Throughout the history of the United States, there have been several wars that have greatly affected the lives of the United States’ citizens and provoked social reform and change. During the 1960’s, there were several aspects to the high amounts of social change and reform that occurred, but one main contributor and catalyst for the outpour of social change was from the Vietnam War. This period of history saw great social reform as people created different movements to invoke change in their country. Because this was a great time of social change, there were reasonably several opposing views and perspectives. The war in particular was a focal point of opposition in views, as it created a deep divide within the United States. Citizens of the United States either supported or opposed the war due to the impact that it directly had on themselves and the impact of the Vietnam War lasted even well after the war had ended. The impacts of the Vietnam War brought on instances of uprising and protesting by both sides and each were successful in different ways. Due to the vast changes to the nation’s social structure and community organizing methods, there existed an overall feeling of satisfaction and sadness, respectively for the changes made and for the circumstances and reasons those changes had to occur.
During the 1960’s, wartime struggles created a swift and clear divide among the citizens of the United States. These struggles incited a need for change among the social order of the United States in respect to the effects that the Vietnam War had on the citizens. The war started as an attack against French colonialism and was the “culmination of the bipartisan commitment to the cold war and containment .” As the war progressed, so did the divide in the United States. As the American presence in the war “dramatically increased” so did the opposition to the war. People were drafted against their will into the United States military, causing a catalyst action that led to the start of the Anti-War movement. This movement in combination with nation wide support of the war allowed for the divide of the United States to occur. The Vietnam War today has been regarded as one of the most pointless engagements that the United States has involved themselves in, in respect to how many lives were spent and how much money went into the war when compared to few positive outcomes that came out of the war. The Vietnam War was in short, just a ploy for the United States to “decide the fate of a country that they knew nothing about. ” The involvement in the war not only proved to be detrimental fiscally for the United States, but also diminished trust among the United States’ citizens in regards to the government. This caused what is now known as “Vietnam Syndrome,” which acts as a guard against unnecessary military involvement in other parts of the world. Vietnam Syndrome allows for a reluctance to send troops overseas which stops unnecessary involvement from taking place. The war essentially caused more turmoil than it ceased.
One perspective of the Vietnam War was in support of the efforts that the United States was making in its involvement in the war. This included the pro-war movement and support for counterinsurgency, which is the intervention to counter internal uprisings in non-communist countries. The pro-war movement supporters saw this as valid reasoning for the United States’ involvement and worth the amount of time, effort, and energy spent on the war effort. Though the war was for the most part regarded as a war that didn’t need to be fought by the United States, the fight against communist regimes was more than enough reasoning for involvement. As the United States was just coming out of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the “trigger-happy” nation was looking for any possible ways of stopping the next bout of communism from spreading. This included surveying various neighboring countries to the Soviet Union to “check up” on their governments to see if they were enticed by the seemingly “great” methods of communism. Once the Vietnamese government lost control of the countryside to the communist Viet Cong group, the United States did everything in its power to work itself into the Vietnamese realm of power, which gave relief to the people back home, frightened by the threat of communism taking over the East. The United States’ involvement in continuing the war was also seen in the pro-war movement, as no one wanted America to be seen as a weak power, especially after the success that it had experienced in both World Wars. This drove the heads of the United States’ military to continue the war after every term for fear that voters and supporters of the war wouldn’t “forgive them for losing the war. ” This showed the support that citizens had for the war, but that it was limited to a surface level wanting to save face and to continue the legacy that the relatively new nation had created as being a “Super Power.” In addition, the United States saw the war as an opportunity to appease the French as it regarded Vietnam as a “buffer to the Soviet Union. ” The French had wanted to receive economic assistance in reconquering their pre-WWII colony in Vietnam, which they received from the United States in order to fulfill their own personal needs for the stifling of the threat of communism. The United States saw the Viet Cong within Vietnam as a “puppet” of Ho and Hanoi as well as Beijing and Moscow, which allowed for even more of a reason to get involved. The support for the Vietnam War in the United States came from the threat and fear of communism and the spread of socialistic beliefs and therefore was necessary for the high involvement and role that the United States played during the war.
