are there any history teachers/professors/buffs out there?

Question

I'm doing a paper on the Vietnam War and how it negatively impacted American life.... I'm trying to from a thesis statement. Ideas?

Answer 1

The Vietnam war greatly blurred the line between what constitutes a moral conflict and an immoral one.


PS: If you are considering picking a best answer I would hope you would take into consideration that my answer is the only one that actually answered your question. I actually offered you a thesis STATEMENT, not an entire paper.

Answer 2

The Vietnam War was divisive for many reasons. The divisions it created took years to heal and really haven't entirely healed.

Part of this was the result of the draft, a holdover from World War II and Korea. Many people felt the draft unduly punished poor people and minorities, although it was reasonably fairly applied to all parts of American male society.

Others felt we were picking on an enemy that was no threat to the United States or its interests.

Finally, the Vietnam War played a role in driving mainstream news media to the left, to an anti-government position, when media had been pro-government and conservative in earlier wars.

An effect of the Vietnam War was the weakening of the credibility of the U.S. government.

During the Vietnam War, most Americans who paid income taxes also paid a surcharge. That was an economic impact of the war.

In many ways, however, the war was a positive influence. Helicopter medical evacuation, proven on the battlefield, could also be applied to civilian medical emergencies, including highway accidents.

The war also helped bring about an end to the draft--which many (including those of us in military services) felt was a positive.

I would focus on the social impact of the war. The death toll over 14 years was about 59 thousand, not terribly high by World War II standards. But the divisions between elements of our society were horrendous. Confidence in American military forces was the lowest it had been in generations.

Answer 3

You have put the question in an interesting way, rather than asking (directly) whether the Vietnam War was good or bad, you're challenging us to identify how it may have negatively impacted American life.

Let me 'put the case' in the 'opposite perspective' for a moment in order to map some boundaries. In what way did the Vietnam War have a positive impact on American life? That's a hard one... Perhaps it could be argued that it in fact did not impact 'American life' significantly at all.

Apart from those directly affected, through their involvement, their injury or their death, what impact did the war have? I don't want to minimize the horrific impact it had on those individuals and their families, but if I follow the line of thought in your question, how did it impact American lives generally?

For example, did the US military adopt a different approach to warfare as a result of the Vietnam War, did US politicians deal with nationalist insurgency wars differently next time they encountered them? Did it cripple China or the USSR, or even the US economically? Could you say that the experience of the Vietnam War made the US more cautious (or more inspired) about getting involved in any other wars (in the short and the long term)?. Did it destroy public faith in the military or politicians - or was it no more eroded by this war than by what they have done themselves on countless occasions since then - and could we say that financial and sexual scandals have detracted more from our respect for them than their actual conduct of that war (or any since)?

Is it valid to observe that it was a defeat that was so (ultimately) inconsequential to the well being of the United States, that it was not the cause of any fundamental reform of either policy or of the mechanics of war, and that the MOST negative impact consequently for the American people was that it failed to lead to the nation avoiding war in future, or conducting diplomacy or wars more effectively in future.

You might ask whether a more severe defeat, or a victory (which would have had to be based on different tactics to those that were adopted) might have proven more 'useful' - that is to say 'positively impacted' American life in the long term. But as a thesis, it seems to me the first question that needs to be asked before you look at positives or negatives is that - beyond the 'hype' (and the individual costs), did it impact America at all?

