Vietnam War
Question: What does the literature say about whether the US should have gone to the Vietnam War or not?
Research Paper:
The United States is a country that
wins wars, and this attitude led to a downfall for the country during the
Vietnam War. World War II deemed to be a war that raised confidence amongst
citizens in the United States. When there was a draft to go to Vietnam, the
country did not approve, as many people decided to be a protestor against the
war and not go, including Muhammad Ali. There were obviously reasons behind
this protesting. The reason for going to Vietnam was to stop the spread of
Communism, but the United States needed to plan better, because they didn’t
know what they were getting in to. The country thought the war was going well
as always for the U.S., but then people were alarmed of what actually was going
on. Tragedies in our country occurred, including riots and murders during war
protests. The country began to fall apart during this time period. The United
States experienced a culture change, which was due to the counterculture,
“yippies”, the loss of JFK, and the communist threats posed during LBJ’s
presidency.
Communism was like a contagious
disease spreading throughout a public school. It seemed like it was going to
spread throughout the world if the United States did not try to stop it. This
was the main reasoning behind intervening in Vietnam, even if the population in
America didn’t generally agree. The country was trying to stay a superpower and
keep Communism away from surrounding countries in Asia, and the whole world. No
one had anything to worry about, America was just going to win another war and
nothing bad would occur. This mindset was completely wrong and later on led to
the counterculture was of life throughout the United States. There were many
instances in which the United States could’ve left the war, but we simply didn't. There were some horrible points in the United States, including the
Kent State riots. This wasn't necessary though as many people in the country,
including President Lyndon B. Johnson, thought the war was important and that
we were going to win. “Vietnam Veterans were the best educated forces our
nation had ever sent into combat. Seventy nine perfect had a high school
education or higher” (US Wings). The fact that the troops had an education
provides for some reasoning behind wanting the country to go to war, even if
the outcome wasn’t as good as we had hoped. In fact, the outcome turned out to
be horrible. Another statement is, “There is no difference in drug usage
between Vietnam Veterans” (LZ Center). The drug reference is trying to state
how Vietnam Veterans and other veterans of war are no different. This is a
strongly controversial statement, and is shown by how Vietnam Veterans are
treated and respected.
There’s something about Vietnam
Veterans in the way they’re treated differently than WWII Veterans. Many other
war vets are treated with much more respect and integrity than Vietnam
Veterans. Had Lyndon B. Johnson known what the outcome was going to be and how
the Vietnam Veterans were going to be treated and have to suffer from
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, he probably would not have sent the country to
war. This wasn’t known though, which is why there are people who still argued
that the country should go to war. Clearly, the United States was in a time and
state of disparity during and after the war. Not only did they not know about
how poorly the war was going in Vietnam, but they also started getting into
sex, drugs, and rock and roll. This time was when the country was leading
towards being more open in their lives instead of following the rules, which
was opposite of life back in the 50’s and 60’s. In this time period, a lot of
people in the country were called “yippies”. They “led the free speech and
anti-war movements of the 1960’s” (Wiki). These anti-war movements led to riots
and outbreaks at colleges. The culture very well may have changed regardless of
the war, but LBJ should’ve recognized where the country was headed, and then
left the Vietnam War. Therefore, there is an argument that the war was
necessary to go to, but there’s an even stronger argument about how the war
should have never involved the United States.
There are many obvious reasons as to
why the United States should not have gone to war in Vietnam. The war brought
nothing positive to the country. It gave soldiers and veterans PTSD, and it
caused many problems within the United States. Lyndon B. Johnson knew what
happened to soldiers, but this is the first time PTSD had shown up. They
actually discovered the disorder because of the Vietnam War, so LBJ didn’t know
about this specific disorder and reaction to war. The major idea of the country
going to war was to stop the spread of communism, but we simply did not need to
intervene in this. The spread was going throughout countries on the other side
of the world, and we could’ve times it and planned better for a war. The Kent
State incident was one to be remembered during the Vietnam War. Guards opened
fire on students rioting and killed four of them. These young students would
not have gotten killed if we had not stayed in the war. President Johnson is to
blame for this, as well as the guards, because if he had taken the US out of
the war then the students wouldn’t have been protesting. Later on, there was a
shooting at Jackson State. This shooting was also caused by the Vietnam War.
PTSD is the next terrible reaction to the Vietnam War.
