Preview

Essay About The Vietnam War

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
325 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Essay About The Vietnam War
During class, the Vietnam War was discussed. The biggest impression I had of the war was the number of casualties on both sides. Based on our study, the two lessons that could be learned were that strategies were more important than the size of the army and that a government should never lie to its people. North Vietnamese and the Vietcong were winning mostly throughout the Vietnam War because of their efficient operational plans. In fact, the North Vietnamese army had fewer and less powerful weapons. However, they utilized their strengths such as their understanding of the terrain and defeated the American army many times. In addition, the North Vietnamese army learned to use close-in fight to neutralize American firepower after the Battle of la Drang Valley (Doyle). To sum up, even though the size of the army was smaller, the North Vietnamese army maximized their strengths which brought them to a winning position. …show more content…
In order to gain American citizens’ support, most battle reports were positive and optimistic though they were untruthful. Therefore, the credibility gap between the government and the American people was developed when the people later learned about the truth; the majority of the American people no longer trusted in their government (Danzer et al, 734-735). By and large, a government should not lie to its people as it would lose their support. In summary, the Vietnam War caused many deaths to both American and Vietnamese soldiers. In my opinion, the North Vietnamese army succeeded with their effective tactics. On the other hand, the United States not only did not win the war, but also lost the trust of the people. In conclusion, the Vietnam War taught two important lessons: it was the strategies that determined an army’s power, and being dishonest to the people would eventually damage their faith in the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    The Vietnam War lasted about two decades. The United States was engulfed in a civil war between North and South Vietnam and wanted to assist the south with preventing a hostile takeover by North Vietnam under the Communism banner. The Vietnam War was not only America’s longest War, but also costliest and deadliest. We spent over $150 billion and suffered close to $58 thousand American deaths and nearly 300 thousand wounded. By the time we decided to withdraw from the war, North Vietnam easily swept through the south and unified Vietnam under Communism. Still to this day, one of the most debated topics regarding the Vietnam War is why the United States got involved and why, when and how we should wage future wars. (Dunn, 2001)…

    • 1462 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hamburger Hill

    • 497 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Vietnam War was one of the worst wars America fought. We fought in the Vietnam War for one good reason to stop the spread of communism. During the War on Vietnam there were to major battles we fought Hamburger and Pork Chop hill. The battle of Pork Chop hill was one of the most intense bloodiest battles in the Vietnam War. Hamburger hill was one another important battle but it was more slowly paced and not as bloody until the end.…

    • 497 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    There are two main ways of doing so. The more basic one is that the American involvement was an avoidable tragedy and that American policymakers horribly over exaggerated Vietnam’s importance to the United States. Had they more appropriately assessed its value to the economic and security interests of the U.S., recognized the appeal that revolutionary nationalism had within the country, and taken into account the true limits of American power, then it all could have been avoided. This is the dominant interpretation of the Vietnam War, and is widely published by many experts. It is the basic point that the whole thing was a misadventure that would have been avoided if Americans had only been wiser and less attached to misconceptions of the…

    • 1192 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    John F. Kennedy in Vietnam

    • 1990 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Bibliography: Dudley, William. The Vietnam War: Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1998. Gardner, Lloyd C. , and Ted Gittinger. Vietnam: The Early Decisions. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: The War Nobody Won. New York: The Viking Press, 1983. Kimball, Jeffery. To Reason Why. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990. Lomperis, Timothy. The War Everybody Lost and Won. 2nd ed. revised. Washington: D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Inc., 1993. McNamera, Robert. In Retrospect , The Tragedy in Vietnam. New York: Dell Publishing Group, 1996. Olson, James S. The Vietnam War. London: Greenwood Press, 1993. Rowe, John, and Rick Berg. The Vietnam War and American Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991. Rust, William J. Kennedy in Vietnam. New York: U.S. News & World Report, Inc., 1985. Schwab, Orrin. Defending the Free World: John F. Kennedy and the Vietnam War. London: Praeger Publishers, 1998.…

    • 1990 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Vietnam was a war like no other and the nature of the fighting in this war had great impacts on the soldiers. At this time, communism was seen as a great threat, especially by Western countries, and so extreme emphasis was placed on the domino theory that when one country falls to communism, others would follow and that forward defence would be the only solution to this issue. Also during this time, Vietnam was artificially split into the communist South, led by Ho Chi Min who defeated and drove out the French, and the government led South, which was in the power of Diem who was clearly corrupt and had little supporters so the spread of communism was quite likely. In response, American and Australian troops were sent to fight for the South and stop this spread of communism but there were many difficulties.…

