Nielsen Fotis
Mr Winson
Period 10
April 14, 2023
In 1955, the US involved itself in the conflict to help South Vietnam, a democratic country, fight against North Vietnam, a communist country. However, as citizens found out about corruption and undemocratic actions in South Vietnam, many of them became against the war, these people were doves. While citizens still focused on preventing communists from taking South Vietnam, they were called hawks. The Vietnam War heightened political, economic, racial, and social tensions in the United States because many hawks were for the war, but weren’t the people going to war, while many people going to war were poor or racial minorities. Many doves believed the money going towards the Vietnam War should
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Document E (from the other DBQ) is a picture of Lyndon B Johnson with a woman labeled the Vietnam War, while next to him is a woman that says the US’s needs. LBJ is saying “don’t worry, there’s enough money to support both of you.” There wasn’t enough money for both needs, because LBJ focused on the Vietnam War while ignoring the needs of many US citizens and forgot about his plans for social programs. Many hawks believed that spending money on the war was more important than the social programs. However, many of the hawks were rich and wouldn’t have needed the social programs being ignored because of the war, which increases the tensions between poorer people and minorities and the rich people. As we discussed in class, Nixon ended the war by pulling troops from South Vietnam, which led to the Fall of Saigon, where many innocent people were left behind and taken by North Vietnam. The US spent billions of dollars on the Vietnam War, just to lose. The US could have used that money to benefit its citizens. It also left a lot of innocent South Vietnamese citizens, who helped the US, behind. Many of those people could have been saved, but they weren’t. This can be compared to the withdrawal in Afghanistan and the fall of Kabul. Similarly, the US left a nation it was protecting for about 20 years, and left, after spending billions of dollars, just for it to be taken by the