Free Essays on Vietnam War

When someone thinks of the Vietnam War, people think of all the men that died and risked their lives. No one ever takes in to consideration that there was women in that war that fought, helped saved soldiers, wrote articles on it, served in the Red Cross, and died in that horrible war. In the time of the war women were still perceived to not be capable of doing what men could do. They went into Vietnam proving that they have the skills, strength, and mental capability to be with the men. Army, Navy and Air Force Nurses and Medical Specialists numbered over six thousand (U.P). All Army nurses were officers, and were Direct Commissions (T.O.D.I). They became nurses first and then attended a ten day or so Orientation Course at (Ft. Sam Houston, Texas) to teach them how to be officers. In 1965, Maj. Kathleen Wilkes and SFC Betty Adams became the first U.S. Women’s Army Corps (WAC) members to serve as Military Advisors to the newly formed Women’s Corps of the Army of the Republic of (South) Vietnam (ARVN) (Starr 234). A lot of women requested to be sent to Vietnam but were declined. Many claim that they were being denied on purpose because many felt that women could not handle it. One WAC lieutenant complained, â€Å"What kind of delicate creatures do the brass think we are? There’s a war going on in Vietnam, but you have to be a civilian to get assigned there. Women are fighting in the jungles with the Vietcong. Yet we aren’t allowed to dirty our dainty hands† (234). Over five hundred WAC’s were stationed in Vietnam (U.P). Three factors collected to confine the amount of military women serving in Southeast Asia: (1) conventional outlook towards servicewomen; (2) desire to keep women from the unsympathetic realities of warfare; and (3) commanders believed it was easier to deal with only men. The women that did serve in Vietnam proved how capable they were of performance under all the aggressive fire. During 1968 Tet Offensive, Ca... Free Essays on Vietnam War Free Essays on Vietnam War Choices Tim O’Brien was drafted to the Vietnam War. He didn’t want to go to the war. So he went to the northern woods in the northern Minnesota. He had to make a choice whether to go to the war or not to go to the war. After spending six days with guy Elroy he decides to go. Tim O’Brien went to the war for the wrong reasons. He didn’t even think that there should be a war. He saw no reason at all why they should be fighting. He says â€Å"I was drafted to a war I hated... [I was] politically naive, but even so the American war in Vietnam seemed to me wrong. Certain blood shed for uncertain reason. â€Å"He hated this war and had so many questions about it. he says â€Å" It was my view then, and still is that you don’t make a war without knowing why.† he didn’t believe in it and didn’t know why we were fighting so why should he go to a war. He didn’t want to go to war. He wasn’t made for war. He even says , â€Å"I was no solider. I hated dirt and tents and mosquitoes. The sight of blood made me queasy.......† Now come on he didn’t even like anything to do with outdoors what good would he even do for our country. He minds well stay home and go to school. He was too young and had too much to lose. He even got a scholarship to a good school. â€Å"... I had the world *censored*ed - Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude and president of the student body and a full ride scholarship for grad studies at Harvard.† It must have been a mistake cause I was too young. â€Å" a month after graduating from Macalester college. I was drafted to fight a war I hated. I was twenty-one years old, young, yes.† Way too young to go to war. He was too embarrassed not to go. He was afraid to be laughed out of town. â€Å" ... and it was easy to imagine people sitting around a table down at the old Gobbler Cafe on Mainstreet, coffee cups poised, the c... Free Essays on Vietnam War The Effects of the Vietnam War on its Veterans Thesis: The Vietnam War took many tolls on its soldiers; now the veterans have to deal with medical problems like Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), severe drug and alcohol addictions, and the effects of Agent Orange. I. Introduction II. