Informative Essay: Fighting After The Vietnam War

Mohammed Ali

Dr Burkholder

Final research essay

April 28th, 2018 Fighting in ‘Nam Picture post WWII era America, where the economy is booming. Mostly thanks to the victory in WWII. It’s a generation growing up with strong patriotism. The American –

Vietnamese conflict was a growing blip on the radar, and when the U.S sent ground troops ashore at Da Nang on March 8th, 1965, an era of uneasiness for the U.S citizens during the war began. The outrage the war attracted gradually sparked as the war raged on, anti-war protestors flooding the streets begging to have our friends and family sent home. The war was seemingly never ending and no trip home in sight for their relatives at war, often forced to war in Vietnam due to conscription, a random

At around noon “200 construction workers surrounded the student rally at Federal

Hall” (qtd in Fry 29-32) The construction workers sporting the American flag all over, holding signs that were along the lines of “America, love it or leave” these construction workers charged the students, easily breaking through the thin police line that probably sided with the workers.

They began assaulting and chasing many of the students protesting, even “picking out the ones sporting the longest hair as the ones to go after first” (qtd in Fry 34) these types of events going on in the country shows how the war divided its people. This was not the same war the U.S fought in WWII, the Vietnam war was considered far from the “Noble war efforts against the evil Japanese and Nazi regimes” (qtd in Ang 79). That was an easy war for the public to get behind. With the true nature of why the U.S was even there was cloudy at best. Many of the U.S citizens despised the fact that their fellow men were subjected to an exceptionally awful, cruel war. Ali

That is 2x more than the number of bombs dropped on Europe and Asia in World War II (Fry 73). They used the technological superiority to the U.S advantage, carpet bombing groups of Vietnamese soldiers at a single call.

These airstrikes that the U.S imposed led to massive casualties. “You would think the whole

Ali 4 world had gone ablaze, after hearing one of the U.S bombardments” is how one Vietnamese citizen recalled it. (qtd in Jeffrey 22) But the type of bombing that left lasting effects on all those in contact with it was the chemical weaponry used in the Vietnam War, aka Agent Orange.

Agent Orange is a herbicide that was sprayed upon settlements and groups of Vietnamese

Soldiers from 1961-1971, and not only invoking damaging environmental effects, but also major health problems for many of those exposed to the toxin. 4 million are believed to be exposed to the defoliant; the government of Vietnam has been quoted saying as many as 3 million people have suffered illnesses related to Agent Orange. The primary use for Agent Orange was to sniff out the enemy hiding in the thick jungle, and to destroy the crops feeding the Vietnamese. More than 20% of this herbicide was