Controversy of the Vietnam War
This war has been called one of the worst periods of America’s history. The conflict raging in South Asia took the lives of thousands of American soldiers as well as North and South Vietnamese civilians and military personnel. It was a war that could have been avoided totally if only the military officials in
Washington D.C. had seen what would happen to the country once the war began. In a way, we can be thankful for this war, since it opened up our countries eyes to the fact that our government is not perfect and sometimes does not act on the will of the people. The media coverage of the war brought the people’s attention to this small corner of the world, and an acknowledgement that our enemies are not necessarily inferior to us.
In the years since the war ended, there is still some bitterness towards veterans and the conflict in general. If one were to look at the war from a military point of view, one could see that we did not lose the war. We won every battle, took most of our objectives, and held off numerous North Vietnamese counter-attacks. Yet, the public perceives that we lost this war because of the fact that we left. Well in essence, we did not really lose the war because we downsized and gave power over to the South Vietnamese. Then we left. If we had stayed, we could have very well achieved victory. It was just that the war was very costly and the American public was tired of it.