    • 819 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    My Lai Massacre

    • 739 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The US military methods failed, but still had an effect on the war. The main reason that they failed was because they couldn't find the enemies. The Viet Cong hid in under ground tunnels, in the jungle or in the villages with the normal innocent civilians, so the US couldn't differentiate between them. Napalm failed because it hardly killed any enemies, and burnt many innocent people alive, this made the Vietnamese civilians disapprove of the Americans. So they thought that they would use defoliants to destroy the jungle, they used a defoliant called 'Agent Orange'. But even after they had destroyed the jungle they still couldn't find the enemies, and because Agent Orange got into the water supplies and cause many birth defects this, again annoyed the civilians. Rolling Thunder failed because it was very expensive and would have been useful but they couldn't hit the target. Search and Destroy missions failed because they were always ambushed. Because of all of the methods used by the Americans, the Vietnamese had stopped supporting them and started to support the Viet Cong, this then made it harder for the US to fight the Viet Cong as they had more support. After the My Lai massacre on the 16 March 1968, the US had killed over 347 innocent civilians and raped and mutilated many of them.…

    • 739 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The government had underestimated the enemy, leading them to believe they could easily defeat the communists. Vietnam experienced a strong will to rid their country of foreign rulers and The U.S presidents were not ready to lose. However, simply because of the increasing pressure from the military industrial complex arms industry, the U.S got stuck in what was referred to as a ‘Guerrilla Warfare’. Strategies which the Vietcong used included attacking as soon as the enemy tires, retreat whenever the enemy attacks, pursue the moment the enemy retreats and raid when the enemy tires. The guerrilla tactics they used caused it to be impossible to defeat Vietnam.…

    • 687 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In conclusion, the US’s decision to take part in the Vietnam war was a mistake. They should of remained neutral and let other countries handle their own business instead of encroaching into international affairs. From the Americans citizens perspective, the involvement was unnecessary and it lost the trust of…

    • 493 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Vietnam war is an incredibly controversial topic; some say America won, while others say that they lost. In this case, America took a major loss, they were never winning at any point. The reason the Americans officially lost the war is because they were unable to achieve their goal which was to stop the spread of communism in Vietnam. In fact, the exact opposite happened, after the American forces left South Vietnam in January of 1975, communism immediately overran it. Along with the reasoning behind why the Americans lost are 3 points which will give a deeper explanation on why the U.S lost the Vietnam war. First of all the Americans lost because the North Vietnamese wanted to win more than they did. Following this is the American’s bombing strategies that proved to be horrendously ineffective because they were choosing to bomb locations that would end up giving them no real advantage. Thirdly, and quite possibly the biggest reason that lost America the war was their attempt to fight a war of Attrition against the North Vietnamese strategy of Guerilla warfare…

    • 911 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The vietnam war was a great war that was tough and had many struggles there was many obstacles in the way to beat the vietnamese many argue that we won because we backed out of the war but a lot of people think we lost the vietnam war and here is a few reasons the united states lost the vietnam war . The united states of america lost the vietnam war because of lack of allied support, lack of support at home, lack of ballistic or nuclear bombs and finally the lack of real military objectives . The first reason why the united states lost the vietnam war was because of lack of allie support.the leader of the south was president diem…

    • 564 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Vietnam War DBQ

    • 672 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Vietnam war was the longest war in American History which fought between 1964 to 1975 and the most unpopular war for the American of the 20th century. This is the only one war that United States lost the war but no one knows the truth because the US government had not told about this war yet. The resulted in nearly 60,000 American deaths and in an estimated 2 million Vietnamese deaths. It seemed like the American won the war but actually they were not. The experience for the American soldier in Vietnam was long and painful one for the nation. During the war, the Vietnam is spilt in the two groups; the South which was Capitalism and the North which was Communism. To support the South Vietnam’s government, the American sent the soldiers…

    • 672 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Although very popular the Vietnam war was huge conflict during the years of 1964 through 1975, this single incident changed many Americans opinions about the nation's role both in foreign affairs and domestic ones. The Vietnam war failed in its primary purpose which was to assists in the defense against north Vietnamese communism, just like the cold war previously this proved to be another example of escalation. The US involvement in Vietnam damaged the us reputation due to very misguided and complex intentions on the part of political leaders like those in the Johnson and Nixon administration which brought upon unhappiness and social unrest among the public. This political corruption along with mismanagement on the economic system and the…

    • 948 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    If America never would have entered this conflict, the death rate of American soldiers would’ve never existed in the first place. The viewpoints on the Vietnam War made by American citizens are debated throughout the country. Many argue that the Vietnam War should’ve been a civil war between northern and southern Vietnam to settle the conflict of if the south should be under communist rule. From the beginning, it can be argued that America’s Vietnam War involvement should have potentially never been…

    • 1099 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Vietnam War Benefits

    • 272 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Although the Vietnam War was clearly a detrimental event in the history of America, some still try to argue that it benefited America and or strengthened our nation. They may say it benefited our country because in reality, it was a place where we had the opportunity to test new weapons and learn about many new medicines. When trying to refute my personal claim that Vietnam was a bad war for America to join, these are the only two main reasons others say the war was a good event for America’s history.…

    • 272 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    People believe that there is no benefit to war. Others believe that there is benefits to war. War is necessary and beneficial for many reasons, those reasons are; to maintain alliances, to make new allies, and to provide jobs.…

    • 112 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays