World changing event – The Vietnam War

Vietnam War

The Impact in the US and the rest of the world

The Vietnam War was the prolonged struggle between nationalist forces attempting to unify the country of Vietnam under a communist government and the United States (with the aid of the South Vietnamese) attempting to prevent the spread of communism. 

When the North Vietnamese fired directly upon two U.S. ships in international waters on August 2 and 4, 1964 (known as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident), Congress responded with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. This resolution gave the President the authority to escalate U.S. involvement in Vietnam. President Lyndon Johnson used that authority to order the first U.S. ground troops to Vietnam in March 1965.

U.S. troops fought a jungle war, mostly against the well-supplied Viet Cong. The Viet Cong would attack in ambushes, set up booby traps, and escape through a complex network of underground tunnels. For U.S. forces, even just finding their enemy proved difficult.

By this points the U.S citizens where not happy because more soldiers kept getting sent but victory was not getting any closer, also from another point of view the peace movement happened. This is something that had not happened before and here are the "hippies" born that we as youngsters imagine from those times. The peace movement started at schools and colleges, mostly young people, this is why it became such a rebellious movement. One of the arguments against the war and for the peace movement was that the U.S claimed that they were isolationists, however they still got involved when it did not correspond to them just because of their rivalry with Russia.

this is what the people did not understand and this is why the peace movement emerged. For the first time the people where opposing to their government to fight for their country.

Going back into the actual battlefield in Vietnam, the American troops were having a tough time and soldier lives were going down. At this stage the U.S took desperate measures and began the operation known as "Seek and Destroy". Here really the name speaks for itself and it was based on using Napalm bombs and herbicides to kill any of the vietnamese hiding troops.

The Vietnam war was the first war that was not only lived in the battlefield. For the first time you could see w¡on the news what was happening, videos, pictures, statements, this did not happen in The Wolrd War II therefore it was a big impact on people. They did not know how to react. This is also one of the factors that gave birth to the Peace Movement. For the first time the U.S citizens realised what their country was doing across the world.