“When I was a kid, we watched the Vietnam War on the six o 'clock news, and it was desensitizing. You felt you were watching a war film; meanwhile you were really watching these guys getting blown to bits,” said Johnny Depp about the Vietnam War. History has a funny way of repeating itself, and people have the funny habit of staying stuck in the past. Many people believe the Vietnam War and the current War on Terrorism is a reflection of this. Some people believe that both of the wars are pointless and that we are wasting American lives for things that do not even involve us, but others think both wars are absolutely necessary and that it is our duty as Americans to take action in order to preserve our freedom. Before writing this paper, I
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Some aspects in which they were similar were their successes, length and fighting styles. Neither war was successful in obtaining their goals. Many people thought that both of the wars were pointless, and that we were risking American lives for the wrong reasons. For the most part, most Americans support the idea of isolationism, saying we should not get involved unless something happens to us directly. This is something we should have used in both wars, but in different ways. With Vietnam, we should have left them alone all together because they had done absolutely nothing to attack us. With Iraq, we did have reason to respond to the attacks, but not with that country. The length of both wars was also something that really surprised me. The War on Terror has been an ongoing war for 14 years, and the Vietnam War lasted for an astonishing 19 years. Don’t you think if things aren’t going in our favor, we should remove ourselves from the situation? I would. And finally, both the Iraqis and the Vietnamese used guerilla warfare to fight the U.S. The United States were not used to guerilla warfare, and the fact that the Vietnamese had heavy forest vegetation to hide in was an added obstacle. But don’t be fooled, the wars differed from each other considerably, too. We went into both of the wars for different reasons. My dad pointed out to me that people felt the attacks of 9/11 more intensely because it was on American soil and …show more content…
The Vietnam War was the first war that was publicly and blatantly televised, so many people could see the harsh realities of battle, possibly for the first time. The amount of casualties is truly astonishing: (approximately) 282,000 Allied deaths, 444,000 North Vietnam deaths, and 587,000 civilian deaths. Keep in mind that each one of these deaths has a family, possibly a spouse, children, parents and grandparents. This obviously impacted thousands of people across the globe. Another aspect of the Vietnam War that impacted people was the fact that the war truly divided the nation. Either people supported the war or they didn’t, which in turn also changed a lot of the attitude towards the armed forces. As said before, with the War on Terror, many people were scared to do their normal everyday activities because they were afraid of terrorists, and many still are today. There are also many deaths correlated with this war: (approximately) 9,000 Allies, 108,000 alleged terrorists, 25,297 Iraqi and Afghan soldiers, and 117,000 civilians lives were laid on the line. Along with lost loved ones, many people lost loved body parts, sanity, and mental stability. People have PTSD, have lost limbs in explosions, have mental disabilities due to combat. And not to mention all the buildings damaged and innocent people affected during warfare, both on the homefront and on foreign soil. To say that war does not impact people is
Some aspects in which they were similar were their successes, length and fighting styles. Neither war was successful in obtaining their goals. Many people thought that both of the wars were pointless, and that we were risking American lives for the wrong reasons. For the most part, most Americans support the idea of isolationism, saying we should not get involved unless something happens to us directly. This is something we should have used in both wars, but in different ways. With Vietnam, we should have left them alone all together because they had done absolutely nothing to attack us. With Iraq, we did have reason to respond to the attacks, but not with that country. The length of both wars was also something that really surprised me. The War on Terror has been an ongoing war for 14 years, and the Vietnam War lasted for an astonishing 19 years. Don’t you think if things aren’t going in our favor, we should remove ourselves from the situation? I would. And finally, both the Iraqis and the Vietnamese used guerilla warfare to fight the U.S. The United States were not used to guerilla warfare, and the fact that the Vietnamese had heavy forest vegetation to hide in was an added obstacle. But don’t be fooled, the wars differed from each other considerably, too. We went into both of the wars for different reasons. My dad pointed out to me that people felt the attacks of 9/11 more intensely because it was on American soil and …show more content…
The Vietnam War was the first war that was publicly and blatantly televised, so many people could see the harsh realities of battle, possibly for the first time. The amount of casualties is truly astonishing: (approximately) 282,000 Allied deaths, 444,000 North Vietnam deaths, and 587,000 civilian deaths. Keep in mind that each one of these deaths has a family, possibly a spouse, children, parents and grandparents. This obviously impacted thousands of people across the globe. Another aspect of the Vietnam War that impacted people was the fact that the war truly divided the nation. Either people supported the war or they didn’t, which in turn also changed a lot of the attitude towards the armed forces. As said before, with the War on Terror, many people were scared to do their normal everyday activities because they were afraid of terrorists, and many still are today. There are also many deaths correlated with this war: (approximately) 9,000 Allies, 108,000 alleged terrorists, 25,297 Iraqi and Afghan soldiers, and 117,000 civilians lives were laid on the line. Along with lost loved ones, many people lost loved body parts, sanity, and mental stability. People have PTSD, have lost limbs in explosions, have mental disabilities due to combat. And not to mention all the buildings damaged and innocent people affected during warfare, both on the homefront and on foreign soil. To say that war does not impact people is