Social Support In Vietnam War Essay

Juan Diego Catholic High School

Lack of Social Support

During the Vietnam War

Word Count: 1102

Devan James

AP Seminar

Mr. Hauser

17 Jan. 2023

Introduction

The famous rock band Guns N’ Roses sings “Welcome to the jungle, we’ve got fun n’ games.” But the Vietnam War was anything but fun and games. Considered the first war that America has ever lost, Vietnam was a major failure. But why did they fail? Ultimately, the US lost the Vietnam War due to the poor use of military strategy. This misuse of military strategy led to a lack of social support, which in turn forced President Lyndon Johnson to cut political corners. Here's how social support was affected by poor military strategy, led to improper political methods,

The United States Government Archive lists that 58,220 Americans died during the Vietnam War. As the number of fatalities began to rise, the United States changed. The initial support and patriotism that was present towards the War quickly disappeared, replaced with dissent and disagreement. In his paper Comparisons with Korea, published in the renowned academic journal New Republic, John Mueller, Professor Emeritus at Ohio State University finds that “when US casualties grew by a factor of 10 (...) support declined by some 15 percentage points.” Comparing Mueller’s research to the Government Archive’s fatality report, we deduce that support for the war decreased by about 38.7%. This large but sudden decrease in support for the war led to distrust towards the government. The government attempted to retain the trust of the people but failed as talks of the horrors of war traveled

Horrific stories about what US soldiers were doing in Vietnam began to spread. In a public statement on Vietnam veterans against the war, John Kerry, a Juris Doctor from Boston College and a Vietnam veteran stated that US soldiers had “raped, maimed, tortured, abused, and ravaged Vietnamese civilians.” Likewise, they had “razed villages, shot at dogs and cattle for fun, poisoned food stocks, (...) in addition to the normal ravage of war.” People were horrified and demanded answers. President Johnson nor any other government representative(s) had mentioned any of the above atrocities committed by US soldiers. The public was outraged. To add fuel to the fire, the Women's Strike for Peace group was in discussion with Vietnamese women’s groups. Both groups openly discussed their point of view on the war. The Women’s Strike for Peace group found that “U.S. fragmentation bombs lodged pellets in a victim's bloodstream that were impossible to remove.” They released this information to the public, and stated that “The American people were beginning to learn the horrible truth about the war.” As a result of these newfound discoveries, the enraged public lost trust in the government. They were upset that President Johnson had