Vietnam Essay -- essays research papers

After thinking about all the things we would learn this year in American history I decided to do my project on the experiences of Vietnam War veterans. There is a lot of controversy as to whether or not the Vietnam War veterans are given enough recognition for what they went through. I have heard horrible stories of US soldiers dying from US bombs, shell shock, and soldiers returning to America and not being able to function as active members of society due to the horrors of the war. All I really know about the war is what I have seen on television. I wanted to learn about the war through the firsthand accounts of those who were there. The Vietnam War was a military struggle fought in Vietnam from 1959 to 1975. It began as an attempt by Communist guerrillas (or Vietcong) in the South, backed by Communist North Vietnam, to overthrow the government of South Vietnam. The struggle grew into a war between South Vietnam and North Vietnam and ultimately into an international conflict. The United States and some 40 other countries supported South Vietnam by supplying troops and munitions, and the USSR and the People's Republic of China furnished munitions to North Vietnam and the Vietcong. On both sides, however, the burden of the war fell mainly on the civilians.1 On January 27, in Paris, delegations representing the United States, South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and the Provisional Revolutionary Communist Government of South Vietnam signed an Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam. The cease-fire officially went into effect on January 28. Both the US and North Vietnam asserted that there were no secret peace terms.2 All the US fighting forces had withdrawn from Vietnam by March 1973, but not without major losses on both sides. Two million Vietnamese were killed and 3 million were wounded. The extensive use of napalm and defoliants (such as Agent Orange) left many people badly burned, and destroyed the ecology of a country that was mainly agricultural. This is an important part of US history because it was the first war in which there was no clear winner. 57,685 US soldiers were killed, and triple that amount were wounded. Even those who returned to the United states without physical damage suffered from depression, and had to live with memories of the carnage and destruction that they saw. What bothers me about... ...arried, but instead decided on throwing it away, so that he wouldn’t be able to. So even this early in the war, the horrors of the POW camps were already known. I believe the worst torture Stafford had to endure was being without water. â€Å"As time passed, Stafford’s awareness shifted away from his physical pain and the uncertainty of his situation and focused on one single fact and sensation: he was thirsty... He got down off the stool, onto his knees, and licked the floor where he tiles joined, hoping some water had a accumulated there. When that failed, he tried licking damaged places on the wall, hoping that some water had sweated through.†6 It was only his second day without water, and he had to wait three more. The book continues to describe the horrible conditions in the rooms, the small amounts of food, and the torture that they had to go through on occasion, but never was any soldier’s ordeal described the way Stafford’s had been. Its amazing how some people can persevere. After spending eight years as a Vietnam POW Stafford was released. When he returned home his wife was still waiting for him, and the only problem he suffered was occasional depression.