were popular -- namely, that there was no real Communist threat, that the U.S. had no reason or business being there or getting involved, and that the war could never have been won in the first place because of the conditions of the situation and the character of the Vietnamese who were determined to oppose an outside force at any and all costs. For Taylor, real understanding of the war did not come for him until he stepped free of these axioms and assessed the war in a way that was more personal -- after all, he had fought in it.

Tayler describes how he weighed his options about the war and eventually decided that it was in his interest to not…

Vietnam (APA).

Lessons of Vietnam

Vietnam is often called the first war America lost, and whether or not you agree with that statement, it is almost impossible to say that America won the war. However, one learns more from failure than from success and the United States can learn some very valuable lessons from the war. The reason for American failure, or at least lack of outright victory, can be traced to three main causes: a lack of a coherent diplomatic strategy, lack of public support, and lack of presidential and congressional cooperation.

One the diplomatic lesson to be learned from the Vietnam War is that when entering negotiations always have a specific goal by which negotiations should proceed, and always negotiate from a position of strength. The United States never had an overall strategy for dealing with the North Vietnamese, instead the U.S. strategy evolved over time. When it…

Military Lessons of the Vietnam War

The objective of this study is to examine the military lessons of the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War occurred more than twenty years ago. It was a war that is painfully remembered by many however; over time, it is possible to more clearly assess the events of that war.

Military Lessons Examined

The National Observer article entitled "Lessons From the Vietnam War" states that three conclusions emerge from the recall of the Vietnam War including: (1) The U.S. military effort "followed rather than led" and this relates that rather than introducing large forces immediately so that the situations could be dealt with decisively "the American build up took place only over many years." (National Observer, 1999, p.1) Secondly, it is stated that the U.S. And South Vietnamese efforts were affected by "serious failures of intelligence" and specifically that the movements of the North Vietnamese…

Vietnamization of the Vietnam ar

More than 25 years after the last helicopter lifted from the United States embassy in Saigon, the Vietnam ar continues to cast a shadow on American history. hether the preservation of South Vietnam was worth the human and financial costs to both the Americans and Vietnamese continues to be the subject of contentious debate.

The chaotic withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1975 was a blow to the collective American psyche that had, until then, yet to experience such a failure. By then, the United States had spent an estimated $150 billion on the Vietnam ar, wreaking havoc on its economy in the process. It had dropped seven million tons of bombs in both North and South Vietnam. The war had served as a divisive force, causing tense civil unrest throughout the country.

More importantly, of the 2.7 million American men and women who served in…

Media: Power and Influence on Public Perception of the Vietnam War
The power of the media has long been understood, and part of that power is in shaping popular opinion. The media can show emotionally poignant images, give a platform to expert authorities and together these two factors can influence the minds and hearts of people. This was something that was particularly true during the era of the Vietnam War, sometimes referred to as America’s first “television war” (Hillesheim, 2017). In 1965, nearly every household in America owned a television (90%) and depended on this television to get the bulk of their news (Hillesheim, 2017). Television was a new technology—used for broadcasting the news and information and was not at this time privy to censorship or comparable laws of media. This meant that the average American had unparalleled access to the Vietnam War. In some ways, this freedom of access…

Summary
In essence, the Vietnam War started as an anticolonial war against the French and soon morphed into a fully blown military conflict that eventually occasioned the Cold War clash between democracy anchored on free markets on one hand and international communism on the other. In the north of Vietnam was the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) and in the south of Vietnam was the republic of Vietnam – with the latter receiving the backing of the United States and the former having the support of several communist countries including, but not limited to, China and the Soviet Union.
It is important to note that America’s involvement in Vietnam was essentially escalated by President Lyndon Johnson. It was Lyndon Johnson who authorized a campaign of sustained bombings in North Vietnam and also committed ground troops numbering into hundreds of thousands. At home, the involvement of the U.S. in Vietnam lacked…

