Shulzinger Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a very long war fought by the United States. Actually, the time span was the longest of wars fought. The Vietnam War, itself, spanned for about 15 years with in the time frame from 1955-1975, however, there was conflict leading up to the war for many years before hand. This war was between North and South Vietnam. North Vietnam had allies or support from China, the Soviet Union, and a few other communist allies, whereas South Vietnam was supported or had the allies of the United States, Australia, South Korea, and other anti-communist allies.

In A Time For War: The United States and Vietnam, 1941-1975 by Robert D. Shulzinger basically paints this image of the time span of the conflicts leading up to the war and the …show more content…
He believed only historical time would be the key to understanding the war. For example, "For the Vietnamese, the fight represented the latest phase of a centuries-long, even millennial, effort to define themselves and cast out invaders..." , he writes. As I stated before, Schulzinger was a very smart historian that had much knowledge of history and the researched he used to gather these historical facts about the war. The Vietnam War was basically fought between the North and South Vietnam governments along with, of course, their allies. The Soviet Union, China, and other communist allies were the supporters of North Vietnam whereas South Vietnam was supported by Australia, South Korea, the United States and other anti-communist allies. The conflicts leading up to the war along with the time span of the war lasted a little less than 20 years. The United States involvement in the Indochina war escalated quickly and began around the 1960's which then the Gulf of Tonkin incident followed. This was when a United States destroyed collided with a North Vietnamese attack craft. Following this incident was the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which granted the United States president the ability to launch military force where operations even crossed international borders where these areas were bombed by the United States military. This peaked the United State's involvement in the war by …show more content…
As I stated before, America basically turned the conflicts of Vietnam into ones of their own and made it now an American war not the Vietnam war anymore. American officials entered on false assumptions, as many believe. During the time of the Nixon administration, it became well known that the United States spent billions of dollars in military expenditures and held thousands of deaths before the realization that the war was not and could not be won.

With all being said, the Vietnam war was and still is a huge tragedy to Americans and other people around the world. Many lives were lost, a huge amount of money was spent and many believe these things could be avoided. Schulzinger definitely clarifies many misunderstood events and conflicts both leading up to the war and about the war. The use of his historical background along with his extensive research to give us a reading solely based on primary resources put the war into more of a perspective and how the United States involved themselves with accusations based off of World War