Another perspective of the Vietnam War was that it was not necessary or valued as an actual viable use of the United States’ resources and time. The rejection of the war, or the pro-peace movement, arose in protest of the Vietnam War in the 1960s. This perspective was more widely shared among American society during the Vietnam War. While the United States was experiencing high losses and casualties from the brutalities of war , back in the United States on the home front, citizens were beginning to become upset for several reasons. The lack of regard for human lives and for civilian rights to the pursuit of happiness had been infringed as the government drafted high amounts of young men into the armed forces to fight overseas. This war was seen as unnecessary and as a waste of resources both fiscally and physically. On the home front, several people began to come together, rally for peace, for their rights as citizens, and that their pursuit of happiness would not be infringed upon. This brought on the creation of the “New Left” or the redefinition of freedom in the United States. The New Left called for a “democracy of citizen participation ” and set out to correct the evils set in place by social institutions and resulted in the massive rejection and condemnation of the Vietnam War as a whole for not uplifting the values shared by the group. One group in particular that worked for great social change was the Berkeley free speech movement . This movement acted as a catalyst for other school and university campuses to act on their collective beliefs and speak against the oppressive regime of professors that teach the same propaganda the government pushes down the public’s throat. As the United States’ involvement increased, so did the opposition to the war . The war was seen in the rest of the world as a civil war with two opposing factions, one having been created and supported by the United States, thus creating a self sustaining need cycle that was detrimental to the hopes of ever decreasing its role in the Vietnam War. As more information and media was being shared of actual events that were happening in Vietnam, horrific incidents and instances of extreme brutality were brought to light and reflected on the realities of war and the actual cost that the war was inflicting. The My Lai massacre was just one of those horrific occurrences that affected not only the civilians in Vietnam, but also caused great amounts of grief and turmoil among the United States’ soldiers that participated in the ambush of civilians. The massacre was brought on by United States soldiers and as put by Ronald Ridenhour, a Vietnam Veteran, “I couldn’t believe that not only had so many young American men participated in such an act of barbarism, but that their officers had ordered it. ” Ridnehour stated that he “couldn’t quite accept [what had happened] ” as the rain of fire fell on innocent civilians including men, women, children, and the elderly.
The end of the Vietnam War saw many events that contributed to the creation of different movements within the United States. This included the Free Speech movement as well as the Students for a Democratic Society. These were both created and formed at the University of California, Berkeley during the 1970s and was inspired by the effects of the Vietnam War on the students at Berkeley. Americans did their best to forget the war by ignoring the actual reasons that they had invested in the war. In the documentary, Berkeley in the Sixties, one of the interviewees, Jack Weinberg, states his experience in learning what the war was actually about. Weinberg recalled, “there was a parade of speakers that one after another started telling us something that we didn't really know which was what our country was doing in Vietnam. ” He later says that it was common for people to not second-guess what the government was doing because they had been taught that the United States was a “humble nation.” This called for a change in the system where the government could get away with promising billions of dollars in economic aid when the plan is to turn around and spend billions more just to destroy different countries . The war secretary of defense, Robert McNamara spoke about the various reasons why the United States remained in the war for so long in a speech in the 1970s. McNamara stated that it was just “policy that had gone wrong. ” In other words, the young men that were sent to their deaths for “no reason ” were justified because of a misuse of “policy.” This showed the strong disconnect that the United States’ government had to the people and their desire to be heard.
In each movement that was created out of the effects of the Vietnam War, the most successful was the Anti-War movement. Some of the more relevant and important parts that were vital to the movement’s success were the counterculture movement and pro-peace ideals. The counterculture was a “generational rebellion ” that called for the rejection of the beliefs and practices of the community’s elders. This destruction of all beliefs about authority created a sense of freedom of expression that included but was not limited to, freedom of speech, clothing choices, sexuality, language, and drug use. This newly acquired freedom was spread along with the ideals of the hippie and peace movement. The major themes and success from this movement stemmed from the inability to create a system that oppressed anyone, but offered freedom and positivity to people of all walks of life. This was unsuccessful, however, in creating a system that would benefit the productivity of the generation to follow, as the parents and key founders of the hippie movement passed on an inability to be productive and showed examples of a strictly self-serving society . There was a severe lack of concern for anyone else unless they were themselves directly affected in any way. In this case, the major issue that sparked reform for the counterculture movement was that people were being drafted into the armed forces against their will.
In conclusion, the Vietnam War caused a great rift in the United States to occur due to the sharp opposing sides to the war. This included both the pro-war and anti-war movements where a majority of the population of the United States was against the war in Vietnam. Many Americans in turn, went to great lengths to attempt to forget the Vietnam War by ignoring the causes for joining and staying in the war. This was because of the lack of support that the citizens were receiving from the government as well as with the onset of shame in officials for making calls that were unnecessary for the growth and overall wellbeing of either Vietnam or the United States. This proved to be successful, as the Vietnam War isn’t taught to the same degree as other wars are in the public education system in the United States, and is a war that is regarded as one of the United States’ greatest failures. Clearly, the Vietnam War left irrevocable marks on the state of society as well as within the culture of the United States in regards to the reform and changes made by the United States’ government following the Vietnam War.