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder III. Drug and Alcohol Addictions A. Alcohol B. Marijuana C. Heroin IV. Agent Orange A. Background Information B. Diseases of The Effects of the Vietnam War on its Veterans. Have you ever seen a homeless man sleeping in the street and hastily conclude that he is at the bottom of society? I bet that you never stopped to think about where that person has come from. He could have been just like you at one time, nineteen years old, just out of high school, ready to start his life, but then he was drafted. According to the National Coalition for the Homeless at least one third of homeless males are veterans (Shay 178). A large amount of veterans have severe problems in everyday society. Many veterans have to deal with physical health conditions as well as mental health problems. The Vietnam War took many tolls on its soldiers; now the veterans have to deal with medical like Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), severe drug and alcohol addictions, and the effects of Agent Orange. Perhaps one of the most devastating side effects of fighting a war is the amount of stress that is put on the soldiers. This is because of a mental health problem called Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). PTSD is a condition that is caused by an enormous amount of stress that is put on an individual. Post-Vietnam syndrome is another name for PTSD and the two are even more generally known as war neurosis (Scott 28). War neurosis has been recognized as a medical condition from a time dating back to the civil war (Scott 28). PTSD sets in anywhere from nine to thirty months after the over... Free Essays on Vietnam War The Vietnam War, the nations longest war, cost fifty-eight thousand American lives. Only the Civil War and the two World Wars were deadlier (â€Å"Vietnam War†). The U.S. Treasury spent over $140 billion on the war, enough money to fund urban renewal projects in every major American city (â€Å"Vietnam War†). The initial reasons for U.S. involvement in Vietnam seemed logical and compelling to American leaders. Following its success in WWII, the U.S. faced the future with a sense of moral rectitude and material confidence (â€Å"Vietnam War†). There were actually two phases of the War. During the first phase, which began in 1946, the Vietnamese fought France for control of Vietnam. At that time, Vietnam was part of the colony of French Indochina (Pike 373). The Vietnam War was actually the second phase of fighting in Vietnam (373). With everything going on in Vietnam and the United States, everything was falling apart including the governments, moral issues, and t he cities. The fight for the U.S. was led by many famous American presidents, five to be exact. The aftermath and turmoil of this war was a catastrophe, considering Vietnam still became a Communist country. How did the war start? Well, the French wanted colonialism throughout Vietnam. North Vietnam wanted a communist country and South wanted a non-communist – pro-American government. America just favored Vietnam’s independence and supported South Vietnam, surprising Ho Chi Minh [leader of the North] (â€Å"Vietnam War†). The United States aid to France and later non-communist South Vietnam was based on a policy of President Harry S. Truman. He had declared that the U.S. must help any nation threatened by Communists (Pike 373). President Dwight D. Eisenhower increased the level of aid, about $2 ½ billion worth, just to get defeated by the Vietminh in the famous battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 (Seah 24). The U.S. had a great deal of difficulty in holding the army together in Sou... Free Essays on Vietnam War Vietnam War Encarta Encyclopedia defines the Vietnam War as a military struggle fought in Vietnam from 1959 to 1975, involving the North Vietnamese and the National Liberation Front (NLF) in conflict with United States forces and the South Vietnamese army. The Vietnam War was the longest and most unpopular war in which Americans ever fought. From 1946 until 1954, the Vietnamese had struggled for their independence from France during the First Indochina War. At the end of this war, the country was temporarily divided into North and South Vietnam. North Vietnam came under the control of the Vietnamese Communists who had opposed France and who aimed for a unified Vietnam under Communist rule. Vietnamese who had collaborated with the French controlled the South. The United States became involved in Vietnam because it believed that if all the country fell under a Communist government, Communism would spread throughout Southeast Asia and beyond. This belief was known as the â€Å"domino theory.† The U.S. government, therefore, supported the South Vietnamese government. This government’s repressive policies led to rebellion in the South, and the NLF was formed as an opposition group with close ties to North Vietnam. The toll in suffering, sorrow, in rancorous national turmoil can never be tabulated. No one wants ever to see America so divided again. And for many of the more than two million American veterans of the war, the wounds of Vietnam will never heal. An estimated fifty-eight thousand Americans lost their lives. The losses to the Vietnamese people were appalling. During the conflict, approximately 3 to 4 million Vietnamese on both sides were killed, in addition to another 1.5 to 2 million Lao and Cambodians who wer e drawn into the war. The financial cost to the United States comes to something over 150 billion dollars. Direct Americans involvement began in 1955 with the arrival of the first advisors. In 1965 the... Free