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Josh Quintero

Ms. Records

English

08 may 2017

NAM

In 1954 the United States went to war with Vietnam due to the ride of Ho Chi

Minh and his communist Viet Minh party. The Vietnam War was an act of containment

and was a very different and difficult setting for the American men fighting it.

After the second World War, the Soviet Union with its major role in the war emerged as

a superpower with strong influence over Eastern Europe, including Bulgaria and East

Germany, and parts of Asia, including China and Korea. The U.S. and its Western allies

considered communism in the form of the USSR as the greatest rival and post-war

threat to their democracy and capitalism.The turning point in Asia came in 1949 when

China became a communist country after Chinese communist rebels, led by Mao

Zedong, won the civil war and took control of the mainland China. From 1950, the U.S.

started to support South Korea in the war against the communist North backed by China

and the USSR. Meanwhile, the U.S. also sent the Military Assistance Advisory Group to

assist the French in the First Indochina War with the goal of containing the spread of

communism. The U.S feared the domino theory which is when one country falls to

communism, others around it will to.

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The geography of Vietnam made it a challenge for the U.S troops because

Vietnam was covered in thick vegetation. This benefited the Viet Cong because it

helped them hide better. It also helped the Viet Cong because the thick jungle made it

easier to set up booby traps to hurt or kill the U.S and other allied troops. The Viet Cong

used traps such as the grenade trap which is when grenades are placed along likely

paths of travel with two stakes embedded on both sides of the creek or stream with the

grenade tied to one and the safety pin partially removed from the striker lever and tied

by trip wire to the other stake. Another trap used by the Viet Cong was the Side-Closing

Panji Trap. This was one of the most basic traps because it was very cheap and

common. It was basically a small hole covered with leaf litter, and the victim's foot

would get impaled when stood on. These kinds of traps worked well because of the

limited visibility provided by the thick jungle. The U.S soon came up with Agent

Orange which was a powerful mixture of chemical defoliants used during the Vietnam

War to eliminate forest cover for North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops, as well as

crops that might be used to feed them.

United States and South Vietnamese forces relied heavily on their superior air

power, including B-52 bombers and other aircraft that dropped thousands of pounds of

explosives over North Vietnam and Communist targets in South Vietnam. Communist

forces used weapons manufactured in the Soviet Union and China. The United States

had 58,200 deaths and over 300,000 wounded. Many people back home home

opposed the war the war. One of the biggest differences between the war in Vietnam

and previous wars is that for the first time the war was in people's living rooms. Although
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the coverage was not live, it was raw and constant. Vietnam was the first time that

everyone saw what war looked like. Before that, war was just a vague concept. People

knew that it was terrible and ugly, but they did not see it in front of them, in all the gory

detail. That is what made the Vietnam war different, and led to a revolutionary

counterculture on the home front. Many Americans who opposed the war did so

because they felt that it was not a war that was necessary for the security of the US,

however it did help because it contained the spread of communism from coming west.

More casualties were reported in Vietnam every day, even as U.S. commanders

demanded more troops. Under the draft system, as many as 40,000 young men were

called into service each month, adding fuel to the fire of the anti-war movement.

The Vietnam War is noteworthy because it opened the eyes of the American people to

what was going on overseas. This affected many people because most of their husbands and

sons were getting sent across the globe to fight this war. Although many people did not approve

of the war, we always need to remember the people who died for this country.
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