On National Vietnam War Veterans Day, memories and opinions remain strong. Vietnam was first and foremost a struggle for national independence. However, the notion that the war initially was prosecuted by the government against the wishes of the American people is false. The campaign that changed how Americans saw the Vietnam War. On Jan. 30, 1968, the Vietcong attacked 120 American and South Vietnamese locations. Yet four decades after the controversial war, the Vietnamese public sees the United States as a helpful ally and even embraces some of the core tenets of capitalism. The following has been adapted from Serve the People: Making Asian America in the Long Sixties (Verso, 2016) and Kill That Gook, You Gook, Asian Americans and the Vietnam War, from The Global 1960s: Convention, Contest and Counterculture (Routledge, 2018, 217-235), by Karen Ishizuka. Any professor of history teaching in the United States would tell you that Vietnam War took place to protect the good folks of the south from bad people of the north. Those who argue that the United States won the war point to the fact that the U.S. defeated communist forces during most of Vietnams major battles. Bob Wallace (far left) helps carry a 400-pound 106mm recoilless rifle through the streets of Hu, Vietnam, during the Tet Offensive in 1968. American Views on the Vietnam War. A majority of Americans turned against the Vietnam War only when the number of U.S. dead exceeded 20,000. But the U.S. was fixated on anti-communism and Ho was a U.S. President Barack Obama is in Vietnam forging stronger ties with a country that was the scene of bitter conflict just over 40 years ago. The general consensus of the American public on Vietnam seems to be that it was an unwinnable war, fought for a questionable cause that ultimately led to nothing but dead Americans and a loss of faith in the U.S. government. They had once fought a war of national independence to get the foreign occupiers out of their country. During the war years, Americas leaders insisted that military force was necessary to defend a sovereign nation South Vietnam from external Communist aggression. Americas involvement with Vietnam began in 1954 by assisting their French and South Vietnamese allies with supplying the war effort against the communist Northern Vietnam. Learn why a country that had been barely known to most Americans came to define an era. Robert McNamara. The question of who won the Vietnam War has been a subject of debate, and the answer depends on the definition of victory. Eisenhower created an American Vietnam, and his successors would wage a bitter and failed war to keep it. The main reason for the U.S. involvement in Vietnam was to prevent the spread of communism in Southeast Asia. Japanese forces invaded Vietnam during World War II. Ho Chi Minh helped initiate the First Indochina War, which took place from 1946 to 1954. The first wave of U.S combat troops invaded South Vietnam on March 8, 1965. Americans divided by the war. Whether I like it or not, the Vietnam War is my war, too. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons. The latest Gallup poll shows 72% of Americans believe that the people of the United States have not treated Vietnam veterans well in the years since the war. The first time I viewed all 10 parts of The Vietnam War, I was preparing to interview Ken Burns and Lynn Novick for Why Was Vietnam So Important To The Us? The U. In an attempt to prevent communism from spreading, the United States entered the Vietnam War, but foreign policy, economic interests, national fears, and geopolitical strategies played a significant role as well. The U.S. entered the Vietnam War in an attempt to prevent the spread of communism, but foreign policy, economic interests, national fears, and geopolitical strategies also played major roles. Many believed that war was morally wrong. For Americans, the Vietnam war was major milestone in their history that changed the relationship between the American people and their government as well as the American view of the Cold War, which was cited as the main reason for the Americans to intervene in Vietnam. It was a proxy conflict in the Cold War. In Vietnam, he was the Executive Officer, 1st Battalion, 69th Armor, 25th Infantry Division. Since Vietnam, Americans tolerance for casualties has sharply declined. Americans' Views on the Vietnam War in the Late 1960s (Trends) Do you approve or disapprove of the way President Nixon is handling the situation in Vietnam? American Views on the Vietnam War. In 1969, Seymour Hersh broke the story of the massacre in the village of My Lai the year before, when a U.S. Army company that had lost a Download File 1969_12_18 College Students on Vietnam.pdf (769 KB) Subscribe to The Week in Charts and real time alerts. Toward an honest commemoration of the American War in Vietnam Mission statement The Full Disclosure campaign is a Veterans For Peace effort to speak truth to power and keep alive the antiwar perspective on the American war in Viet Nam which is being commemorated during this decade with a series of 50th anniversary events. Ishizuka will serve on the Unknown Stories: How We Shape Los Angeles panel at the Singers wrote anti The USA became involved in Vietnam because it feared the spread of communism. American involvement in Vietnam began quite early in the Cold War when, in 1950, the Truman Administration began financing the French effort to retain Indochina against the communist-nationalist Vietminh guerrillas led by Ho Chi Minh and based in Hanoi. At the end of World War II, the United States was broadly popular in Vietnam for having repelled the Japanese occupiers. Answer (1 of 25): As one poster already said, most Americans are too busily engrossed in their own lives and doing their own things to be bothered by the war. The Vietnamese wanted the foriegn occupiers out of their country. Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War, 1945-1975. As American involvement in Vietnam grew, especially during the 1960s, opposition to the war emerged for a variety of additional reasons. One factor that influenced the failure of the United States in Vietnam was lack of public support. There were mass protests across the USA, including in Washington in December 1969. Most are unthinking and prefer to listen to the lies and fabrications that their government feed them as He said that the Gulf of Tonkin was a straight-up lieUnlike 9/11, Vietnam started with a straight-up lieThey got us into a war that everyone knew was unwinnable and a lot of people thought was not needed, which was very different from 9/11 and from World War More items In January, a possible victory that was turned into a stunning defeat for government forces at the Battle of Ap Bac caused consternation among both the military advisers in the field and among politicians in Washington, D.C. JFK also indicated to Walter Cronkite that the war may be unwinnable, and that it was ultimately a Vietnamese war, not an American war. While anti-communism certainly characterized the Republican coalition in the 1950s, support for the Vietnam War on the part of U.S. conservatives was hardly a One example, cited in Grab Their Belts to Fight Them: The Viet Congs Big-Unit War Against the U.S., 19651966, by Warren Wilkins, is a description of the first major battle between the VC and American ForcesU.S. The Vietnam War was the first war to be highly publicized with graphic images in newspapers and live coverage on television. Some people think that the majority of people who were against the war were hippies, young people Undermining this critique is the fact that China and the Soviet Union played a much greater role in the Vietnam War than Americans realized at the time. The U.S. regained all its lost ground, but the Tet Offensive was political defeat for the U.S., partly due to media coverage. In December 1967, a Gallup poll found the American public almost evenly split on the question of whether sending troops to fight in Vietnam was a mistake. Opposing Perspectives on the Vietnam War. Hess, Gary R. Vietnam: Explaining Americas Lost War. The power of photographs. Perspectives on Vietnam. His Army service included leadership of tank and armored cavalry units in Germany, Vietnam, and the U.S. by Dr. Lewis Sorley. Reflections on the Vietnam War. The American public's support of the Vietnam War decreased as the war continued on. Pre-Vietnam war time in the United States has already showed signs that some people were in major opposition judging the actions of the government. Ike managed to avoid an American war in Vietnam during his two terms. It is said that Lyndon B. Johnson had nightmares about his decision and made him a broken man. The Tet Offensive was a turning point for public opinion. To this day, the Vietnam War remains a strong memory in the American psyche. By. The notion that the vast majority of American youths took to the streets to end the Vietnam War is equally false. The Vietnam War. In this view, Vietnam was neither a crime, a forfeit nor a tragic mistake. It claimed,In one day of ferocious fighting we had eliminated from the field of battle a total of We present data on the flow of American public attitudes con-cerning the war in Vietnam over a nine-year period (1964-73) both in The Gallup News Service began asking the American public whether it was a "mistake to send troops to Vietnam" in August 1965. About three-quarters of Vietnamese (76%) expressed a favorable opinion of the U.S. in a 2014 Pew Research Center survey. Updated on March 23, 2020. But he invested so much American prestige and effort in the success of South Vietnam that by the end of the 1950s, America had become deeply invested in its fate. Fearful that the war would jeopardize his domestic agenda, Johnson concealed the extent of the military escalation from the American public. The Vietnam War helped shape a generation of Americans, none more so than the 2.7 million who served in Southeast Asia. President Lyndon Johnson awards a medal to an American soldier during a visit to Vietnam in 1966. Prados, John. Dr. Lewis Sorley graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1956. The Communist North Vietnam was not going to attack American shores with nuclear bombs, but the integrity, honor and reputation of the United States was in jeopardy. As public support decreased, opposition grew. The Vietnam War was a complex and heated political issue and was one of the most unpopular and divisive wars in U.S. history. Today, the Vietnamese view the U.S. in a positive light. Kimball, Jeffrey P. Nixons Vietnam War. Much of the war was fought in a non-traditional guerilla style, and there were many casualties HSP has recently developed an unit plan about the Vietnam War, American Views on the Vietnam War, that can help teach about this difficult subject. World Jan 31, 2018 4:13 PM EDT. The Vietnam War was a period of American involvement in Southeast Asia from 1961-1975 in which U.S. troops fought to try to stop communist North Vietnam and its allies from overtaking South Vietnam. At the time less than a quarter of Americans polled, 24%, believed it was a mistake to send troops to Vietnam while WAR IN VIETNAM WILLIAM L. LUNCH, University of San Francisco and PETER W. SPERLICH, University of California, Berkeley AREFOOT empiricism takes a few steps forward (we hope) in the follow-ing pages. Despite losing more than 58,000 troops, and withdrawing after a humiliating defeat in Vietnam, the United States still considers the war in Vietnam as just another mistake in the Cold War. Compared to wars such as World War I and World War II, the goal was not always apparent, the fighting was messy, and there was no clear winner. The Vietnam conflict totally changed the attitudes of a generation. More and more American citizens became suspicious, skeptical and cynical about the government and public institutions in the wake of the Vietnam War. The military, in particular, was discredited for years after the conflict. The time of the war confirmed that many Americans were against it and this could be evident from the great number of protests that took place. Marinesnear Van Truong, from the VC point of view. The Vietnam War was considered a black blotch on American History and many people just wanted to forget about it. Since 1968, Americans trust in the U.S. government has not risen to pre-Vietnam levels. CNN . Updated: Nov 22nd, 2019. The Americans should have understood this. As the War went on, it became increasingly unpopular, in part due to During this time, people who had pro-war stances were called hawks, while those who were anti-war were called doves..