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The Vietnam Conflict
1. Should the United States have been involved in the Vietnam Conflict?
2. What forms of prejudice took place in Vietnam?
History and Overview
Vietnam has almost always been under foreign rule- mostly by the Chinese. However in 1860, France took over rule of this country, as well as setting up colonies nearby the Gulf of Tonkin. During the second World War, the Japanese took over Vietnam, and put in place a puppet regime- which was forced out by the Vietnamese at the end of the War in 1945.
Shortly after World War II and until around 1955, two separate Vietnams began to take shape- a communist regime formed in the North, lead by Ho Chi Minh; the other, a republic run by self-proclaimed president Ngo Dinh Diem.
Between 1955-1960, North Vietnam, with the help of southern Communist group the Vietcong, made an attempt to overthrow the South Vietnamese government- extrecating and executing Diem in 1963. Russia and China soon joined the fight to force Communism in Southern Vietnam.
On the home front, the United States began to become very concerned about the spreading of Communism in Asia, and were determined to put a stop to it. At the time, former president Dwight D. Eisenhower advised current president John F. Kennedy to send troops to Vietnam to stop Communist spread. Initially, only 400 Green Berets were sent as special forces to fight the rebel Vietcong unit in South Vietnam- it was only intended to be a "limited conflict." However it ended up being much more than that....
President Diem was killed on November 3, 1963- and President Kennedy was assassinated merely twenty days later. Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president, and the war continued to escalate. The Vietcong were having many successful victories, and began to gain ground in South Vietnam. Johnson began sending American GIs to Vietnam by the thousands to fight the Communists. Americans began to have strong feelings about the war- protests began occuring all over the country. The United States became torn over a conflict that was happening halfway across the world. Casualties in Vietnam were very heavy on both sides, and President Johnson began to hide the actual number of American casualties from the people, as to illude that we were winning. After the Tonkin GulfResolution was passed, Johnson had power to do anything he wished as far as making decisions about the war- many bad ones which were made. After the failure of the Tet Offensive, Johnson's popularity fell sharply, and he did not run for re-election.
Nixon was next in office, and he began the deescalation of the war- his policy of *Vietnamization*- teaching the South Vietnamese to fight for themselves began the process of the GIs leaving Vietnam- and the Communists soon conquering the South.
Should the United States been involved in the Vietnam War?
I believe it was right of the United States to be involved in the Vietnam Conflict. The purpose of our involvement was to surpress the spread of Communism- it was a concern of ours at that time. Communism was spreading like rapid fire, and one of the great fears of the American people was Communism- people frightened that it might come too close to home. Although President Kennedy was no foreign policy master at any length, the extent he carried the conflict to was appropriate for the time and the situation. The American people were not ready to become involved in another war- World War II had ended barely fifteen years earlier. He kept it at a small scale.
However once Johnson became president, he was determined to become victorious, and he took it to a scale not pleasing to the general public. As more and more American men were being drafted to war, the more upset the people became. Protests began to erupt all over the country, more specifically at universities.
The most famous of these protests was the eruption at Kent State University on May 4, 1970. Four students were killed, and nine other students were injured when members of the Ohio National Guard fired 67 bullets into a predominantly student non-violent anti-war protest. In response to this murderous action, other prestigious colleges, such as New York University, organized violent protests in response.
It was not just university students who protested American presence in Vietnam. African-Americans also protested for different reasons. Many of their young men who were being drafted were being sent to the front lines, and having a much higher ratio in casualties than Caucasians.
American involvement in the Vietnam Conflict might have been such an awful idea, had our government carried the action through to the very end. Thousands and thousands of American lives were lost fighting in Vietnam- apparently in vain. Once Nixon was sworn in as president, he worked to end the conflict quickly. His solution was “Vietnamization”- teaching the South Vietnamese soldiers how to fight for themselves.
As this process was beginning, the president began removing soldiers quickly from Vietnam, eventually leaving the Southern soldiers to fight for themselves. They were no match for the Northerners and the Vietcong. Saigon soon fell, and not too much later South Vietnam was taken over by the Communists. The Communists had won- more than 10,000 American lives lost- and they still won. Our soldiers died in vain…if the GIs had stayed in Vietnam just a few months longer, they would have been able to squelch Communist surpression, and have South Vietnam might have been able to remain an independent republic. Instead, Communism consumed another nation, and the United States had their first loss in war in its history of being a nation. Was the blood, time, and money worth it in the end? No- because we gave up.
What kind of prejudices occurred in Vietnam?
The American GIs did not play courageous liberators in South Vietnam, contrary to common belief. There were many occurances of fights breaking out between United States soldiers and Vietnamese soldiers and civilians, sometimes ending in death. Most of the Vietnamese did not even want US soldiers over there “budding in.” There also began a growing hatred and prejudice within certain soldiers of the Vietnamese. This prejudice grew to an extreme, and resulted in the My Lai Massacre.
The My Lai Massacre, which took place on the morning of March 16, 1968, was a turning point in the American perception of the Vietnam Conflict. GIs no longer were heroes, but came home to be called “baby-killers.” The soldiers, in a unit of the Americal Division’s 11th Infantry Brigade known as the “Charlie Company,” were on a search-and-destroy mission in what was thought to be an area full of Vietcong. However, there was no attack on the Company during their mission. However, what they did come across was the small village of My Lai, where they believed the Vietcong could be hiding.
Soldiers began going berserk, gunning down men, women, children, and babies- all unarmed civilians. The people were shown no mercy- families who were huddled together in their huts for safety, and those who surrendered with hands held high were all brutally murdered. 120 of the soldiers decided not to participate in this sickening display of power- but when troop commander Liutenant William Calley ordered two of his men to fire out at a large group of civilians they rounded up, he blazed his gun at them both. Women were raped, and people who had come to welcome the group were brutally tortured. It was not until afternoon when word reached higher officers and a cease-fire was ordered. The death toll was 504, and only one American was injured- somebody who shot himself in the foot when he was attempting to reload his rifle. The Massacre remained a cover-up until 1969 when the details were released.
Another example of prejudice that took place in Vietnam was the using of the women for sex by the GIs. The soldiers would promise the women a promising life in America, sleep with them, and leave them. These relationships also resulted in the women becoming with child. The children whom were products of the relationships of American GIs and Vietnamese women, referred to as “Bui Doi” (Dust of Life), faced a life of cruelty and rejection from the time they were born. “Looked upon as nothing more than a useless by product of living, “the dust of life”, they are but chaff to be blown away by the wind, of less value than the soil on which we tread (“Bui Doi”).” Many people of this type of mixed race still face rejection in Vietnam today.
The Vietnam Conflict brought controversy to the United States homefront, as well as destroyed the lives of many Vietnamese people. This conflict may have turned out completely different- maybe even for the better, if better decisions were made by the presidents involved, as well as of certain other individuals.
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