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18 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
Introduction
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Defeat of a great power by a smaller country, never seen before, introduced new tactics and radical social and political changes.
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Themes
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1- Destruction
2- US Destruction/Military 3- Social 4- Political 5- Ideological |
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Destruction- Nature
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Agent Orange- Destroyed Rainforest
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Destruction- People
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Agent Orange- Large number of Birth Defects
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Destruction- Displacement
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Vietnamese Water People; Refugees no one would take
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Military- Bombs
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More bombs than WWI & WWII; 4 million tons (futile effort)
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Military- Deaths
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58,000 soldiers killed
i. Americans upset by deaths in vain ii. More soldiers committed suicide afterwards iii. Devastating affect on war, especially as soldiers not regarded as heros due to society’s ideological shifts concerning war |
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Military- International Image
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Bombed neutral countries without warning
i. Broke international protocol |
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Social- Protests
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Hippies in 1968 250,000 protestors
i. New area of liberal social thought; 1st time people did not support war |
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Social- Race
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High proportion of blacks at the front
i. Coincides for calls for social change, equality |
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Social- Media
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Mai Lai- Americans didn’t support
i. Improvements in press changed opinion, open public’s eyes to war |
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Political- Defeat
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Humiliating defeat
i. Americans now against being “World Policeman” |
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Political- Econs. in Vietnam
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Economic hardship and black markets in Vietnam
i. Rejection of outsiders |
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Political- Authority
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Lack of respect for authority
i. Hippie movement, surprised as 3rd world country triumphed |
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Ideological- Domino
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Domino Effect didn’t happen
i. Americans were wrong, over-paranoid |
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Ideological- Communism
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Communist Victory in 1975
i. SV government was “re-educated” |
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Ideological- Policies
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Protectionism emerged in US
i. Policy brought problems escalating cold war |
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Clever Twist
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With Singapore now richer than almost all of Europe, Malaysia booming, Thailand thriving, and Indonesia moving steadily and surely up, it is easy to forget what peril Southeast Asia was in just thirty years ago… America’s intervention in the Vietnam War brought these countries roughly a decade’s breathing space, and that was enough to save them…
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