As Olson and Roberts state, “If anything, the war made Vietnam more dedicated to communism, not less,” (x). So what went wrong in Vietnam? The answer is pretty much everything: American hubris, a lack of understanding of the history and culture of the people, and an overestimation of what the latest munitions tools could accomplish. The United States fought the war with an unbridled and unchecked sense of righteousness, ignorant of the importance of international and domestic support for the cause. Persistence in a lost cause led not to victory but to profound demoralization among the troops, which caused an even longer-range effect of undermining trust in the American government.
The first failure was a lack of understanding of the culture, history, and worldview of the enemy. Reflecting on the war honestly, Robert McNamara admits that the Americans exhibited a “profound ignorance of the history, culture, and politics” of not…

Major Social MovementThe Hippie Movement of the 1960s and 1970s was a countercultural movement that opposed the traditional norms and values of American society. It professed views of free love, peace, and non-violence. It began mainly as a youth movement in response to the turbulent era of the 1960s. The assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy all figured into the turbulence and upheaval of the decade; but other factors, such as the onset of the Vietnam War, the draft, and the emergence of a sex, drugs and rock n roll culture led by musical groups like The Doors and The Beatles, all contributed to the rise of the Hippie Movement as well (Segui & Vela, 2020). The Hippie Movement protested the war in Vietnam, the draft, embraced womens liberation, and condemned the abuses of big industry and finance (Nugroho, Firdaus & Wijaya,…

Vietnam War
A majority of the American wars have had obvious starting points like the capture of Fort Sumter in 1861, the battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775, the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, and the invasion of North Korea into South Korea in June 1950. However, for the war in Vietnam, there is no fixed beginning. The United States got into that war incrementally via a series of steps that took place between 1950 and 1965 (Asselin 337). The Vietnam war is considered to be America's longest war and it took place for 25 years (1950-1975). This was a proxy war because the opposing powers were using third parties to fight on their behalf.
As has been pointed out the United States joined the war incrementally and it all begun in May 1950 when President Harry Truman sanctioned a modest program of military and economic aid to…

Vietnam focuses primarily on land ownership by the Vietnamese. The paper clearly demonstrates what issues were encountered on the subject of land from the time of French Colonialism to the ruling of Ngo Diem. The paper also highlights the class structure and economic policies installed by the French in Vietnam.

Vietnam

Even after the passing of three decades, the Vietnamese can still feel the affects of the foreign power upon them and their land. It is hard to believe that Vietnam was once a French Colony. Many Vietnamese had fought against the French Colonialism in order to undo the harms the French had caused them. The French had ruled the country with the help of Annam Empire administration, consisting of mainly of civil servants.

The class structure of the Vietnamese had been changed considerably. ealth and income was unequally distributed among the Vietnamese. Hence, the rich were getting richer and…

America's wars have historically been a reflection of America's very own cultural tendencies; they're usually enormous in scale, they traditionally consist of a colorful variety of fronts and they are most often regarded as a man's game. So it doesn't strike one as peculiar, perhaps, that the perpetually striking images of Vietnam are of camouflaged nineteen-year-old men enduring the graces and horrors hosted by Southeast Asia during the skirmish that lasted over a decade. It may seem more peculiar, however, when one considers that more than 15,000 women relocated from their American homes to the perilous, jungle canopied land. Vietnam's legacy of physical handicapping, psychological desecration and cultural rifting echoes in an innumerable collection of films, books, publications, organizations and documentation detailing the heroics, trials and disgraces of a generation of men. But the women that this nation sent off to serve in a countless number of indispensable capacities have…

Student Unrest and the Vietnam ar

It is certainly a fact that the widespread and sometimes violent student unrest in the 1960s was largely based on young people's objections to the war in Vietnam. But it should be noted that the youthful rage against the American involvement was not driven exclusively by moral, political and social issues. But that rage was also fueled the fact that during the 1960s young people could not vote until they were 21 years of age, but they could be drafted -- and they were by the hundreds of thousands -- at age 18. This paper reviews the relationship between student demonstrations and the war in Vietnam, and concludes with the political and social aftermath of the war.

Student-Led Demonstrations Against the Vietnam ar: As a brief background into the demonstrations against the Vietnam ar, the 1960s were a time when America experienced terrible events…

freedom. The South Vietnamese anti-communist leaders were dictators, not democrats, and had been allied with the wildly unpopular French, then with the Americans. In contrast, the National Liberation Front (NLF) or 'Viet Cong' (as it was called by the Americans) had deep, longstanding support in the Vietnamese countryside. American military decision-makers proved unable to process this fact, given that they viewed Vietnam through its own biases, not through the eyes of the Vietnamese.

