Vietnam

Vietnam

1. Presidents and thier policies

   • Eisenhower-Gave political support and financial backing but mainly resisted to have a large military presence, he also gave a few arms for the south Vietnamese fighting force
   • Kennedy- He gave south Vietnam a hugely incresed amount of money from before and sent over a few "military advisers" to aid in operations
   • Johnson- Was much more prepared to go into the full scale war which was used as his election campaign, though to the pulic the motavation was the gulf of Tonkin, in 1965 he sent in the first marine combat troops to fully aid with the war.
   • Nixon- Now the war was observed badly by the public, to the extent that Nixon had a compaign against the war to get elected, he preposed Vietnamation which was the slow end and handing over of command to the south vietnamese army to protect thier country.

2. Protesting against the war

   • Soldiers- Between the years of 1960 and 1973 half a million men deserted the army, may military figures started to question the morale of the soldiers, groups of veterans were set up that burnt the medals they recieved in the war, when many soldiers returned they were not greeted with a heroes welcome but one of anger that they were out there.
   • Music celebrities- 1960s America had many young people, that were inspired and influenced by musical artists and other popular cultures, those artists that disagreed with the war and protesting songs made it seem almost cool to be against the promotion of the war
   • Muhammid Ali and Black Americans- Muhammad Ali at the time was the world boxing champion who refused to go to vietnam, he was stripped of his titles and sent to prison, he and many others argued that if the rights of black Americans were limited in their own country, why should they go fight for the whites to help others gain freedom in another country?
   • War crimes tribunal- This was a scheme set up to find the horrific things happening by the Americans in vietnam and bring it to the attention of the public, his work uncovered that the US army was using weapons banned by international law
   • Draft dodgers- Many of the young people who were drafted in would end up going but there were groups of people who disagreed with the war to the extent that they would burn their drafts, David Miller first burnt his paper and was sentenced to prison for two and a half years, this inspired many others to do the same, in all 9118 men were prosicuted for burning there papers.
   • Students- Large scale peaceful protests were set up by the university students who were not in the war, though these were often non-violent, In Kent police were sent in to break up the protest gunning down some students, this further lost support for the war showing how brutal their government could be.
   • Tax payers- Though there was no direct protesting the war was costing sixty-six million dollars each day, so the taxes were raised, this was frustrating for the middle and working classes because it was making life more of a struggle and showed that life wasn't getting better
   • Quakers- This was a religious group that believed that all wars were wrong, they would have never gone to the war and one man in named Norman Morrison burned himself to death in a public display to mirror the actions of the monk against the hated South Vietnamese dictatorship comparing him with the US government

3. My Lai - The darkest hour

   • In March 1968, Charlie company were ordered to complete a search and destroy mission in the Quang Ngai region
     • Most of the soldiers were under the impression that they had to destroy all the houses and kill everyone they found, It had been suspected there was a Viet Cong command near by.
       • On the mission 300-400 civilians were murdered mostly being women and children by the American GI forces, only two weapons were discovered in the entire town.
         • Official figures at the time stated that only twenty civillians had been killed with the rest viet cong forces
           • A year later after the event a letter was sent to the leading polititions describing the true actions occuring at My Lai
             • After the letter, Life magazine published the true photos of the crimes at My Lai, the magazine being increadbly influential caused large spread disgust and horror towards the Vietnamese war
               • The final act was to prosecute someone for the crimes, the army not wanting members high up in the chain of command to be charged, lieutenant William Calley was therefore charged with twenty two murders with a charge of twenty years hard labour service

4. The Fighting forces

   • American forces
     • Often very ill trained with the drafts being very unprepared for war, though the professional army had much more experience they would have known little on how to counter the guerilla tactics.
     • The army was well equipped they had large sums of money as well as able to develop new weapons
     • They had an endless supply of equipment for the soldiers because of the amount of money spent on the war, over six thousand helicopters were sent to the front lines
     • Normally they would have had solid working tactics for usual combat however they really struggled when faced with the guerilla tactics
     • Due to the Vietnamese population wanting communism and the horrific "search and destroy tactics of America they had no support from the vast local population "
     • The soldiers sent to fight were not always fighting for a cause they believed in so often had low morale and with few conscripted soldiers being truly committed for the cause
     • Over the course of the war America spent between twenty and thirty billion dollars on the war with Life magazine calculating that it took four-hundred-thousand dollars to kill each Viet Cong

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