Essays on Vietnam War When someone thinks of the Vietnam War, people think of all the men that died and risked their lives. No one ever takes in to consideration that there was women in that war that fought, helped saved soldiers, wrote articles on it, served in the Red Cross, and died in that horrible war. In the time of the war women were still perceived to not be capable of doing what men could do. They went into Vietnam proving that they have the skills, strength, and mental capability to be with the men. Army, Navy and Air Force Nurses and Medical Specialists numbered over six thousand (U.P). All Army nurses were officers, and were Direct Commissions (T.O.D.I). They became nurses first and then attended a ten day or so Orientation Course at (Ft. Sam Houston, Texas) to teach them how to be officers. In 1965, Maj. Kathleen Wilkes and SFC Betty Adams became the first U.S. Women’s Army Corps (WAC) members to serve as Military Advisors to the newly formed Women’s Corps of the Army of the Republic of (South) Vietnam (ARVN) (Starr 234). A lot of women requested to be sent to Vietnam but were declined. Many claim that they were being denied on purpose because many felt that women could not handle it. One WAC lieutenant complained, â€Å"What kind of delicate creatures do the brass think we are? There’s a war going on in Vietnam, but you have to be a civilian to get assigned there. Women are fighting in the jungles with the Vietcong. Yet we aren’t allowed to dirty our dainty hands† (234). Over five hundred WAC’s were stationed in Vietnam (U.P). Three factors collected to confine the amount of military women serving in Southeast Asia: (1) conventional outlook towards servicewomen; (2) desire to keep women from the unsympathetic realities of warfare; and (3) commanders believed it was easier to deal with only men. The women that did serve in Vietnam proved how capable they were of performance under all the aggressive fire. During 1968 Tet Offensive, Ca... Free Essays on Vietnam War America’s Longest War From the late 1950’s through the early 1970’s, America faced its most difficult challenge in recent history. That conflict was the Vietnam War. For the Americans, it was a war based on fear, economical protection, and public outcry, along with numerous executive changes that kept the war going for so long. There were many reasons why the Americans eventually left Vietnam. Those reasons are what remain of the legacies of the Vietnam War. The war started off with the Kennedy administration, in which believed that â€Å"Vietnam represents the cornerstone of the Free World in Southeast Asia, the keystone in the arch, the finger in the dike.† Should the â€Å"red tide of Communism† pour into it, Kennedy warned, much of Asia would be threatened (Herring 53). Kennedy didn’t take action once he came into office. Instead Kennedy supplied aid and money to the government to help them with relief. Kennedy then acted with stronger intentions only because the Diem government appeared on the verge of collapse. The president started to send highly skilled â€Å"advisers† to South Vietnam to properly train the soldiers of Vietnam to be successful in their missions. After a while, the Diem government questioned whether the United States knew what they were doing. â€Å"All these soldiers,† Diem complained. â€Å"I never asked them to come here. They don’t even have passports.† The growing uneasiness was clearly revealed in May 1963 when Nhu publicly questioned whether the United States knew what it was doing in Vietnam (Herring 113). In this atmosphere of confusion and mounting conflict, the Kennedy administration also began to discuss the possibility of troop withdrawals. In November 1, 1963, the South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother were murdered. The murder of Diem shocked President Kennedy and reinforced his concerns about American involvement in South Vietnam. Less than a month la... Free Essays on Vietnam War When someone thinks of the Vietnam War, people think of all the men that died and risked their lives. No one ever takes in to consideration that there was women in that war that fought, helped saved soldiers, wrote articles on it, served in the Red Cross, and died in that horrible war. In the time of the war women were still perceived to not be capable of doing what men could do. They went into Vietnam proving that they have the skills, strength, and mental capability to be with the men. Army, Navy and Air Force Nurses and Medical Specialists numbered over six thousand (U.P). All Army nurses were officers, and were Direct Commissions (T.O.D.I). They became nurses first and then attended a ten day or so Orientation Course at (Ft. Sam Houston, Texas) to teach them how to be officers. In 1965, Maj. Kathleen Wilkes and SFC Betty Adams became the first U.S. Women’s Army Corps (WAC) members to serve as Military Advisors to the newly formed Women’s Corps of the Army of the