Vietnam: If you dont mind?

Question

How would you feel if you would have fought in Vietnam? Why?.... if you dont mind answering..... I have to ask 20 people this question for a report I am doing in my colledge history class..... thank you

Answer 1

Well, considering that the US lost as many returned servicemen from suicide as they did during the actual conflict, probably not good.

Answer 2

I used to have a friend who fought in Vietnam. When he first started he was a cook but was often near the front lines and so had to fight regularly. He said that very early in the war he was proud to be there. He would always say that while he joined up to fight for his country, once there he was fighting for his girlfriend (who later became his wife); to make her proud of him.

He felt so proud he even asked to join an actual fighting force (not just a cook but to be an actual soldier in the thick of fighting). He was put on board a helicopter to man the machine gun. He and his crew were sent one day to destroy a village that he was told was where the Viet Cong were hiding in as a main base and that all civilians were gone.

He did as he was told and began shooting everything in sight basically. But then a woman dragging a little girl by the hand came out of one of the huts near the end of the attack and he shot her (by accident, she came out just as his line of fire was crossing her hut). The crew landed and found out they completely massacred a basic village full of civilians.

Afterwards he felt so guilty he asked to quit. They said if he did he would get a dishonorable discharge, but he accepted that because he couldn't handle the idea he may kill more innocent civilians. I met him 30 years later when we were working together at a mall (I was security and he was cleaning crew). Alcohol wound up being the one thing that quieted the voices of the screams he would hear. When he needed a place to stay and I let him stay with me, all the time he would wake me up (even though he was staying in the den two floors down from my room) with his nightmares.

I don't know how I would have felt, but considering what they did to him (who survived) and to his friends (the majority of whom did not); I seriously doubt I would feel anything but hatred for a military that had taken my love of country and the want to protect my family and turned it into murder so that they would not have to do it themselves. If they care about it enough to send me and all my comrades to war; then they should go themselves so they can deal with the guilt.

Answer 3

My flight instructor was a Vietnam vet. I'm of that generation, but as a woman could not have fought in Vietnam. My older brother sweated out the fear of being drafted, but the draft ended just before he became eligible for it.

One thing you have to understand: unlike the war presently being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Vietnam war was fought largely by people who were drafted, rather than people who volunteered. So a very large number of the people who fought in Vietnam in the American armed forces did not want to be there. They did not want to take up arms against the Vietnamese, they did not believe in the reasons given for our being there, they only wanted to survive the experience and get home.

There was also a great deal of resentment of those who could find a reason for getting a draft deferment. If you were attending college, or could get an appointment to the National Guard, like our President did, you could avoid being sent to Vietnam. But you had to have money or political pull to get a deferment. For this reason, a disproportionate number of the troops who fought the war were from economically disadvantaged families.

From what my flight instructor and other Vietnam vets have told me, one of the hellacious things about Vietnam was that it wasn't always possible to know exactly who the enemy was. The war was largely a guerrilla war, with the enemy engaging in ambush tactics and using people like women, the elderly and children to commit attacks against American troops. Not knowing who could be trusted and who could not led to some of the attrocities committed by American troops against civilian populations.

This was reported on by the news media, which led to people calling the returning troops "baby killers," among other things. Due to the unpopularity of the war here at home, the troops who fought in the war came in for criticism from people. Whereas now we perceive the troops returning from the middle east as heroes, even though sentiment is turning against the war, in the Vietnam era there was a lot of hostility towards the soldiers themselves. There are a lot of Vietnam-era vets, like my flight instructor, who feel bitterness and resentment about that, and are profoundly hurt on a very personal level by criticism of the Vietnam war. (They also feel betrayal by the politicians, who would neither fight the war to win nor withdraw our troops from the region.)

If I had been drafted for the fight in Vietnam, I would have felt both frightened and bitter about having to go over there. By the time I was 18 and would have been eligible for the draft, the general feeling in the country was that we weren't accomplishing anything over in Vietnam except making people angry and killing some of our finest young men.

It was a sad and frightening time in our history.

Answer 4

I would feel scarred for life.War does many things to a human.You would never believe what the vietcongs do to American soldiers.I'm mostly Vietnamese and my mother survived the war.She said she would always hear gunfire in the distance or see dead bodies from either side being piled up and burnt.My mom was only 10 when she was traumitized by this.

Answer 5

I would have been killed in combat, so I would not be here answering this question. Sorry.

(I'm too young to have gone. It was a big topic of conversation when I was in junior high. We all knew someone older who had pre-emptively signed up with the Navy rather than wait to be drafted into one of the other services to be ground troops. Most young people at that time did not want to be killed.).

Answer 6

Regretful, particularly if I did so after 1968. The deal we got in 1973 was the same deal we could have got in 1969.

In the final analysis, you can't tell another country how to run it's own affairs unless you keep a gun barrel to the back of their neck.

Answer 7

the best I can describe this is a story I heard about a Marine but could be true for all branches of the service no matter what war they were in. a Marine reported to Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates saying, " One more Marine reporting, SIR, I've served my time in Hell. "

Answer 8

i've got continuously considered it this way, too. yet, i'm vote casting for McCain. you would be able to ask why. I abhor conflict. the undertaking is, i don't be;ive McCain likes it the two. specific, I do have self assurance that Bush and Cheney are conflict mongers and, specific, i comprehend that McCain comes from a protection stress history. i'm additionally conscious that McCain made the stmt approximately being in Iraq for yet another a hundred years. yet, he did no longer recommend that we would be there for yet another one thousand years at conflict!!! like various different u . s . a . with which we've long gone to conflict, we've left in the back of protection stress bases. i think of if absolutely everyone seems to be familiar with the horrors of conflict, it fairly is McCain. remember, our silly congress *supported* Bush's request to pass to IRaq. They have been duped only like maximum of human beings. So, why am I vote casting for McCain? i think that McCain will do a some distance extra advantageous activity of keeping us OUT of yet another conflict than Obama. McCain has extra advantageous diplomatic qualifications, and a *history* of coping with difficult circumstances nicely. Obama, on the different hand, has made adverse determination after adverse determination. (i'm able to checklist them in case you pick me to!) it is the reason this anti-conflict voter can solid a vote for McCain with a sparkling judgment of right and incorrect.

Answer 9

I might regret it. We went in there and messed up their country (kind of like what we are doing right now). I would support the troops but not the cause. We definitely made a mistake.

Answer 10

Id have felt proud to have repelled the Imperialist American aggressor and sent them packing back to Washington with their tails between their legs!