One last point, and noting that I don't want to create a 'debate' here, but I'd say in response to another post that in fact the Vietnam War was a highly 'moral' conflict - from the perspective of the US and the North Vietnamese at least. The conduct of the war may have involved 'immoral' behavior, but you could argue that all war is immoral, and note that war drives moral men to immoral deeds (out of necessity and out of the madness that infects men in war). But the inspiration for going to war, and sustaining the war, was a pure moral belief on the US side and the North Vietnamese side that they were 'right' and fighting for a 'just cause'. I won't say the same for a large number (but not all) South Vietnamese politicians and Generals who saw the war as an opportunity to 'milk' the system and advance their own families power. But a highly 'moral view' does not automatically result in military success, and while you could argue that the North Vietnamese made some grievous mistakes in how they prosecuted the war, they made fewer mistakes than the US which was hampered to a very large degree by their largely unreliable ally (South Vietnam) and by their belief that being 'right' (that morality thing) will inevitably lead to success on the ground. So rather than suggesting that the Vietnam War blurred the lines between 'immoral' and 'moral' wars in the eyes of the American public, I'd suggest that in fact went a little deeper than that and actually destroyed the comfortable notion created by our success in World War II and (more or less) Korea, that our version of 'right and just' pursued through military force will prevail in the world. But - and this goes back to my argument that the Vietnam War had no lasting effect on the US - the impact of this realization was not so profound that US politicians haven't been able to take their country down exactly the same path forty years later with exactly the same result.

But by all means give the points to our colleague. He is right, if anything was at the centre of the war's impact on American life, it was issues of morality.

Answer 4

The Vietnam war is negatively impacting my life today! All of my history professors and poltical science professors were protestors during the Vietnam War and so its all I hear about. I am so sick and tired of hearing about that and race, class, and gender I could puke. They keep all of the hatred and anger from the 60s alive today as if its our problem as well.

Answer 5

Do you human beings particularly like history?! I definitely hate it. the only difficulty i like approximately history is our instructor because of the fact he's relatively humorous yet we are getting a clean instructor quickly besides. I in basic terms locate it insanely boring. And definite, I want maths to history. All my acquaintances are doing history for his or her tests, I seem the only individual who isn't. i understand some human beings could locate it thrilling, yet i'm easily no longer one among those persons :)

Answer 6

i know it screwed up a lot of good men

Answer 7

The vietnam war negativly affected american life in many ways.

1) It was the first war where the media, in the form of video, showed the visually horrible consequences of modern warfare. Previous to this, most americans idea of war was based on movies and newsreel footage from and or about World War Two. It might show a wide angle shot of where a battle took place but you didn't see in intimate detail the blood or the various other things that happen to spew forth from a human body when subjected to impacts like a bullet, shrapnel, etc. It is one thing to send your sons, brothers, and fathers off to war. It is a very diffrent thing to see those same people's heads explode over your cornflakes in the morning, or over your potroast at night. Previous wars had been covered with black and white footage, and where controls where severely in place about what was "decent" to show.

2) It changed American's perceptions on going to war. For one thing we went into Vietnam bass ackwards. There was no formal decleration of war. A series of American presidents sent young men off to die in police actions or as "advisors". Additionally, certain personalities in the media conveyed the impression that the every day citizen of Vietnam didn't want us there. People saw millions of men and women (mostly men) dying in a a non war police action, in a country that they had been given the impression, that they didn't want us there. Additionally many of the enemy weren't 18+ people, seemingly grown up. They where women and children. The American public watched it's troops kill women and children and that is hard to take. Additionally the news media didn't show that woman or child picking up a gun, leaving an improvised munition in a booby trap, slitting the throats of sleeping americans, or in some cases, castrating them. Just the execution. That sapped the American's public will to support as much in Vientnam as it did in Operation Desert Storm when the Iraqi's took to retreat and where gunned down, or when terrorists that where women or children attacked and where killed.

3) The Vietnam war was a hamstrung effort from top to bottom (no disrespect to the fine men and women who served in it but it must be said). At the very top you had a government that was unwilling to engage in total warfare. Put another way, thier sense of morality got in the way of doing what was right. A perfect example of this would be the Linebacker and Linebacker II campaigns. Bombings would be initiated. Then just as they where starting to be effective, they would be halted for political talks. Presidents Johnson, and Nixon primarily used the armed forces as a force to try and draw the North Vietnamese goverments into negotiations and making compromises rather then using the military as a force to win a conflict. So you start bombing, get the AA, Sam, and radar sites knocked out, and begin going after substantial targets like railways and bridges, only to have the offensive halted, which in turn gave the North Vietnamese time to rebuild all that had been destroyed. That is only one of hundred examples of the government attempting to be generals and admirals with no real training and no idea of what they where doing. Additionally the government put restrictions on which targets could be gone after and which couldn't. These varied from a specific building or area, to the entire part of the country above the _____ degree of longitude. So if the enemy attacked, you could repel them, you could persue them, but if they crossed an imaginary line on a map you had to let them go to regroup and recover for the next attack.

