The Vietnam War and How It Affected America
The Vietnam War had a profound affect on the United States both economically and emotionally. This article explores the affects it had on how we felt towards our nations leaders and increased our fear of communism.
War is never a good thing. Some wars are worse than others. Those that make people question why we are fighting and even who we are fighting seems to cause the most division among the American people. When Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941 people were ready to go fight the enemy. When President Lyndon Johnson started committing American soldiers and resources to fight over control of half of a little country on the other side of the world, which did not seem to be threatening the safety and well being of the people in the United States, the American people started voicing their opinion. The Vietnam War lasted for nearly 12 years and cost the lives of 57,000 American soldiers. This war divided America into two groups the hawks and the doves that could not see eye to eye with each other. The hawks were for the war, and the doves, wanted tour troops to come home. The result was a country at war with itself as well as with the communism of the world.
College students seemed to be the most outspoken about their opposition to the Vietnam War. The platitudes and slogans of the national leaders of the United States had proven to be false time and time again. This fostered a distrust of the college students in American for all authority figures, not only government, but parents and teachers as well. Students also started questioning the reasons they were being asked to fight, and possibly die, in a war in which they were unclear about what they were fighting for. They wanted to know the truth and believed that they were receiving propaganda instead.
The pressure on President Nixon to end the war that was dividing his country was becoming palpable. The government wanted business as usual and they greeted the progressive ideas of the younger generation by repressing them. When Nixon invaded and boomed Cambodia riots broke out on colleges campuses. Kent State and Jackson State are probably the most famous of the riots because unarmed students were killed by armed State Police or National Guards. President Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger tried several tricks to encourage the North Vietnamese Army to negotiate “peace with honor” on American terms.
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