why was the Vietnam War viewed differently from previous wars the U.S has fought?

Question

the Vietnam War alienated many young people during the 1960s.

Answer 1

Because that was the very first time in American history that people went to the streets to:
-Claim Freedom to the land;
-Bring our soldiers home;
-Stop war;
-Demanding answers from the government;
-And becoming united on a single cause making their voices heard and specially making their citizens rights be known.
The Vietnam war was the stepping stone when American people became involved, speaking up their minds about what the government was doing. Since then, -and "never before that"-, we are still going to the streets to claim for what we believe it's the best for our country and for its people.

-(Pioneers of this so revolutionary concept we're still using? The hippies and their followers. And, that was exactly why many upon many of them were persecuted and tortured by our own government... My hat's off to them, our pioneers of freedom, our hippies!)-

Answer 2

Part of the answer to your question is in your question - the undeclared war in Vietnam did alienate many people (young and old) during the 1960s. Neither the conflict in Korea, nor the Second World War did. During the 1960s the young people of America took it upon themselves to use the democratic rights they had always been told were theirs.

Speaking out against a war they felt was unjust was exercising a democratic right - and the duty of a citizen.

Secondly, when compared to the Second World War (Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Germany's/Italy's declaration of war on the United States days later on Dec. 11, 1941), and the Korean Conflict (the United Nations adopted a resolution that the North Korean attack across the 38th parallel on June 24, 1950 was "a breach of the peace") the war in Vietnam was none of these things.

Vietnam was seen as much less of a defensive action, and by the way the American military prosecuted the war - the bombing raids on Hanoi, the size of the American ground forces, the large number of civilian casualties in the south - it was seen as an offensive Cold War "Kill Charlie" slaughter.

Answer 3

The nature of the Vietnam war was different than any we had before. The television and press coverage was more extensive, and less filtered than the material coming out of WW II. It differed from Korea, because, evidently Korea had been moved off the front pages of the papers, in some documentary I saw, a spouse of a GI said she couldn't find anything about it in her hometown paper, and even the New York Times pushed it to page 3.
Viet Nam was different in that we had, not just reporters, but cameras in country with the guys. Even the terminology was startling. Can you imagine the impact the first time you heard a report on how many dead there were referred to as a body count, sort of like the number of empty bottles left over after a football game?
Think about seeing an ally, an officer at that, putting a pistol to someone's head and pulling the trigger. It doesn't sit well with your dinner in front of the TV when even an alleged enemy agent's skull is blasted right in front of you.

And this little vignette made it into Life Magazine as a still picture too if I remember.

It sort of changed the "saddle up, let's get back in the war" image we had from John Wayne films. None of these people were getting up and getting into the next movie.

Answer 4

It wasn't our war to begin with. The US should have stayed out of it (just like Iraq) & let the French deal with it. Historically, excluding the Civil War, wars were fought when the aggressor/enemy invaded & attacked the US. When our soldiers returned they were treated abominably. The Vietnam War was a complete waste of our time & money and needlessly cost the lives of too many young men. If you are going to go into a war, one does it for a good reason and also to win it.

Answer 5

I see one or two answers that could be right, however I wonder how many that answered were there, I was, through two tours.
It was a yound persons war, that average age of the fighting man was 18-19 years old, compared to WW2 as 25-27 years old and Korea as 24-25 years old.
There wasn't a front, the front lines were all around you, you were dropped in by chopper and there it was, all around you.
It was a political war, fought in Washington, in Hanoi and in Russia. We, the kids that fought the war, were the scapegoats.

We were in the news on a nightly basis, the blood, the guts and the gore, our moms saw us, or friends saw us bleed.
The American people hated us for being sent 3000 miles away to fight in a war we didn't want, but, we did. They spit at us, they through things at us, they called us names. They mimicked us and aped us for fighting a war we didn't want.

Out of my five cousins, none of us were old enough to sit down in an American bar and have a beer but, we were old enough to die so that you could.
When a chopper was hit, a man wasn't hit, fifteen men and two pilots lost their lives. I lost most of my friends, all of my conrades, the few that came back with me, some wished they'd stayed, some did, in their minds.

The jungles were tall, cold and wet and, very, very dark, especially at night. I cried my self to wakfulness every night so if I died, it would be with honor and, fighting.
Yes, it was a different war, none of you know how bad it really was. I have never told my four daughters, they only know I was in the Army. Some things were not to be mentioned to a ladies ears.

Answer 6

The Vietnam War is viewed the way it is, because WE LOST.

Answer 7

live television.............seeing people die on TV every day..............the huge US bodycount...........58,479 Americans died.......