At the other end of the scale you had your grunt. The ordinary line soldier. A young man who had been forced to join the armed forces who may or may not have wanted to be there to begin with. A young man that you didn't have time to properly train before shipping them off to war. Additionally the American armed forces had for the most part stopped trying to teach marksmanship to the degree they had previously. In the Revolutionary War with muskets and muzzle loaders, one shot was often a kill or at least a wound. Accuracy was important because you might not have time for a second shot. In World War 1, they used a single shot rifle and a kill was 10 to 20 shots. In World War 2 you had semi automatic rifles with small clips and in some cases bolt actions. Again limited ammo and slower fire rates meant an emphasis on making your shots count. However in Vietnam they introduced the M-16 assault rifle and other automatic weapons. In Vietnam the rate of bullets fired to killed enemies jumped to over 100,000 bullets per casualty. They where in the jungle, scared and poorly trained, with automatic weapons. They didn't hold thier fire, or wait to see the whites of the enemies eyes. They squeezed, sprayed, and prayed. Also drug use was very prevelant both at home where those young people came from, but also in the country they arrived at. Some American troops didn't want to be there, others where afraid, and still others had seen or done things that troubled them. They had seen the elephant and wanted to forget it.

In the middle you had intelligence that was unreliable at best, generals and admirals trying to micro-manage every aspect of the soldier's life due to the increasing belief that the ordinary soldier was either insane or a junky. There where places within American army camps that officers weren't safe to go without a few MPs and weapons.

Then of course you have the soldiers that returned to America. These people that had fought for thier country. That had killed for thier country. People with combat and firearm training. People that had seen and done things they couldn't quite handle. These people returned home and instead of getting cheers, or getting counseling, they where treated like garbage. Tools of "The Man". Babykillers. There was no ticker tape parade for these heroes. Instead people threw garbage at them. Some of them made a relativly normal life for themselves. But those where the fortunate ones. Many could not readjust to life in America. Some turned to substance abuse, others to crime. In both of those cases, thier previous training in doing harm to your fellow man proved to be disasters waiting to happen. We as Americans threw hundreds of thousands of men away. We treated them like disposable robots who's usefullness had passed. Unpleasant reminders of an unpleasant war. Furthermore we did not get our own people out. We did leave men behiend. Most did forget. Some of those terrible mistakes have had attempts made to correct them. However for so many soldiers it is to little and to late.


Additionally it should be noted the time frame Vietnam took place in. Especially after the Nixon episode regarding Watergate, and the other revelations about him the widespread trust that the government was right and doing the good was widely destroyed. Additionally it started reporters on the track that they should never believe what the goverment says unless it is a "leak", that nothing is beyond the pale, and no infortmation is to secret to be revealed. On the other hand you had the official military media services bieng censored all to hell, having to get approval for any and all items that where distributed. So on the one hand you have the nightly news saying its all going to hell, and the Stars And Stripes and Armed Forces Network saying nothing is going wrong and all is right with the world.


In my opinion, the Vietnam war had alot of lessons to be taught, and unfortunatly they aren't all ones we learned. War is unpleasant. That is a fact of life. It has always been ugly and will always be ugly. If your not willing to do what it takes to win, then don't start. There is no partial victory. In war, men and women die. Thats what war is. I'll end this with some quotes from other men, far more experienced then I.

"So long as there are men there will be wars."
- Albert Einstein

"It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it."
- General Douglas MacArthur

"The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his."
- General George S. Patton

"It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived."
- General George S. Patton

"It is well that war is so terrible, or we should get too fond of it."
- Robert E. Lee

"There are no atheists in foxholes" isn't an argument against atheism, it's an argument against foxholes."
- James Morrow

"Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being."
- Kahlil Gibran, "The Voice of the Poet