What Was America's Involvement In The Vietnam War

The American involvement in the Vietnam War was a very controversial decision, with many people being for the war, however many people in the United States were also against the war. The Vietnam War was the longest lasting war in the United States history, before the Afghanistan War, in which most people felt strongly about, be them United States citizens, Vietnamese citizens, or just the global population. In order to better understand the ideas of those American citizens that are either for or against the war, one would have to look at the reasons that the United States was involved in the war, the impact of the Vietnam war on the American society, and the impact on the United States foreign policy.

US should not have been involved in the Vietnam War. For one, the US should not have been involved in the Vietnam war because protest were turning violent. They started peaceful and then they turned violent. Movements and protest are now violent because the American Society feels as if their opinions are being ignored or do not matter. Another reason that people don't trust the government now is because of the propaganda and false advertising. The president is telling the people of the US that everything is okay and the war is almost over when it is nowhere near being over. Lastly, war is very costly. The money going to cover the cost of war could be given to innovations, welfare, housing, and many other beneficial things to the people of the US.

History Controlled Assessment : Part A – Explain why the USA was involved in the conflict in Vietnam during Eisenhower’s Presidency

The United States of America seems to always be searching for conflict with other countries. If one looks at history, he or she can see the United States “sticking their nose in other peoples’ business,” which seems to cause conflict. Former president Richard M. Nixon once said, “No event in American History is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.” One can take this quote into consideration and realize that the truth was not all there. The United States involvement in the Vietnam War can be argued as a good thing or a bad thing; however, the bad definitely outweighs the good.

The American involvement in Vietnam War began in 1950 with the first shipment of military supplies to the French. (Graham, 2016) The conflict involved over 2.5 million soldiers while 58,183 US personnel were killed and over a span of twenty-four years. Air Defense systems such as the HAWK, Vulcan, Quad 50, and Duster deployed to Vietnam for the protection of assets as well as providing forward area air defense and fire support to ground forces. These systems provided a strategic advantage and deterred the North Vietnamese while maintaining US air superiority. Air defense Soldiers during the war earned more 450 medals for valor and received over 1000 Purple Hearts for their service during the war. (USC ROTC, n.d.)

During the Vietnam war, there were many reasons why America got involved in the war. First of all, America was against any country being communist and they wanted to ‘contain’ communism from spreading from china to the rest of IndoChina and eventually spreading across the world and reach America. That also leads to the ‘Domino Theory’ that President Johnson had. The ‘Domino Theory’ is basically a theory that if one country becomes communist then that disease of communism will spread to other countries. Also, this essay will talk about the cold war with Russia and how that is one of the many reasons why America got involved.

Under Truman’s administration, Vietnam was separated by the 16th parallel north. After Hainan Island was captured, he approved the spending of $10 million for military aid to the French in order to prevent the spread of communism in Indochina. After the Korean War, the U.S. started becoming more involved in combating communism. Once President Dwight D. Eisenhower took over, he used the “Domino Theory.” The Domino Theory was an idea that suggests that if one country fell under communist control, neighboring countries would eventually follow. The theory was used to justify U.S. involvement in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. After Kennedy became President, U.S. involvement in Vietnam became much more notable. Before his assassination, Kennedy had increased the amount of military numbers in

thousand plus killed, many were blameless citizens who wished not to be involved. The attacks were just fruitless, and it should be clear to Americans about how hypocritical their government is acting and reacting.

The U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War helped for the South Vietnamese for a while,

The Vietnam War (1955-1975), was a conflict between the communist north and the United States backed south. This war claimed over 3,000,000 lives including an estimated 58,000 Americans and over half of the remaining being Vietnamese civilians. The American population would divide over opinions of U.S. involvement in this conflict and lead to many protests and civil unrest. Throughout the course of this war, the Air Defense Artillery was a cornerstone of U.S. force’s capability and helped shift the tide of battle significantly. This paper will discuss the history of the war, some major conflicts that occurred and the ADAs role during this war.

The United States did a lot of bombing in the Vietnam War. The United States dropped seven million tons of bombs on Vietnam. This is twice the amount that was dropped in WW2.

The dilemma of whether Americans were willing to fight in the Vietnam War seems to boil down to the fact that a large group of American men were not willing and sometimes non-compliant. Having been in two World Wars relatively recently (both of which Americans as a whole were not willing to join) it would make sense that the American people largely would not want to fight a war that was not immediately nor in the foreseeable future a threat to our safety and freedoms. On March 31, 1966, 11 members belonging to a group known as the Committee of Non Violent Action publically resisted the draft, burning their draft cards as self-proclaimed “pacifists.” The protesting members of the CNVA were assaulted by a large crowd of over 250 pro-war protestors

The Vietnam War caused a spike in American deaths in the 1960’s. Even more Vietnamese citizens died due to United States troops. Children in South Vietnam wandered the streets as they yell for their dead parents. Soldiers lose their sanity over seas and kill there own United States soldiers. Even though the government told citizens the war would be over soon, the war seemed like a never ending battle full of ruthless killings and long suffering deaths.

In 1965, the United States of America officially enter the war against North Vietnam. After the Gulf of Tonkin incident where North Vietnamese attacked two U.S. ships on August 2nd and 4th, 1964, this event was a chance for U.S. President Lyndon Johnson to give authority for U.S. to enter war in Vietnam. United State involvement in Vietnam War was an approach to seize the communist aggression. A campaign authorized by President Johnson called “Operation Rolling Thunder” which started on February 24th, 1965 is a series of extensive bombing directed towards the North Vietnamese predicted to be eight weeks long until the North Vietnamese surrender to U.S. power. However, this campaign lasted two years longer than expected.

United States Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy had spent millions of dollars to aid the non-communist South Vietnamese. Before 1964 thousands of American military advisers were training and assisting the South Vietnamese army. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s decision to bomb North Vietnam put the United States in the center of the longest war in the nations history. The Vietcong (North Vietnamese) grew more aggressive after the incident at the Gulf of Tonkin. On November 1964, they attacked the American base at Bien Hoa and destroyed five B-57 jets while damaging twenty more. Since the increase of tension with the Vietcong continued, draft calls had increased substantially in the United States and American casualties were being felt across the country.