One group of people felt that there were good ideas for getting involved in the conflict, however they thought it would be a useless battle with too much burden on the economy. The other group of people thought the United States had to get involved in Vietnam and that we needed to stay until we got the job done. The United States finally started pulling the troops out in the early 1970’s. Student unrest was a key aspect of the Vietnam War. Student activists brought about antiwar ideals and protested their opposition to the war.
The message of the representation is that Americans is losing the war and wants out and it is clearly shown in the poster "I WANR OUT". This shows that it is accurate because I know from my own personal knowledge that the 1971 protest in America were getting bigger, more violent and serious for the government. However, representation 3 is not totally accurate because not all of America were against the war. I know this because there was a huge questionnaire on if people were against or for the war. 40% said they were for the war and 60% said against the war.
Chapter 4, pg. 52. This quote is interesting because he wanted to go to war because he didn’t want to feel shame but in reality the citizens of the U.S made him and the rest of the soldiers feel shameful for going into the war. Tim O’Brien uses satire in this quote to show how this one character felt about this
As the Cold War continued, the American public grew discontent with the handling of the disputes . They grew restless of the ongoing conflict and the injustices that were being committed by the American military towards these countries and the abuse that our American troops were experiencing at home. The Civil Rights movement again saw this as an opportunity to insert their agenda along with other injustices into the national picture. With the sentiment swaying against the established institution it was easier to gain public support for civil rights. The Cold War was fought to end the oppression and maltreatment of other countries citizens.
The three things that affected North Vietnamese, hating Americans, living in harsh conditions and receiving severe injuries were all things they had to deal with during and after the war. They hated the Americans for causing deaths and poisoning land that will now cause problems for North Vietnamese today. The harsh conditions led to injuries which also made them hate Americans. As much as they hated them at that time, they now forgive and try to move forward from what happened. The Vietnam War definitely affected them in a bad way but at least they look into the future and not think of the past.
The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” The American public should refrain from gaining any negative or unauthorized influences by the military-industrial complex. The people should fight the military spending. Everything is eventually going to fail and be a disaster if power is given to the wrong people. The term MIC became widespread because of how it fit with what was going on with the military at the time. In American history, military spending was never high and consistent and now it was finally occurring.
Their main goal was to stop communism from spreading all around the world, and in Vietnam, but they destroyed their economy in the process of accomplishing their goal. America lost more than $173 billion dollars due to the cost of the war, and heavily armored machinery. If used right, these amounts of money could have benefited the American economy, and could have played a major role in world economy today. Each day, the price of the US dollar decreased dramatically. This was also a big reason why the American citizens were against the Vietnam War.
Many people believed that the war was a losing battle that carried a heavy strain for the U.S., both socially and economically. In contrast, the other group of people believed that we went over to Vietnam with a job to do, and we should not leave
It certainly seems that they tried to mend the damage done by appearing on public affairs programs and making speeches about how the Tet was an allied victory and a Communist defeat, but it seems that the damage had already been done. [7] “The Johnson administration’s public relations efforts to salvage popular support for the US Vietnam War policy in the aftermath of the Tet assault failed. Maybe the media is given the same freedom to report and access today, in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, as they were in Vietnam. It may just be that the heart of the American people today are just so hardened with hate for the people we are fighting that we just overlook the atrocities and incompetence that is reported. I am sure that looking back on it, the Johnson administration wished that it had a better handle on the media by maybe using more censorship and giving the media less access to the fighting.
Veterans needed to write in order to give themselves closure of some sort. The veterans expressed how they felt and what happened in the war through the literature. They needed that outlet but the American public was not quite ready for it. Tim O’Brien states, “She’ll explain that as a rule she hates war stories, she can’t understand why people want to wallow in all the blood and gore.” Most literature written was uncensored, the Vietnam veterans didn’t hold back with what actually went on. But the American public wasn’t ready for that type of exposure.