The method of America's military entry into Vietnam was also disastrous: Eisenhower and Kennedy's gradual increase of American advisors and military support enabled the public to ignore the gradual escalation, as well as America's political alliance with the unpopular anticommunist, South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem (who was ultimately assassinated). The American public also did not understand the situation in Vietnam as a compelling national security interest -- it was just a far-off land in the eyes…

Lessons Learned From the Vietnam ar

Diplomatic Relations

In terms of the diplomatic relations that the Johnson and Nixon Administrations had with representatives from North Vietnam and from South Vietnam, the two most appropriate words to describe those relations are failure and futility. But the failed pattern of diplomacy vis-a-vis Vietnam and Southeast Asia really began in 1954, when then Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was sent by President Eisenhower to negotiate the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). hen Dulles "…circumvented the provisions of the Geneva Accords" by unilaterally including Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia into the SEATO pack, Dulles was on thin ice in terms of American credibility (Moss 52). Dulles' subversion of the "letter and the spirit of the Geneva Accords" gave an open door to the U.S. intervention into Vietnam's affairs, an intervention which in hindsight was an absolute ethical and military disaster (Moss 53). Meanwhile fast-forward…

lessons learned American experience Vietnam War. assignment deal

I actually consider myself to be a strategic thinker, more so than a tactical planner or a logistician. One of the chief ways in which I was able to arrive at this conclusion is by reflecting upon the different functions of these three positions. Additionally, an analysis of the various relationships between these positions helped me to conclude that I am by far more of a strategic planner than the other two positions.

There is somewhat of a hierarchical relationship between these three jobs. A strategic thinker is an individual who is focused on achieving certain objectives that have been denoted as valuable within a mission-driven organization such as the armed forces. The achievement of that particular strategy will require very specific actions or tactics, which are devised by tactical planner (No author, 2009). Finally, in order to actuate such tactics one…

Military draft during the Vietnam War [...] how the military draft was a major issue that divided millions of American young men, and explain this dilemma and how it affected the Vietnam Conflict. The draft lottery, implemented in 1970, was contentious because not everyone agreed the United States should be fighting in Vietnam, and many young men simply refused to serve in the military in war they thought was morally wrong.

The Draft and Vietnam

Officially, the Vietnam War was only a "conflict" according to the United States Government, but on December 1, 1969, American instituted a draft for the armed services, which had not been done since the end of World War II. Before the lottery system of 1969, local Draft Boards were the method for selection and service in the military. The lottery system continued until 1973, with new numbers being drawn every year, based on birth dates.…

Strategic Hamlet Program

Flow of Information

Construction of Program

Positive and Negative Program Aspects

Significance of Program

Introduction onduring the Vietnam War, focusing on how the hamlets were constructed and the effect the implementation and construction had on the overall Strategic Hamlet Program. The paper must contain a clear connection between the implementation and construction efforts of the Strategic Hamlet Program to the significance of the Vietnam War.

The paper is not an effort to answer the question, "Would the Strategic Hamlet Program have worked had something been done differently?" ather, the paper is an effort to explore how the Strategic Hamlet Program was implemented, emphasizing where/why/how/by whom/effects of hamlet construction, and then connect these effects to the Vietnam War's significance.

The Strategic Hamlet Program end has often been blamed on the assassination of President Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, however if one peels off the top layer…

Lessons Learned by the Americans Experience of the Vietnam War

The Vietnam War is one infamous war in the history of America. It was the first war that America took part in an international stage and lost terribly. War statistics shows that the America lost a total of 58,000 lives and over 350,000 casualties. The war also ran into millions of dollars dispensed to finance the war. The war also injured the international reputation of the country among the peers of great nations such as the Soviet Union (Westheider, 2011). To this effect, many lessons were drawn upon which the American nation have formulated their external war strategies to date.

