Is there anyone here that knows quite a lot about the Vietnam war and is willing to help me out?

Question

I need some help evaluating some sources... the essay gives me a statement:

“The war on colour television screens in American living rooms has made Americans far more anti-war than anything else. The full brutality of the combat will be there in close-up and in colour, and blood looks very red on the colour television”

the question is:

This statement suggests that television was an important reason why the United States lost the war in Vietnam. Is there sufficient evidence in Sources D to K to support this interpretation? Use the sources and knowledge from your studies to explain your answer.

here are the sources:

SOURCE H: http://s305.photobucket.com/albums/nn230/zizouette/?action=view&current=sourceh.jpg

SOURCE J:

http://s305.photobucket.com/albums/nn230/zizouette/?action=view&current=sourcej.jpg

SOURCE K:

http://s305.photobucket.com/albums/nn230/zizouette/?action=view&current=sourcek.jpg

u can be brief or detailed. i jus need help with it. thanks guys.

Answer 1

Without downloading the sources, I can tell you definitively, that the war in American living rooms, a totally new phenomenon, shocked and appalled my country, particularly when they saw their young sons (and daughters) horribly wounded and traumatized for what then amounted to  a malarial little rice paddy of a country.

I will opine that the vast majority of Americans watching the war in their living rooms watched it in black and white, as color TV was a rich man's toy until around the early 70's.  Nonetheless, millions watched it and millions saw that it was unwinnable.  We couldn't tell the Viet Cong from the South Vietnamese, the South Vietnam government was corrupt, and during the whole ordeal, our intelligence didn't glean the network of tunnels UNDER the occupying Americans, were the fall of Saigon in 1975 was doubtless planned.

Certainly Mr. and Mrs. America shat themselves when they saw hat happened when Johnny, whom they raised in the so-called idyllic 50's, got his gun.  Many WWII vets couldn't understand why getting a gun and fighting somehow wasn't enough.

Other Americans were stunned at the  hypocrisy of going 3/4s around the world to Southeast Asia to fight a war, when Cuba beckoned just hundreds of miles away and probably would have been more receptive, as would  likely the Czezks  (never could spell it right) and  Poles, suffering under an odious Soviet "occupation."  We didn't help the Hungarians during their uprising in 1956 against the Soviets and we stayed the h**l out of Czchechlosolvakia during the so-called Prague Spring in 1968, the most infamous year in the war.

The Vietnamese could scarcely feed themselves, and frankly NEEDED a communistic society to take care of its people.

The shocking thing to me is that the USSR did not learn from our strategic and tragic blunder, and spent nearly 10 years occupying Godforsaken Afghanistan beginning in 1980.

Whatever the horrors of the era, and I was a kid watching it all, beginning in 1965, do keep in mind that Wall Street made millions on government contracts, and strangely, the war didn't distract us enough to keep us off the moon.

The worst part was the Kent State massacre, where STUDENTS were shot for protesting the damned war's escalation into Laos and Cambodia in 1970 and that tragic picture snapped in 1972 of that poor kid running down the street, naked, dripping Napalm.  My country did that.   And then there was the icy reception for our soldiers, brutualized and traumatized, upon their return to our soil in 1973.   What a malaise followed.  The excesses of the 70's were never hard for me to understand, even as I indulged in them.

The enormity of the fall of Saigon in April 1975, the wasted American lives and material, hit us the way it would hit you if both your parents and your little brother were killed in a terrible car accident on the way to pick you up from football practice,  or some similarly terrible life altering event.

Answer 2

Wow, you don't need to be a Vietnam War expert to do this. You have the sources, now analyze them.

Answer 3

I was there and Joe H has it right. The Americans never lost a battle in Vietnam. The war began as a political exercise and ended the same way. At the end of WWII the Allies decided that Vietnam should be divided, North and South. Ho Chi Mihn, communist leader of the North was determined to take back the South militarily and to reunify it. The United States for the simple reason that the North was communist, decided to support the South. In doing so we propped up a corrupt, despicable leader and sent the South finacial aid and military advisors. The role of the advisors was to the train the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) in tactics and military deployment. The war escalated and the war powers of the president were advanced when President Johnson, in reaction to a minor incident in the Gulf of Tonkin, convinced Congress to pass what became known as the "Tonkin Gulf Resolution." That act allowed Johnson to send combat troops to Vietnam for the first time. And, once they started to come they came in droves.