PTSD was very common amongst Vietnam
War veterans. “On the issue of psychological health: Mental problems attributed
to service in Vietnam are referred to as PTSD. Civil War veterans suffered
“Soldiers heart” (Paul Nelson, Soldier’s Heart), in WWI the term was “Shell
Shock” (Susan Morse, Sea Coast Online), during WWII and in Korea it was “Battle
fatigue”” (LZ Center). The Vietnam Veterans suffered from PTSD and this
contributed to the main reasons behind the thought of not wanting to go to
Vietnam. All of these diseases or mental illnesses that occurred were from
horrifying acts during war time. We never should have even gone however, and it
all started in the mid-sixties when John F Kennedy was president. A website
gives resourceful input on the situation, saying, “President John F. Kennedy rounded another turning point in early 1961,
when he secretly sent 400 Special Operations Forces-trained (Green Beret)
soldiers to teach the South Vietnamese how to fight what was called counterinsurgency war against Communist guerrillas
in South Vietnam. When Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, there were
more than 16,000 U.S. military advisers in South Vietnam, and more than 100
Americans had been killed. Kennedy's successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, committed
the United States most fully to the war” (Andrew J. Rotter). After John F. Kennedy
was assassinated, Lyndon B. Johnson took over and this led to even a stronger
push for the war amongst the higher power presidency. John F. Kennedy was very
hesitant to go to war, and he turned out to be right in doing so because the
war obviously did not go well. John F. Kennedy is viewed as possibly one of the
best presidents ever, even with his extremely short term due to his
assassination, which some people believed was led by Lyndon B. Johnson. The
conspiracy gets into such detail, and this is fully related to the Vietnam War
because the country may have not gone too deep into the war if John F. Kennedy
survived and remained president. Michael Clancy said, “He didn't pull the trigger, but he was in the thick of the conspiracy,
according to a Scottsdale attorney who has written two books on the subject”
(Michael Clancy, Arizona Republic). He also wrote, “His movements, his
statements and his background make no sense if he was the lone gunman, Zirbel
says. Even the site of the fatal shots was out of whack: Oswald would have had
a much easier target several seconds earlier, as the motorcade slowed to turn
twice, Zirbel notes” (Michael Clancy, Arizona Republic”. This conspiracy is one
that will live on forever, and Lyndon B. Johnson will always be viewed as the
reason we went to the Vietnam War. He should not be viewed as a good president
by any means, as he is shady and led us to a state of frame where the country
was at numerous low points. Another great phrase is, “Johnson is presented
as an extreme hawk intent on getting the US into a full-blown war in Southeast
Asia. But the recent release of tapes from the Johnson White House has shown
that this picture is radically unfair. George McGovern, a member of the U.S.
Senate during the Vietnam War, and a strident critic of the war, notes the
following in a column in the New York Times (Dec. 5, 1999)” (Mcadams). This phrase leads up to McGovern saying how
the war was a disaster and Lyndon B. Johnson should have been a good president
and left. The JFK conspiracy is important because he didn’t really want to go
to war, and he most likely would’ve been smart enough to leave it once we
started losing and realizing the conditions of the war. The United States of
America did not need to enter this war, and when a great war general is saying
that leaving is necessary, then leaving is necessary. Under all circumstances,
McGovern knew a lot more about war time than Lyndon B. Johnson did, but Lyndon
B. Johnson decided not to listen to him and continue getting beaten to the
ground by the Vietnamese.
Anti-war protests in San Francisco basically summed up all troubles that
occurred during the Vietnam War. There was a huge outbreak in San Francisco as
the counterculture idea and lifestyle was booming. A statement on this is, “The 1960’s hippie counter culture movement involved a variety
of social concerns and beliefs. The hippies’ primary tenet was that life was
about being happy, not about what others thought you should be. Their “if it
feels good, do it” attitudes included little forethought nor concern for the
consequences of their actions. Hippies were dissatisfied with what their
parents had built for them, a rather strange belief given that their parents
had built the greatest booming economy the world had ever seen” (Mortal
Journey). Sex, drugs, and rock and roll was also becoming extremely popular,
and one of the most popular drugs was LSD. Clearly, this generation of people
just wanted to feel good and didn’t care too much about their future. This helped
LSD distributors during the war. The statement that explains it all is, “During
this time, LSD manufacturer Owsley Stanley, who also lived in Berkeley, provided
much of the LSD to the burgeoning hippie scene. Stanley, an ex-army radar
operator, converted his amphetamines lab to an LSD lab and became one of the
first millionaire drug dealers in the United States. His LSD product became a
part of the “Red Dog Experience”, the early evolution of psychedelic rock and
the budding hippie culture. At the Red Dog Saloon, the Charlatans were the
first psychedelic rock band to play live while high on LSD” (Mortal Journey).
LSD only hurt this generation as it even killed some people. The generation of
the counterculture involved many teen pregnancies as well. The counterculture
was simply the state of the country during the war, which may have been
different had LBJ taken us out of the war earlier. This clearly was not a good
generation, and it was all caused because of the Vietnam War, therefore we
shouldn’t have ever gone there.
Containing the spread of communism may have been important, but not so
important that we needed to suffer so much from it. The Things They Carried is
a novel that explains the Vietnam War so well. The Vietnam War is a topic that
even writers and storytellers wanted to discuss, shown through the novel, The
Things They Carried. The story said, “By daylight they took sniper fire, at night
they were mortared, but it was not battle, it was just the endless march,
village to village, without purpose, nothing won or lost” (Tim O’Brien, The
Things They Carried).