Lessons from diplomatic negotiations

The cause of the Vietnam War was something that could easily be solved diplomatically. Immediately after independence, Vietnam was divided into two regions: the north and the south. Each one of them operated independently with the…

Battle Analysis of the Vietnam ar: The Tet Offensive

The Tet Offensive

The Vietnam ar was one of the most costly conflicts in the history of the United States, with Americans fighting and investing resources in the region for almost two decades. Many consider this conflict to have been one of the best examples of proxy-wars fought as a consequence of the Cold ar. ith Russia and the U.S. being hesitant about challenging each-other directly, proxy wars were one of the most effective tools for each country to display its armament and determination. The Tet Offensive was among the most violent battles in the war, with an allied group of Viet Cong guerrilla fighters and People's Army of Vietnam soldiers organizing a large-scale offensive against South Vietnamese military, U.S. soldiers, and a series of other communities allied with South Vietnam.

Background

U.S. involvement in Vietnam has drawn a significant amount…

Before he leaves, Henry hands over the car to Lyman and this gesture foreshadows his death. Lyman keeps the car in perfect shape and takes immensely good car of it as if it was Henry himself. This is another point of association between the car and Henry. Lyman loves his brother and therefore the way he takes care of the car symbolizes his love for his older brother. He would have taken equally good care of him had he been with him. hen Henry comes back from the war, he has changed a lot so much so that he barely resembles the old Henry he is usually "jumpy and mean"(148).

Because of extreme posttraumatic stress disorder, Henry is always in a state of agitation as if he was still at the battlefield, ready for action. He "would sit in front of the family television, bought by Lyman, "gripping the armrests…

The killings at Kent State in 1970 were outcome of a clash between the Ohio National Guard and Vietnam War protestors who had assembled at the University. Nixon had been elected to the White House in 1968 following the assassination of his opponent Robert Kennedy during the campaign. With the assassinations of JFK, Malcolm X, and MLK, Jr., still fresh in the public consciousness, students were very vocal and critical of the government. Plus, students were upset about the ongoing draft and as well as the recent Mai Lai Massacre, which had outraged Americans at home. Many were especially suspicious of Nixon, who had pledged to end the Vietnam War but seemed to be going against that pledge when the U.S. began bombing Cambodia in 1970. In response to Nixon’s announcement of a Cambodian Incursion, students across the U.S. engaged in walk-outs, sit-ins and protests on campuses. Kent State students…

Vietnam War provides the opportunity to learn from history. Analysis of the Vietnam War experience, from the American point-of-view anyway, sheds light on current diplomatic negotiations, presidential leadership, and cultural/social contexts of war. Unfortunately, it would seem that the opportunities to learn from Vietnam had been squandered by the time the War on Terror began in earnest after September 11, 2001. The Vietnam conflict, for example, began as a diplomatic farce. As Young (2014) puts it, "Lyndon Johnson and obert McNamara created the illusion that attacks on North Vietnam were alternatives to war rather than war itself," (p. 1). Bombs were used as a darkly ironic form of diplomacy. Therefore, one of the most important lessons learned from Vietnam is that the United States must be more honest and straightforward in its use of force. Use of force cannot be disguised as a form of diplomatic negotiations. "There is a…

How can God satisfy both participants in the conflict?

Twain's moral is that the religious rhetoric used to justify war and the merging of patriotism and faith is always suspect. Each side believes that his or her cause and nation is just. During wartime, prayers 'cancel one another out' and show the hypocrisy of the inflated, one-sided view of warfare expressed in propaganda. It is easy to see Twain's message reflected in real life, particularly in the cases of ethnic conflicts where participants are pitted in age-old hatreds and use religion as a justification for their crimes. Such was the case of the Bosnians vs. The Serbs and the Protestants vs. The Catholics of Northern Ireland. To pray for victory in war, points out Twain's old man, is to pray for the death of other people: "If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it,…

Vietnamese people are generally polychromic, in particular with respect to privacy and family relations. They are high-context people who value and gather information about their world to be used later to guide behavior in different situations. Vietnam is a high power distance culture, where roles are formally defined and accepted. The have high uncertainly avoidance. For example, when meeting somebody they will first ask that person's age because age guides certain rules of etiquette. It would be awkward for a Vietnamese to not know somebody's age because they would be unsure of how to address that person or of that person's formal authority with respect to their own.

