Vietnam_War_and_After

According to Digital History (2009), “Between 1945 and 1954, the Vietnamese waged an anti-colonial war against France and received $2.6 billion in financial support from the United States.” The Unites States involvement in the Vietnam War with sending our troops into the war began when South Vietnam with the United States support refused to hold the unification elections. When this event happened it ,caused the Viet Cong to attack the government of South Vietnam. To support the government of South Vietnam our government sent in military advisors that by 1963 had increased to over 16,000. While many people believed that we should involve ourselves in the war there were many student protests against it. The connection between student unrest and the Vietnam War began with the creation of the draft. Every male that was the age of 18 had to register for Selective Service Draft in the mid to late 1960s. College students received a reprieve while attending college and their names were put on the list of young men to be drafted. The start of the anti-war demonstrations was about the young men being drafted and sent to war. According to The Sixties (n.d.), “ From the President and Joint Chiefs of staff to college and university administrations and parents, students began to question the way things were done, and to demand the "real" reasons behind collective and individual behavior patterns.” During these demonstration against the war students were hurt and sometimes killed in the case of the Kent State shooting of 1970 , where rifle fire left four students dead and nine others injured including one who was paralyzed. Ryan (2009), “Students who avoided the war by going to college were aware of the injustice of the situation and used protests as a way of communicating this to the powers-that-be.” According to Think Quest (1999), “In a sense, the war in Vietnam could be described as a two front war - a war in Vietnam with war being waged with tanks, guns and bullets - and a "war at home," fought on the streets and campuses throughout the nation.” The protests were meant to wake up the public and hopefully to end the war before they, the men could be drafted. The men who could not afford to attend college were drafted and sent to fight in the war, which in over 58,000 deaths of American Military persons. Ryan (2009), “President Ford faced a very tough situation that was made worse by decisions such as pardoning former President Nixon and providing clemency for men who had dodged the draft. This last act was a slap in the face to men who had fought, were wounded, and died in Vietnam.” The men who had been drafted and fought in the war even if the did not believe in were treated with disrespect and people kept their distance from them. The student unrest during the Vietnam War affected the men who were being deployed and those who returned in it made them think why we are going to war in the first place. It also affected America’s people in that it made them wonder why we were getting involved in a war that had nothing to do with our country. The Vietnam War started the student unrest as men did not want to go and fight in Vietnam and women did not want to lose their fathers, husbands, boyfriends, or sons. The political and social outcomes of the end of the Vietnam War varied for the United States and the people of Vietnam who became united under one government. According to Vietnam War (n. d.), “As a result of the more than eight years of guerrilla warfare in Vietnam, it is estimated that more than 2 million Vietnamese were killed, 3 million wounded, and hundreds of thousands of children orphaned. Furthermore, it has been estimated that about 12 million people became refugees.” The end of the Vietnam War for the Vietnamese meant the beginning of healing and re-starting their every day lives. For the United States it changed America’s policies on foreign and domestic affairs. Many soldiers that returned from fighting in the war were received with cold welcomes from some people because of their strong anti-war beliefs and by others because of the way the war had ended. Haas (2009), “Never before in American history have as many loyal and brave young men been as shabbily treated by the government that sent them to war; never before have so many of them questioned as much, as these veterans have, the essential rightness of what they were forced to do.” The way these brave men were treated upon arriving home made them wonder if it was all worth it. The Vietnam War was the longest and most unpopular war in the history of America. Haas (2009), “Even today, many Americans still ask whether the American effort in Vietnam was a sin, a blunder, a necessary war, or a noble cause, or an idealistic, if failed, effort to protect the South Vietnamese from totalitarian government.” As a result of the Vietnam War many innocent people were hurt and killed over in Vietnam as well as home in the United States. In 1973 the economy of the United States slid into a recession that may have been blamed on the war by some. Many students led protests while others believed in our helping the South Vietnamese in Vietnam War. References Digital History. (2009). Learn About the Vietnam War. Retrieved from http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/vietnam/index.cfm Haas, Werner. (2009). The Effect of the Vietnam War on Its Veterans. Associated Content, Inc. Retrieved from http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/188827/the_effect_of_the_vietnam_war_on_its_pg2_pg2.html'cat=9 Ryan, J.S. (2009). Student Unrest and the Vietnam War . Associated Content, Inc.. Retrieved from http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1195187/ student_unrest_and_the_vietnam_war_.html The Sixties. (n.d.). Student Unrest. Retrieved from http://scholar.library.miami.edu/sixties/studentUnrest.php Think Quest. (1999). Radical Times: The Antiwar Movement of the 1960s. Retrieved from http://library.thinkquest.org/27942/index.htm Vietnam War. (n.d.). Final outcome of the war & Vietnam War Statistics. Retrieved from http://www.vietnam-war.0catch.com/vietnam_war_outcome.htm