Think
very simply about the time period during the Vietnam War and prior to the
Vietnam War. The 1950’s and early 60’s was a time of basically rest and easy
lifestyle. Men worked and women were housewives. Ironically, the role of women
was changing as the way of life was changing towards a counterculture. The men
were viewed as the dominant ones, as the women were lesser viewed in the 60’s
(Debra Michals, Project Muse). Elena Sheppard also said, “Seeing 100 years of women and norms timelined so seamlessly
carries a weight beyond the images. It captures what women in each eras looked
like and how the the countercultures of each time challenged established norms
and built upon the decades before. The '20s flapper pushed for a challenge to
traditional womenhood, the '50s beatniks used hair and fashion to protest
against middle class luxury, the '70s yippies channeled a free aesthetic to
underscore their pursuit of pacifism” (Elena Sheppard, Arts.Mic). This quote
explains how women’s roles were changing, as well as the yippies getting more
and more popular. Samantha Mainman wrote, “Political Protests during the
counter culture caused the American ideal of politics to become refocused
around equality and freedom, and nonviolence. Previously, the central political
ideas of America were protection of its citizens and war. The terror of nuclear
weapons was all-consuming and the government turned its complete focus towards
the war. The fear of communism was also immense in the political perspective.
The whole time period was one of dread and anxiety” (Samantha Mainman, Counter
Culture in the 1960’s). This could not be explained any better as the whole
country changed because of the Vietnam War and people wanted less violence and
more peace. This led to immense amounts of drug and alcohol use, and then
yippies were formed. The time period could have been completely different had
the United States not gone to the Vietnam War.
The Vietnam War still has
controversy surrounding it, as many people believe we should have gone, and
many people also believe we shouldn't have gone. All of these quotes and
statistics lean towards not going to the war. The war may have been important
to go to because of communism, but not knowing the outcome. Especially after a
war general says that a war is needed to leave, then the country should leave.
The Vietnam War was so terrible and depressing, and it caused great anxiety and
problems in the United States. The United States experienced a culture change, which was due to the
counterculture, “yippies”, the loss of JFK, and the communist threats posed
during LBJ’s presidency.
Gap Identification:
The literature did not cover the full reason as to why the US decided to go to Vietnam. The main reason was communism, but there are also other reasons. On of these was that we were close to having a nuclear war, so communism had to be stopped. It was after the cold war, and both China and Cuba were communist, and Cuba had nuclear weapons they were threatening to fire.
Research Question:
Should the US have ever have ever gone to the Vietnam War?
Methodology:
I plan to use this data to determine the main populace thoughts on the Vietnam War. I will question people on the topic, simply asking whether or not we should have gone to the Vietnam War, and if so, if/when we should have left it. Using both quantitative and qualitative questions, there will be no concrete answer to the question, rather just supported opinions.
Data Collection:
This is a topic that cannot come out with a definite answer, so I asked general questions to a group of people. I asked, "Should the US have ever gone to the Vietnam War?" and "If so, should we have left earlier, and when?" These questions were answered usually by saying we should not have ever gone, and this is also my personal opinion.
Data Analysis:
Most of the data in a whole brought out statistics and information regarding the US involvement in the Vietnam War. Most of it says that there is reasoning behind going, but also that we should have left earlier. The US suffered so many tragedies during this war time, and a peaceful, non war time would have helped.
There was an argument made for us going to war though. The argument was that we needed to go to ensure no nuclear warfare and stop the spread of communism. Going didn't end up helping the cause though, as the country had to leave the war before of the conditions of the war.
Findings:
There was no unanimous decision on the topic, but there was a main idea. The main idea is that the country should have at least left the war earlier than we did. If we did, then many riots wouldn't have happened, and so many men wouldn't have suffered and died. This might mean that the US would have been in a better state if we hadn't gone to war, but we felt it necessary to go at the time.
Conclusion:
Through my research, I have found that there is no answer to the problem. There are so many arguments for and against going to the war. It should be definite though, that we should have at least left the war early.
Works Cited:
Vietnam War: Facts, Stats, and Myths
http://www.uswings.com/about-us-wings/vietnam-war-facts/
Counter Culture in the 1960’s
Vietnam War
Vietnam War
Statistics about the Vietnam War
Vietnam War Facts
The Causes of the Vietnam War
Vietnam War Myths and Facts
The Things They Carried
Tim O’Brien
Counter Culture of the 1960’s
The Hippie Counter Culture Movement
Remarkable Photos Shows the Culture and Counterculture of
Women for the Past 100 Years
Daughters of Aquarious
The Woodstock Music and Art Fair
Soldier’s Heart
Paul Nelson
JFK Conspiracy Theorists Point Fingers at LBJ
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/21/jfk-conspiracy-theorist-points-finger-at-lbj/3660765/
WWII veteran battled the ravages of shell shock
http://www.seacoastonline.com/article/20131103/News/311030355
13 Things You Didn’t Know About Woodstock
Kennedy and Foreign Policy
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/context1.htm
