History Final paper
Discussion Board #13
The Vietnam War
Vietnam war, one of the longest wars in world history that human has ever fought. It went on for 20 years from 1954 to 1975 before it ended. It is also known as the second Indochina War. The war was fought between the south Vietnam and north Vietnam with the involvement of the foreign power like France, South Korea and United States being the largest military presence. United States and other foreign involvements were in support of south Vietnam who wants to shape the nation after other communist countries. But the north Vietnam government want to shape their nations with close financial and social connections toward the West. America decided to take advantage from the dispute between these two governments and want to seize the control over the whole nation and gain power in the natural resources. The war brought costly damage to the whole nation of Vietnam causing over 3 million casualties of which more than half were the Vietnamese civilians.
The war wasn’t a fruitful one for America either. Despite of largest military presence, they lost this war. This war is the first ever war that America failed to win in war history. After watching “Hearts and Minds” I was really shocked knowing the way American military treated the Vietnam civilians. They didn’t show mercy upon women, upon the old and upon the children. But, the worst part about this war is it should have ended being an internal conflict inside the nation, but again America stepped on it and made the war worse. This shows how self-centered and greedy the US government is.