Vietnam War

J.Gibbon
CHA3U
T.Rotskas
30/05/14

By far one of the most significant war and one of the most controversial wars in American History is the Vietnam War. Considerably the most unsuccessful war, although it was extremely influential impact to America. The Vietnam War was a controversial event across the United States in the late 60’s up to the early 70’s. Not because of the fact that the US was losing the war, but for every other aspect as well. What was it really worth? Was the idea of war at all the right direction? Many can agree that the US was certainly unprepared for the outcome of the war, took them for surprise and opened eyes to The United States of America.
The United States was only trying to protect itself when taking the decision of deployment of minor troops into Vietnam during 1961 in hopes to support the South Vietnam Government. This showed their plan to crush communism in Vietnam in hopes to drown communism across the globe. The main concern with the US was how bad can this get? Will communism ever reach out and flat out wide spread across the globe? Not a moment too soon that the United States stuck their troops in Vietnam. Although, in reality, they did not see what was coming. This was a clear attempt by the US to launch a “Proxy War,” or blatantly, an attempt at war for their self-gain. They were scared. US thought they would stop the communism in Vietnam to show up the Soviet Union and one-up them and stall the plausibility of communist over-rule.
Another way of explaining this is the Domino Theory. The US believed that they should around the globe and force worldwide intervention to prevent communism. The Domino Theory was to make it rational for the United States to crush the Soviet Union and any moment they could get. One major issue is the fact that, they were literally planting their foot firmly into war without concern of how this will roll out. They were overly concerned with the fact that communism would spread.
In the beginning, during Kennedy’s presidency, they were never leaning toward the deployment of troop in total. JFK was determined not to send troops, but cannot do anything substantial to help Vietnam then to send 3,000 military advisers along with equipment to back South Vietnamese Government. As for Lyndon B. Johnson after John F. Kennedy’s assassination; Johnson had wanted to pry at the opportunity of Vietnam. He was keen on showing the world he could show his commitment to Vietnam, thus pressing onward into the war. As a result they fell into committing to the war. In 1965, Johnson deployed 100,000 troops to Vietnam.
One of the biggest hurdles for the United States during the Vietnam War was deploying of troops for South Vietnamese Government and making troops effective. While firepower was on his mind, he saw right past the whole point of the deployment and what they were going to do to impact. Ground troops were needed to fight, on the turn side; air reinforcements were doing the job over Northern Vietnam. They launched a campaign called Rolling Thunder. The campaign was launched on March 2 1965 to September 2 1968. Considering the fact that the US and South Vietnam could not take them on the ground, the US decided to take an aerial approach. They ran aerial raids in order to cripple defenses and disable the North Vietnamese transportation.
Many civilians had been killed because of bombings in Vietnam; up to 5,000 innocent civilians had been injured and or killed by 1965. Even soldiers that were deployed had no idea why they were there and what they were doing there. South Vietnam was definitely being overpowered on the ground. Viet Cong was by far more strategic for the US and South Vietnamese troops to compete with. Viet Cong forces would often launch Guerrilla forces and use the element of surprise to have the upper hand during the war.
During 1968 on January 30th, the Tet Offensive was launched by the North Vietnamese communist forces in