American Involvement in Vietnam There Were a Term Paper

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American Involvement in Vietnam

There were a number of reasons for America's involvement in the Vietnam War, and none of them are easy or give the entire picture of the situation. The War was so contentious and so costly to young American's fighting overseas that it continues to cause contention and argument even today. The remnants of Vietnam, the Vietnam Vets homeless and aged, are a constant reminder that sometimes intervention does not pay. That Vietnam was a mistake seems to be the common view now, but at the time it seemed as if it was inevitable that America become involved, or watch Southeast Asia turn into a long, wandering arm of Soviet influence.

Indeed, there were Soviet links in North Vietnam, so some of the worry was certainly founded. The Soviets were funding the North Koreans, and supplying them with most of their military might, from MIG fighters to weapons and ammunition. Americans and much of the world were deathly afraid of the spread of Communism, and felt it was worth anything to keep it from spreading, and so, the Vietnam War seemed justified to many.

Americans entered Vietnam solely as "advisors" as early as the 1950s, when South Vietnam was struggling to throw off the imperialistic French government, who still ruled the area. The South Vietnamese had good reason to want to crawl out from under French influence. They felt the French had corrupted their culture and their country, and the French did not understand their religious beliefs, their needs, and their wants. The ultimate motive was to keep Communism from spreading, but there were certainly other political motives. Initially, when advisors went to Vietnam to help the French in 1955, it was to serve an ally from World War II and to adhere to the NSC-68 that called for return aggression in the face of any aggression by Communist forces anywhere.

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Initially, there was not strong support to send fighting forces to Vietnam. This changed in 1964 when the North Vietnamese attacked a U.S. ship in South Vietnam's Gulf of Tonkin. Called the "Gulf of Tonkin Incident," it propelled the U.S. into full-scale war against North Vietnam. President Johnson sent the first Marines to Vietnam in 1965, and the forces escalated from there. Troops were finally pulled out in 1973, and South Vietnam eventually fell to the North, making all the 58,000 U.S. casualties seem meaningless and for nothing. The troops escalated from 1965 until 1972, and it seemed sometimes that Washington and the Pentagon simply felt that the more American might they threw at the War, the better chance of victory. However, many American fighting tactics simply were not effective in the jungles of Vietnam. The North Vietnamese, called the Viet Cong, used guerilla tactics in the jungle that caught many Americans off guard. They knew the terrain and the Americans did not. Americans were fighting a losing battle, but many experts felt the best thing was to send more manpower. The troops increased, and there were American victories, but more troops could not win the War, and that became evident before President Nixon finally bowed to pressure and brought the forces home.

Domestic criticism was incredibly important in shaping the involvement and the eventual withdrawal of troops. As more soldiers died, more Americans began to feel the War was not winnable and unwanted. Millions of young people protested the war on city streets and college campuses. In fact, John Kerry was not an anomaly after he returned from the War and began to protest about what was going on in Vietnam. Many veterans who came home felt the War was wrong and the U.S. should get out of Southeast Asia. The voices got louder,….....

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