Vietnam: should the U.S. have been involved?

The Vietnam War created a great deal of controversy in America. Did America really have to sacrifice thousands of lives and millions of dollars? Was it America s duty to be involved in Vietnams affairs? Questions such as these are what derived such a constant debate during the time of the Vietnam War. Despite the consequences, USA entered the war in 1965. They fought for several years, loosing lives everyday. Soon the U.S. government came to realize that they would only be defeated if they fought for any longer. The Vietnam War was a complete disaster and should have been dealt with in a more positive way. The amount of loss was not worth the gain, (there really wasn t much gain in the first place) and our country has suffered greatly because of those losses.

Many soldiers were led to believe that they had a great chance of winning the war, and most leaders had that idea too. The U.S. supposedly had enough men, weapons, skills and knowledge of their surroundings to win. They were wrong. Until 1969, North Vietnam and the United States did most of the fighting. By 1969, the Vietnam War seemed endless, and the United States slowly began to withdraw troops. In January 1973, a cease-fire was arranged. The last U.S. ground troops left Vietnam two months later. Despite the treaty, fighting between North and South Vietnam resumed soon afterward, but U.S. troops did not return. The war finally ended on April 30, 1975 when South Vietnam surrendered to North Vietnam. The outcome of the war made the U.S. efforts seem like they had wasted money, energy, time and lives.

Some may disagree that the war was unbeneficial and worthwhile. Some say that the motive of the U.S. was to prevent Communism from spreading throughout the world, and that that made it just to be involved. But the South Vietnamese didn t have a strong will to fight, which made our efforts almost pointless. Many people agreed that the United States had a duty to have a selfless involvement in the war, but I don t agree that we weren t fighting for ourselves as well as the South Vietnamese. We were protecting our country from and possible Communism spread, which is a strange idea in itself. Vietnam wasn t the only Communist country in the world, so I find it silly to assume that they could cause a huge Communism takeover.

The Vietnam War started out as a good plan, but ended up with an evil ending. When dealing with people of different beliefs, I think it is important to have a better understanding of everyone s positions before we break out in violence. I think that the losses of this war completely surpasses any kind of benefits our country had received, however we should learn from this experience and try to avoid conflicts more with other countries.