Vietnam is a masculine country as well (Nguyen & Hau, 2007). The people are ambitious, as the explosive growth of their economy indicates. They have clearly defined gender roles as well. Yet, they are a collectivist country. The family remains the strongest…

He turns some readers off with his vitriolic attacks. Further, his attacks are is blatant propaganda. hy? Because while Taibbi does mention that the Democrats already crafted legislation more than once - setting timetables for withdrawal and tying those timetables to funding, bills that Bush subsequently vetoed - he uses quotes from unnamed "congressional aides" to solidify his assertion that the Democrats just wanted to "score political points without ever being serious about bringing the troops home."

Taibbi does use evidence that there are anti-war leaders outside of ashington who are discouraged and bitter. But he fails to build a case for his most radical assertion, that the Democrats "hijacked the anti-war movement itself" in order to play to the voters, and that the Democrats filled the "ranks of peace groups with loyal party hacks." This is pure propaganda, and the evidence he provides is very thin. He doesn't name…

As Vickers (1989) notes, "…the size and intensity of U.S. intervention was met by escalation in the size and intensity of opposition to the war here at home'. (Vickers, 1989, p. 100) Vickers and many other critics state categorically that the anti-war movement in the country was "…a critical factor in preventing the U.S. from achieving victory over communist forces in Vietnam…" and that,

American public opinion indeed turned out to be a crucial 'domino'; it influenced military morale in the field, the long drawn-out negotiations in Paris, the settlement of 1973, and the cuts in aid to South Vietnam in 1974, a prelude to final abandonment in 1975." (Vickers 1989, p. 100)

As events in the war accelerated so did the public opposition to the war and protest changed into active resistance. A new stage of anti-resistance came into effect between 1967 and 1969 as a result of a…

Gender, in some ways may determine the difference of the narrative arc in these two memoirs. A male, Tang fought for the cause militarily, while Elliot married an American and traced her associations with the war through her family roots, rather than through her own political involvement alone. Tang shows the war in all of its brutality largely from his own perspective and the perspective of other fighters, while Elliot offers a filtered and more political perspective, as seen through the eyes of several generations of her own family, male and female. She thus gives a balanced and more ideologically uncertain view of the war, never coming to a conclusion whether it was right or wrong. Although disgusted with the aftermath, Tang concludes his memoir, certain that the war was necessary.

Because Elliot involves her family's collective struggles in her memoir more than Tang's partisan narrative, a more balanced and…

Vietnam fell to warfare and the world witnessed its upheaval, foreign powers wished to interfere. Most tried to set up some assembly of Vietnamese figures to inhibit a Communist victory. The foreign interference to generate a "third power" or "third political party" proved less substantial than previous efforts. This could be in part to the August Revolution of 1945. "Any such scheme was probably doomed from the time of the August Revolution of 1945" (D-60, 134).

There was however, a notable figure by the name of Ngo Dinh Diem who attempted to create and sustain an independent regime in South Vietnam. "Ngo Dinh Diem retained sufficient independence of Washington's wishes to invoke considerable displeasure, despite the public position that the Vietnamese leader was a thoroughly reliable ally and paragon of virtue (Reading 25)" (D-60, 135). Diem was perhaps the best chance foreign policymakers had at creating the third group that…

War

While the United States of America over the past decades has maintained its superiority over other nations in terms of political clout, there is a certain imbalance in power within the geopolitical system of the world that is causing nations to become embittered. The United States began its reign of controversy after World War II and yet, it was the Vietnam War that completed the role in unethical representation in terms of military and political power. The Vietnam War was fought on the basis of freedom, democracy and the need to hinder the spread of the evil of Communism. The slogan of the times was that if the spread of communism was not stalled, America would soon lose its freedom and democracy the world over would be wiped out. These words may seem dramatic to the rational mind but to really understand the mood of the time such words…

The Northerners are better prepared, better led, and more respected, and deserve a chance to govern their country with any political system they see fit. The war in Vietnam to them is about decolonization, and the removal of Japanese, French, and American forces from Vietnamese shores. The choice of communism is in order to receive military support from other communist countries, but the expansion of communism in Vietnam is not dangerous to American strategic interests, in my humble opinion.

