Vietnam In Remission Essay Research Paper The

Vietnam In Remission Essay, Research Paper

The legacy of the American involvement in the Vietnam War is a memory that will live on forever. After reading the book titled Vietnam in Remission by James F. Veninga and Harry A. Wilmer, my first statement has been strengthened ten-fold because of the deep persuasiveness and informative nature of this book. I will begin by summarizing and interpreting the overall thoughts and perspectives that this work brings forth concerning the initiation and justification of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Next, I will paraphrase the authors’ views on legacy that this war leaves behind and provide comments dealing with what can be learned from this book and the points it raises. This study of the effects of the Vietnam War is an stirring and an instructive perspective on this sorrowful moment in history.

The authors of Vietnam in Remission begin with their thoughts on why the United States first proceeded to become involved in this overseas war, whether justified or not. This seems to be almost rhetorical because they mainly provide reasons why we shouldn’t have started the war.

Many people in Vietnam did not like the idea of being under French control at all. They resented the fact that a country that knew little to anything about them held control over their actions in an attempt for its own gain. Therefore, it was a very easy task for Ho Chi Minh to rally support for his cause. None of this was instigated by Communist influence, however. It is a known fact that the North Vietnamese regarded the Russians as “Americans without money,” and the Russians did not even assist much until the U.S. had committed itself. This is not even to say that the Russians did intervene much; most of the help received by the Vietminh was from the Chinese, which the U.S. was trying to make friends with at the time.

This leads the author to the question of why the U.S. even wanted to get involved. They were trying to befriend the Chinese, the uprising wasn’t even started by external Communist influence, and this was solely the problem of the French to deal with. What many people in the U.S. thought was the theory of the ‘domino effect’. This is the theory that if one key country in Southeast Asia would fall to the ideology of Communism, then the small surrounding would also. With the Cold War on the other side of the U.S. any country that became communist, whether very influential or not, was still considered a loss. With that in mind, an effort was made to flex muscles to scare the rebels from being more serious. However it was said that if a firm stance is not taken early on in a conflict, the other side sees a weakness. Let this be a false notion or true, but the insight is one that encourages the other side to stay strong, thus starting a war.

The next topic covered is what the roots were that grew a tree of failure for the U.S. in the war. In the beginning of the conflict, full effort was not given to the cause. This was the most vulnerable time for the Vietminh because they were still rallying for their cause and had no outside help yet. The U.S. started with only sending several troops at a time, only slowly escalating that number in an attempt to keep the issue quiet and not give Russia and China the idea to step in. If the full U.S. Army was sent at first sign of a danger, there would have be in rout without question and there would have been nothing left for the larger communist countries to support. Next, a short segment is made to how the French did not even fully commit to this issue. They had the idea that they would be forced to withdraw from controlling Vietnam after the South Vietnamese were back in power to prevent further conflicts. Because of that, they withdrew from control in the middle of the war and up until that point were wary about sending much help at all for the cause. None of this was to say that the U.S. should have made a massive attack at once and asked the French to do the same, but that would have been the correct move to make in order to win in that area.

The authors begin to question again why South Vietnam was really worth saving. The leader appointed to control the Vietnamese was for the most part incompetent, and he acted too independent, not listening to the U.S. who was trying to help him so much. Because of this he was booted and the next leaders were ones that were educated in the U.S and France; completely out of touch with the people of Vietnam. Many of the Vietnamese people not allied with Ho Chi Minh didn’t even want most of the help that the U.S. was bringing to them. The poor rural dwellers had lived on their land for generations and it was considered sacred to them, but instead they were put into U.S. protective forts that ended up being more harmful than good. How could the U.S. have handled it differently though. Didn’t the South Vietnamese want to be saved from this rebellion.

Not only did the authors of this book provide a unique look on the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, but they also concentrated a great deal on the legacies that were left behind by this unfortunate event in our history.

First what was examined was how much this war contributed to the destruction of the male ego within the American society. When the word contributed is used, it is because the war was not the complete cause, but it added a great deal to the destruction. Th