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How Did The Tet Offensive Affect The Vietnam War

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The Tet Offensive was an event that changed American public opinion of the Vietnam war and even changed the war itself. Walter Cronkite inspired this change in public opinion. The Second Indochina War started much before the Tet Offensive though. North and South Vietnam were separated after the First Indochina War by the 17th Parallel, the North being communist and the South being Democratic. Every war starts with a “First Shot”. The “First Shot” in the Vietnam War, or the Second Indochina War, was the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Congress gave President Johnson anything he needed to win the war, and what he needed was a lot of money and a lot of troops. The Tet Offensive happened three years after the start of the Vietnam War, 1968|. The US military believed that Vietcong, Vietnamese Communists, would rest and stop fighting for their biggest holiday of the year, Tet. The Vietcong did not rest though. Instead, they ambushed and many American lives were lost. US soldiers fought off the Vietcong, and in that way, “won”, …show more content…

Four students at Kent State University were shot during a war protest. Two of the students weren’t even protesting. Across the country, people were outraged that the National Guard would kill four innocent American citizens. The war was moving from Vietnam into the US. After the Kent State shootings, anti-war protests increased. The public was becoming fed up with everything this war had cost them. No longer was it peace-loving hippies protesting this war, all kinds of people were joining the protests. The nation was sick of having their sons ripped away from them and sent to fight thousands of miles away in a war where they didn’t even know what they were fighting for. Walter Cronkite predicted the war ending in a stalemate, after Kent State, this seemed even more likely. America had lost too much for the war to actually end in a

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It wasn’t until 1965, after the Gulf of Tokin Resolution that the United States was officially at war with North Vietnam. President Lyndon Johnson appointed General William Westmoreland as the top commander of US forces and to stop the North aggression. Many historians and analysts still debate

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The Vietnam War was a war which many people felt negative about, this attitude became especially true after the Tet Offensive took place. Northern Vietnamese forces attacked the South and Americans on the Tet Holiday in hopes to start revolutions in major cities. The outcome was decreased support for the war in America, slowed economy in the south, and a loss in moral for the north. The Tet Offensive proved to be a smart offense by the North, yet did not reach the desired outcome and was not a victory for either side.

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The Tet offensive, which took place on the 31st of January 1968, had huge significance on the political landscape of America, and public opinion on the war in Vietnam. After the Tet offensive, public support for the war plummeted, and with ever increasing support in the anti-war movement and protests, the war in Vietnam was no longer justifiable to the American public. As a result of this president Johnson stepped down from running for re-election, leaving an anti-war democrat running against an anti-war republican. This meant that Nixon was elected, which arguably ended the Vietnam War, due to his change in tactics.

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In the wake of the shooting at Kent State University on May 4, 1970, some students

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The Vietnam Was devastating time for not just America, but worldwide. This War lead to 1 million, four hundred and fifty thousand casualties from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. This devastating number only increased when you also take into account the other side, the Americans, with more than 50,000 casualties. One may argue that a major reason the Vietnam War occurred was due to the disagreement between the Soviet Reds and the Great Uncle Sam after World War 2. The Reds wanted to spread communism, this left Americans not too pleased because they were capitalist all the way.

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The Vietnam War is considered one of the most controversial wars in United States history. The United States is one of the greatest superpowers at the time and were seen as the helping hand for doing the right thing. The United States were dragged into this war in order to stop the spread of communism throughout the Democratic South Korea. Many Americans saw this as the United States intervening in another country’s civil war which is not our duty. Americans also used the draft in a poor way affecting the young and African American population.

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At Kent State, there had been a Vietnam War protest going on when the Ohio National Guard was called. The National Guard ended up shooting at several unarmed students, leaving four students dead and nine more injured. Activists around the nation were infuriated, lighting an inextinguishable fire within the movement. Students died for the cause and the movement would not waste the opportunity to fight harder for the withdrawal of American troops in Vietnam. The massacre also led to nationwide sympathy towards the movement, allowing for more public support against the war.

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One of the most controversial wars in history and a turning point in American foreign policy, the emotions and events surrounding the Vietnam War capture the essence of the era. The rise of rebellious youth culture and anti-war and anti-draft movements were key social aspects of American life leading up to and during the fighting. (Doc 2, 3) On the political side, Congress aimed to control the Chief-Executive with legislation such as the War Powers Act of 1973, requiring the president to remove all unreported troops in Vietnam and report any further sent. (Doc 7) To say the country was divided would be a massive understatement.

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One of the most infamous blemishes on the Nation Guard’s reputation is The Kent State Incident. The Kent State incident on May 4, 1970, had the entire nation in an uproar after the shooting and killing of four students, two of which were bystanders, and another nine students wounded by the National Guardsmen. “Seconds later, four students lay dead, with nine others wounded. Two of the dead had been demonstrators 250 feet away from the guardsmen. The other two were bystanders, almost 400 feet away” (Cayton 814).

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“I thought the Vietnam war was an utter, unmitigated disaster, so it was very hard for me to say anything good about it” - George McGovern. There are numerous controversial topics dispersed among the subject of American history due to the amount of unethical decisions that have been made in order to improve the lives of the people or keep America out of the clutches of war. Throughout American history, historians have debated the ethical impact that the Vietnam war had on the United States. Although some people may believe that the Vietnam War achieved the goal of avoiding communism and protecting the people, the overarching idea is that it was an unjust war because of the countless lives that were lost from the participating countries, the

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During the Geneva Accords of 1954, Vietnam was divided into the communist North and anti-communist South (Spector). The Vietnam War was the longest war in the United States history because it lasted for nearly twenty years. It caused the death of millions of Vietnamese and Americans. The Vietnam War is also known as the Second Indochina War. It takes place mostly in Vietnam, but also happened in Laos and Cambodia.

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