The use of the draft in this war has forced many young American boys to leave for war when they are needed in the States. The draft is a tool that should only be used in a last resort situation, when the homeland is under threat from external forces. It should not be used to fight wars of choice, or wars of simple strategy, like the Vietnam War is for America.…

The Guerilla Tactics section shows how U.S. soldiers had to learn to fight in completely different ways in Vietnam, because the Vietcong fought in such different and difficult ways. It is a lot like the suicide bombers and roadside bombs used now in Iraq, which are also new techniques for a new generation of war. The air war was essential to success in Vietnam, and America did have the advantage there, and many new innovations in fighter technology came out of the war. Finally, the Siege of Khe Sanh shows the dedication of Marines who held their base after 77 days of siege through incredible odds. It shows the dedication of the people who fought in Vietnam, and the inability of the North Vietcong to take the base, even when it was weak and undersupplied.

Some of the most interesting things about this site are the detailed information on some…

Wars of the Century

Major Wars of the 20th Century: the Causes

The twentieth century has certainly seen its shares of horrors of killings. Internationally, an astonishing number of major and minor wars have broken down during this specific time period. All of these major and minor conflicts have certainly changed the face of our society and affected millions of people worldwide; to understand the changes undergone by our international culture and society as well as the major causes of war, it is of the utmost importance to gain a better understanding of those conflicts. The similarities in many of those worldly conflicts traceable to the twentieth century are astonishing and deeper analysis of the causes and outcomes of those conflicts certainly is necessary from a historic point-of-view. By establishing a list of the major conflicts of the twentieth century and learning more about the deep-rooted causes of those wars,…

More often than not, the plan of containment has been used to describe U.S. foreign policy. It is equally frequently traced back to the achievements of President Truman with regard to the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

In 1950, there was a shift in foreign U.S. policy after President Truman moved from passive to active containment by signing the top-secret policy plan NSC-68. It took a much more drastic approach towards the spread of Communism, which according to the new twist, claimed that Russia was en route for the domination of the world. It should be noted however that the doctrine had some major weaknesses and was repeatedly subject to contradictory interpretations. This may have led several other presidents and policy makers to toy with it at will. It could also very well explain some of the many long involvements of the U.S. In diverse wars and…

He lay in the center of a red clay trail near the village of My Khe. His jaw was in his throat. His one eye was shut, the other eye had a star shaped hole. I killed him." (O'Brien 180). Very similar observations can be made about Turner's poetry. Turner uses highly descriptive language when he expresses his view of "bone and gristle and flesh," the clavicle-snapped wish" and, "the aorta's opened valves" in Here, Bullet. These images are immensely disturbing yet at the same time, surprisingly lyrical. The ability to combine these two opposing sentiments into a seamless flow of expression is a rare talent; one that both O'Brien and Turner possess in abundance.

Conclusion

hile O'Brien chooses to express his experiences through prose, and Turner chooses poetry as his medium, the sentiments being relayed are remarkably similar. Each of the literary works discussed here demonstrates that it does…

.." For example, during the Vietnam War the United States "sprayed 3640 km2 of South Vietnam's cropland with herbicides, using a total estimated amount of 55 million kg. The stated rationale was to deny the enemy sources of food and means of cover. This widespread use of chemicals to destroy farmland, forest and water sources is unprecedented, and the environmental consequences are still relatively unexplored. International teams have been granted access for field assessments only in the last few years." (Learning, 2000)

The work of Lindon, Jernelov, and Egerup (2004) entitled: "The Environmental Impacts of the Gulf War 1991" relates that the oil fires in Kuwait" emitted pollutants that potentially could affect the health and well-being of the people in the region. Most of the substances emitted from the burning wells can potentially cause adverse effects, which vary according to concentration and duration of exposure." In fact the concentrations of…

War

The concept of war encompasses various different types of conflict. Wars between sovereign nations involve nation states. Regional and world wars involve multiple sovereign nations. Revolutionary wars of independence involve the populations of nations rebelling against or rejecting the continued control national authorities. ivil wars occur when rival regions or political factions within one nation seek formal separation or complete control. Proxy wars are a means by which nations prosecute their competing interests against one another through smaller conflicts involving other nations as a means of avoiding direct military conflict.

