R. McMaster is an American soldier and a career officer in the U.S army. The purpose of McMaster’s book is to analyze how and why the United States becomes involved in the Vietnam War. During this, the author also explains on what he thinks why the president decided to keep the war going instead and escalate it. McMaster came to a conclusion that Johnson made the mess himself and he chose to escalate the war. The author presents the war as a consequence of specific decisions made by specific men, Lyndon B. Johnson.
In A Better War Lewis Sorely presents his audience with a well thought out, and well written examination of the last years of the Vietnam War. In 1968 then commander William Westmorland was superceded by General Creighton Adams(16-17). Several vitally important events during the war had taken place under the direction and leadership of Adams but by the time he had taken over, the people and media of the United States were declining in their concern towards the war in Vietnam. Because of this limited amount of attention towards the end of the war, most of the media coverage having to do with it focused on the time before Tet, when the tensions were high revolving the topic of Vietnam. Sorely points this fact out, using material that was only available in recent times, he delivers to us a swift and corrective story in which the little known truths are brought to light.
This investigation will assess to what extent did Nixon achieved the ‘Peace with Honor’ in the Vietnam war? This investigation will focus on Nixon’s Peace with Honor statement given for Vietnam in the early 1970s after entering office. Whereas Nixon was involved within the combat in Vietnam for almost four years. During the Vietnam war, Nixon planned to ‘de-Americanize’, which also became known as Vietnamization plan. From this plan, Nixon built up the South Vietnamese armed forces to create a more improved combat responsibility, while he was withdrawing the American troops therefore Vietnam can create opportunity for its own political future.
President Lyndon B. Johnson began sending troops to Vietnam in 1964 to combat the Vietcong. Dedicated soldiers trudged through the dense jungles of Vietnam, they crawled through collapsing underground tunnels and braved burning villages. These are the circumstances under which Tim O‘Brien‘s narrative, The
In The Age of Great Dreams written by David Farber, chapter 7 My opinions and views have not changed on if there was a true purpose in Vietnam. As David Farber would state “By 1965 the main goal of the U.S. policy in Vietnam (70%,” reported McNaughton) was “to avoid humiliating US defeat” (142). My belief about the war is the intent was to stop a future threat and not allowing china or Russia to ally with Vietnam. But in the end, it lead to confusion of even the soldiers of the time not knowing their purpose in the war besides avoiding U.S. humiliation in the end. There was too much corruption and agendas with the politics of Vietnam such as how president Johnson and the media handled the war to the point it sound like to me within Farber’s
In A Viet Cong Memoir, we receive excellent first hands accounts of events that unfolded in Vietnam during the Vietnam War from the author of this autobiography: Truong Nhu Tang. Truong was Vietnamese at heart, growing up in Saigon, but he studied in Paris for a time where he met and learned from the future leader Ho Chi Minh. Truong was able to learn from Ho Chi Minh’s revolutionary ideas and gain a great political perspective of the conflicts arising in Vietnam during the war. His autobiography shows the readers the perspective of the average Vietnamese citizen (especially those involved with the NLF) and the attitudes towards war with the United States. In the book, Truong exclaims that although many people may say the Americans never lost on the battlefield in Vietnam — it is irrelevant.
In 1963, Lindon B. Johnson inherited the White House from John F. Kennedy as well as the Vietnam War. Johnson vowed to not lose the war as he saw a Communist Asia would form if he failed to act correctly. When the counter insurgency in Vietnam began to fail, due to the Diem Coup, Johnson immediately increased America’s political and military presence in Vietnam. While being fully aware of the reports and documents he was given, he decided to intentionally mislead Congress as well as the public on America’s position in the war. Johnson and his administration knew that entering the war would be expensive and consuming, but they had motives to do so anyways.
In this lesson, Robert Mcnamara explains influential events in his life that lead to him being appointed Secretary of Defense. He describes how much of a hard worker he was in school, how he graduated from UC Berkeley and went to business school at Harvard all during the Great Depression. He then recounts on how he went back to San Francisco where he got married and started a family and as the US entered World War II he was called up to be Statistical Control in the U.S. Air Force. Mcnamara explains that as he entered the war he desired to fight for something that was bigger than himself.
“American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and our National Identity” is a book that takes us through 20 years of the War in Vietnam from about 1955 to 1975. The Vietnam War is the second longest war in US history encompassing 5 presidents which include Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford. Appy’s book gives a unique American perspective on incredible, horrifying, and inspiring stories in Vietnam as well as American. Through Apps book readers learn about different communism containment methods that America used. Readers also learn about different methods of attack on Vietnam from an American standpoint and how the different failures of the US army and US politicians turned many heads into hard truths about the war.
In the presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson times were extremely confusing. Domestically, the civil rights movement was in full effect and the war in Vietnam was raging overseas. Another major implication on these two mens presidencies was the Cold War and the fight for democracy to rule over communism around the world. Thus, many of the stances these two presidents had on Vietnam involved being aggressive in the war and not letting communism defeat the “free” world. Their decisions were both aggressive and extremely stubborn when the scope of the war began to take shape.
I find Ho Chi Minh’s letter far more persuasive than Lyndon B. Johnson’s. Using ethos, pathos, and logos, he forms a solid argument that supports Vietnam’s stance on the war. He appeals to one’s emotions by expressing the injustices faced by his people, writing, “In South Viet-Nam a half-million American soldiers and soldiers from the satellite countries have resorted to the most barbarous methods of warfare, such as napalm, chemicals, and poison gases in order to massacre our fellow countrymen, destroy the crops, and wipe out villages.” Words such as “massacre” and “barbarous” highlight the severity of these crimes, and invoke feelings of guilt and remorse in the reader. Chi Minh uses ethos to support his logos, or logical, views on the
The American’s setback in Vietnam War is already tattooed in their history. It triggered shameful criticism both to General William Westmoreland and the US government. Even today, many Americans still ask whether the American effort in Vietnam was a sin, a blunder, an indispensable war, a noble cause, or an idealistic campaign (History Learning Site, 2015). Instrumental to this campaign was American General William C. Westmoreland who engineered the build-up and consolidation of U.S. military forces in South Vietnam. He is considered to be the primary reason why he was not able to win the war in Vietnam as he overestimated the American people’s patience and tolerance of friendly losses.
We believe that true, patriotic heroes go to war without cowardice or complaint. Yet, as O’Brien demonstrates in his novel, war is incomprehensible and lacks the morality we expect it to have. The Vietnam War was fought for reasons unknown to the soldiers involved as seen in the lines “The very facts were shrouded in uncertainty: Was it a civil war? A war of national liberation or simple aggression?
The Vietnam War was very different from the past wars. There were a lot more cases of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) among soldiers than any other wars http://historyofptsd.umwblogs.org/vietnam/ . In ‘The Things They Carried’, a book about the Vietnam War written by Tim O’Brien, using the psychological lense can help us understand how wars can change a person’s mental state dramatically. It can show us what soldiers had to carry during the war, including intangibles, like fear and guilt. These men had to fight a war that the U.S. did not have to be involved in and it changed their whole life.
The big failure America in the Vietnam War is the shameful history of tragic scene for arrogant American, whose pain is still difficult to ease. The crucial event also had a profound impact on today 's international situation. It is believed that the failure included political, economic, military and cultural background and other aspects, which are that common. When it comes to the controversial subject, I hope to put forward some fresh views from where I stand. 1.
