Vietnam+War

 = The Vietnam War 1955-1975 =

"the longest and most unpopular war"
For the first time since the turn of the century, African Americans were being encouraged to join. The ages of men fighting in the war ranged from 17-26. Women did play a part in the war, and that was to be nurses for the men who got hurt, before they were taken to the hospital via helicopter. Only six American women were killed compared to the some 58,000 men that were killed, wounded, or went missing. Eisenhower, the president of the United States at the time, wanted to save South Vietnam from communism. He thought the fall of South Vietnam would lead to communist control of all of Southeast Asia. The United States had little involvement at first, but they kept getting deeper and deeper into the war. ** Richard Nixon was vice president at the time of the war, but voted in to be president. He said he was going to end the war, and stop the violent protests. During the war, many different kinds of antiwar and antinuclear groups were formed. Some of them got to be very large, including the antiwar march on the pentagon on October 21, 1967. The biggest antiwar movement happened during the Vietnam war. As the antiwar movement expanded, men who were supposed to fight in the war refused to be sent. Many fled to Canada and Britain, some were even sent to jail.

media type="youtube" key="mDiFkckszCw" height="272" width="342" align="right"First, they sent advisors. They then started dropping bombs on factories and military bases. In 1965, 3,500 marines were sent to Vietnam, and 2,500 of them were killed, wounded, or went missing. Within three years, the number of troops sent increased to 500,000, and the number killed, wounded or went missing had risen to 10,000. Nixon then announced a strategy called Vietnamization, where the southern Vietnamese army would be equipped, so that the Americans could slowly stop fighting in the war. In 1969, American soldiers in South Vietnam reduced to under 400,000. They were ordered to remain defenseless, unless attacked. Air attacks were abruptly stopped on December 30, 1972. Two weeks after they stopped, Nixon said that much progress had been made in secret peace meetings he was having with the government, so he was going to stop Americans fighting in the war. Finally on January 27, 1973 representatives from the U.S., North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the Viet Cong signed a peace agreement in Paris, France. **

**Effects on Vietnam & America:**

The war affected people both in the war, and not in the war. Millions in Vietnam were left wounded, or homeless, and two million were killed. It was challenging for the U.S. forces to tell After the war ended, Americans didn't have a good attitude towards the government. They lied about many different aspects of the war, and after secrets about the war were leaked to the public, they were outraged and people didn't trust them anymore. They also thought that it was scary that their rich and powerful nation couldn't defeat the poor and tiny one. More than 58,000 Americans were killed, and hundreds of thousands of men were left with physical or mental damage. The war costed a lot of money, and lives. The reputation of the United States to defend democracy was lost after the war.

http://www.cah.utexas.edu/exhibits/SixtiesExhibit/large/images/10title_large.jpg

Elena Parkinson