What Is The Cause Of The Anti-War Movement

On average, twenty veterans kill themselves each and every day (Shane III and Kime). Twenty men and women with lives, families, friends, and neighbors. Twenty men and women who fought for the very freedoms Americans are so accustomed to. For years, veterans have struggled to go back to a normal life away from the war. Protesting and anti-war movements made it even hard for the already damaged veterans. The number anti-war movements began to climb during the Vietnam war. American civilians reacted poorly to the return, spewing hate, harsh words, and even spitting at those coming home. The poor treatment of Vietnam veterans during and after the war has caused veterans across America to be forgotten by the nation for which they fought. The war in Vietnam had no definite beginning, but rather a gradual rise of aggression. The communist Vietnamese Nationales Vietminh army attacked French controlled Vietnam, sparking U.S interest. President Truman sent economic and military help to the French to aid them in their fight. The Vietnminh forces defeated the French 1954, thus Vietnam split at the 17th parallel between the communist North and non-communist South. The U.S. disapproved of the split and, taking South Vietnam from the French, began psychological warfare with the North. When John F. Kennedy became president, he began sending …show more content…
The media portrayed the war in a different light. Rather than hiding the true horrors of the war from the American people, it showed what it was truly like. It showed the deaths, the murders, the injuries, and the hurt of the American soldiers and the Vietnamese. These harsh realities, however, did not always depict the servicemen in a positive way (Mabie 103). With the exposure of true war, Americans now saw new war technologies that the military was using in order to defeat their enemy. Americans were appalled by the usage of napalm during the Vietnam