Wars between Nation States

Wars between sovereign nations have occurred throughout recorded history, dating back to Biblical times. Generally, sovereign nations go to war when they each have claims to the same land, or natural resources, or rights of passage that each seeks to own or control exclusively. Throughout the Middle Ages and into the early modern age, the…

Korea became the first identifiable danger. Of course, the Korean conflict was only the first of hot-spot conflicts in the Cold ar. "To police the world, to risk nuclear war, to eradicate the creed of communism, all in the name of national defense, the new national security priesthood would wage bloody war in Korea and Vietnam, overthrow the democratically elected governments of Iran, Guatemala, and Chile, and assassinate the elected president of Congo, nearly come to nuclear war over Cuba, foster civil wars throughout Africa, topple the regime in Indonesia and enable reigns of terror by right-wing death squads throughout Central America" (Atwood, p.177). Atwood cites numerous examples, beginning with the treatment of combatants (tattooing them with anti-Communist slogans that would prevent them from reassimilating into their societies after the war) and non-combatants (bombing civilian targets) of ways that the United States violated the human rights principles it said it…

Vietnam War

Japan had taken control of Vietnam during the Second World War. They had come in, in 1940, as a strategy to prevent China from ferrying weapons through the country. However, there was resistance to this through the efforts of Ho Chi Minh, who would later lead the independent country. He was a communist, and this would help him in accessing aid from the communist China when fighting against the French in the southern part of this country. The south was under the French rule, and thus, not part of the growing communism movement. Concerned over the threat of communist domination of the great part of Asia, the United States decided to back the French, so that they could set up a friendly government. However, they were defeated in the ensuing war, though they did not leave, but signed a peace agreement. Through the U.S. efforts, elections were halted…

Vietnam War Effects

The Vietnam war was a game-changer in many ways. Just one of the major ways that things changed was the power of the political machine in Washington DC. Vietnam had very much devolved into a political war whereby the government's civilian leaders were controlling (or trying to) what was going on in Vietnam in terms of what the soldiers were doing and what the goal was. Concurrently, this made the politicians very unpopular and the people revolted. As a result, the policy and power of the government changed in many ways in the 1960's and the power gained by the people is still invoked to this very day.

Everyone that knows Vietnam and what came of that war knows how it changed American politics and how wars are fought by the United States forever. Just one example of this was that the "bombs" were dropped in World…

War has undoubtedly shaped the course of human history. Conflicts, through sheer human nature often arise through disagreement. Occasionally these conflicts end with war as opposing sides believe so vehemently in their respective reasonings and doctrinal views. Oftentimes, these war's end with one "victor" and on defeated party, however, in war everyone losses.

The Vietnam War in particular is an example of how war is a zero sum game that only results in losses for all those involved. This paper examines how the conflict started, taking particular care to express both points-of-view regarding core issues followed by a discussion concerning Special Forces operations and their overall impact on the outcome of the war. Finally, a summary of the research and important findings about Special Forces in Vietnam in the conclusion.

Review and Analysis

Origins of the Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a long, costly armed conflict that pitted the…

Vietnam War

How was the war similar or different to previous U.S. attempts at "containment"?

What were the key mistakes the U.S. made, in your view?

What where the key turning points of U.S. involvement?

Why did the U.S. lose the war?

How was the war similar or different to previous U.S. attempts at "containment"?

The policy or strategy if the U.S. of 'containment' originated during the formative years of te cold war and it aimed to defeat the Soviet Union by means of stopping it expanding its influence and the territories under its communist control. This was the primary reason for the conflict and the strain in relations between the two superpowers. This policy of containment by the U.S. found some success during the Korean War and the Cuban Missile Crisis. However, critics claim that the Vietnam War was a failure and not a true reflection of the policy…

ar at Home in Ellison, ar Abroad in O'Brien

The inhumanity of war is a common theme in literature, as brilliantly illustrated in Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried," a tale that functions as a short story but is actually an excerpt from his great novel about the Vietnam ar Going after Cacciato. In O'Brien's story, several soldiers fighting in Vietnam are defined by the objects they carry in their pockets, such as photographs of loved ones, as well as their military gear and outfits. Yet the battles of individuals oppressed by society, such as African-Americans, may be equally, if not more, soul destroying, when conducted on the home front of America, on daily basis. This fact is evidenced by the evisceration of the spirit of the young African-American men in an excerpt from Ralph Ellison's seminal novel Invisible Man, entitled, "Battle Royal."

In "Battle Royal," the best and brightest…