Republic of (South) Vietnam (ARVN) (Starr 234). A lot of women requested to be sent to Vietnam but were declined. Many claim that they were being denied on purpose because many felt that women could not handle it. One WAC lieutenant complained, â€Å"What kind of delicate creatures do the brass think we are? There’s a war going on in Vietnam, but you have to be a civilian to get assigned there. Women are fighting in the jungles with the Vietcong. Yet we aren’t allowed to dirty our dainty hands† (234). Over five hundred WAC’s were stationed in Vietnam (U.P). Three factors collected to confine the amount of military women serving in Southeast Asia: (1) conventional outlook towards servicewomen; (2) desire to keep women from the unsympathetic realities of warfare; and (3) commanders believed it was easier to deal with only men. The women that did serve in Vietnam proved how capable they were of performance under all the aggressive fire. During 1968 Tet Offensive, Ca... Free Essays on Vietnam War The American conflict in Vietnam and Indochina during the 1960’s and 70’s has been seen through many different perspectives. Hollywood has given its portrayal in countless movies ranging from â€Å"Good Morning Vietnam,† â€Å"We Were Soldiers,† and â€Å"Platoon.† Books and magazines have also given their opinions in both fiction and non-fiction pieces of literature. Most of the time Vietnam is painted as a beautiful country cursed with a gruesome war. But no movie or book can describe what accurately went on more than the young soldiers who saw the violence with their own eyes. Military men had to deal with risking their lives, fighting a foreign enemy, being on constant edge, and dealing with the constant pressures that come with military service. This paper will focus on the U.S. Army’s role in Vietnam, the â€Å"politics† surrounding combat, and the graphic images witnessed by many infantrymen on the front lines. Between 1962 and 1975 approximately 2.5 Americans served in Vietnam and the Army had numerous combat units on the front lines fighting the enemy. When the first U.S. combat troops arrived in Vietnam in 1965 they were composed mainly of volunteers. The Air Force, Navy, and Marines were volunteer units. The escalating war, however, required more draftees. In 1965 about 20,000 men per month were inducted into the military, most into the Army; by 1968 about 40,000 young men were drafted each month to meet increased troop levels ordered for Vietnam (http://25thaviation.org/default.htm). The distinct element that the Vietnam conflict had over other major battles in U.S. history was that the fighting took place in â€Å"bits and pieces.† â€Å"There were no Normandies or Gettysburgs for us, no epic clashes that decided the fates of armies or nations. The war was mostly a matter of enduring weeks of expectant waiting and, at random intervals, of conducting vicious manhunts through jungles and swamps where snipers harassed us con... Free Essays on Vietnam War Vietnam War The Vietnam War is one of the most disgraceful periods in American history. Not only did the greatest superpower in the world get bested by an almost third-world nation, but we lost badly. Perhaps this war could have been won, or even prevented in the first place. The United States could have and should have won this war, with a combination of better weapons usage, better tactics, and better support from their home country. Before the War Even years before the war, Vietnam was a hotly disputed territory. Many countries had taken Vietnam over, and after World War II, Vietnam was in the hands of France. Obviously, the Vietnamese wanted their own country, and their long history of being a colony prompted the oppressed people to fight for their independence in the French-Indochina war. (7) Ho Chi Min, the leader of the Communist party, organized the Vietnamese independence movement, Viet Minh. Asking for support from America first, Ho Chi Min did not want to have to turn to communist support for the freedom of his people. Since the United States viewed helping Ho gain his independence from France as a move against their own allies, they declined. It was only after Russia and China offered to help that Ho adopted communist ideals and wanted to make all of Vietnam communist. The Vietnam War started simply because Ho Chi Min and his communist supporters wanted South Vietnam to become communist after the South split off in 1954 to become its own democratic nation. The United States saw this as a threat to democracy, and using the Domino theory, successfully threw the U.S. into the one of the worst wars it has ever seen. If only the United States had looked past its petty alliances and helped another country gain its independence like we had gained ours so many years ago, this war would have been completely avoided. Unfortunately for the families of over 64,000 soldiers, it wasn't. Beginnings of a Nightmare As early as 1954,...