At this time television was not yet a factor in the making of public opposition to the war (1965) and I was just graduating from college.

When as an Air Force officer I was sent to 'Nam it was just in time to be wounded in what was called the Tet Offensive. Another in a long list of battles won by the Americans. It was only as I recuperated did I have the occassion to see news coverage on TV. My role while "in country" as we called it was part of a cockamamie project called "Vietnamization." It was pretty laughable.

As an air intercept control officer assinged to Ton Suhn Nuht Air Base, I was supposed to train ARVN officers, many of whom had never seen a television, in the sophisticated, computer generated radar graphics and techniques of guiding aircraft to their missions. It was hopeless. And therein lies the story. It was always hopeless. Our troops were adept at the jungle warfare that was required, and even when fighting street to street, door to door in the Tet Offensive we were the superior force. But this was in essence a civil war. Vietnamese against Vietnamese. And the South Vietnamese were considerably less interested in fighting than we Americans were.

And so it ended as it began, in the hands of the civilian politicians. The impact of television had a great deal more to do with the level of civil unrest at home than it did "in country." The anti-war movement was excited to frenzy every time another battle was shown on television. It was said at the time that Johnson knew that the war had to end when he lost the support of the most watched television anchor at the time, Walter Cronkite. The story is that when Cronkite, who reported from the field in 'Nam, told his viewers that the war must end, Johnson decided not to seek reelection.

Tell your teacher this: Television played a significant role in the civilian anti-war movement. The coverage convinced many citizens that the war made no sense to Americans and had to end. But that the war in Vietnam was lost not by the participant warriors, but by politicians. Beginning in Yalta with the division of Vietnam, continuing in the mad scenario drawn for us by the "Domino Theory, the Gulf Resolution and the constant fiddling with the forces of the Americans.

You may tell your teacher that you heard from acouple of Viet Vets and that they tell you that although we were much the superior military force which never lost a battle, we were aware that the entire enterprise was screwed from the start. We knew we had no business there and that the South Vietnamese were indifferent to the outcome.

You may let her know that it was not television which ended the war, it was the same people who began it; the lame brained politicians.

Answer 4

The question itself if based on a FALSE presumption. You need to have a talk with your teacher about the quality of history being taught. The United States did NOT LOSE the war in Vietnam. The United States pulled out and left South Vietnam to deal with its own war and political nonsense. It was real easy to pull out once we realized that the Sout Vietnamese didn't have the heart to fight.

"For sale: South Vietnamese M-16's. Good condition. Never fired. Only dropped once."

The South Vietnamese lost the war, not the United States.

Geez. They are re-writing history, and those of us who lived it aren't dead yet.

Answer 5

The sources aren't a direct link to the television statement. I was in ap us history this past year, and i had to dissect the Vietnam War, so hopefully I can help.

Vietnam was the first US war shown on television. Already that correlates to the amount of people against it. Imagine seeing soldiers dying on television, while Congress and the president want to continue fighting. This war was so much different than, say, WWI because it was so much more real.

Answer 6

The liberal media was the ONLY reason we were forced to leave. We woul dhave beat the Commies all the way back to Hanoi.

Afterwards 1.6 million civilians were slaughtered and the media said nothing. Same is gonna happen in the middle east.

Answer 7

John (fellow answerer)

Welcome Home!

The US reached a negotiated peace and withdrew.  

There was quite a bit of it on TV  (black & white and John points out).  For people who had never been exposed to it; it brought the horrors of war into their living rooms.

The soldier overseas did his duty and returned to an unfriendly nation.  Returning soldiers were publicly jeered.  It was not a good time to be a soldier and certainly not one of our prouder moments.

Television was a big reason why the US left with a negotiated peace when it did.  It no longer had the support at home.