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Cost Of Vietnam War Essay

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COST OF VIETNAM WAR HIGH IN LIVES AND DOLLARS Sixty thousand Australian men - youths and conscriptees - have been sent to Vietnam in a fruitless battle for power. What can the public say to the 3000 who returned home wounded, or the 521 who did not return at all from this pointless conflict? While cleaning out my garage, I found a P.O.W bracelet in a small box. On the bracelet was engraved "LCDR SIMON WHITE 6-2-65" and then a tiny white star. If I can locate the man's family, I would gladly send the bracelet to them. They don't teach much about this failure of a war at school, and those who served in Vietnam seem reluctant to talk about it. And for good reason. What has the Vietnam war accomplished? What was the original purpose of the war? Surely Australians were not afraid of communism consuming the nation from within? If not, then perhaps it was not in the interests of the population or the soldiers to fight the war, but another entity. …show more content…

Youths lived in fear that the next day will be the day on which their birthday is drawn from the ballot box, sentencing them to witness unimaginable horrors. As seen by various protests, many citizens opposed conscription. Why were Australians sent onto foreign soil to fight a foreign war, indiscriminately killing foreigners? On the other side of the coin, some 4 million Vietnamese civilians lost their lives during the conflict. President Nixon once said the Vietnam war is "misunderstood" and "misremembered". What exactly is misunderstood and misremembered? It is simply the bloodshed and loss felt by people like you and

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