At the end of World War II, the fear was that Communism was becoming a worldwide threat shaped and mostly controlled by the Soviet Union, and to some extent by China.
The U.S. was introduced to Southeast Asia by providing matériel to France in its effort to recover its influence over Vietnam, where its northern leadership showed signs of being Communistic. A decade after the French were ousted, U.S. advisers arrived. In March 1965, the first U.S. troops arrived in South Vietnam.
Over eight years some 3 million Americans would serve; more than 58,000 would die, and continue to die, from the psychological damage that war inflicts and wounds soldiers, and from the effects of exposure to the defoliant Agent Orange.
The last American troops and prisoners of war came home in early 1973, mostly aircrews that the North Vietnamese held. Then, for two years, the South Vietnamese, whom the U.S. had trained, outfitted and fought alongside, attempted to hold off the North. That defense ended dramatically with the fall of Saigon at the end of April 1975, 50 years ago this week.
The number of Viet Cong, North and South Vietnamese military and civilian deaths differs from different sources, but ranges from 400,000 to over 600,000 military deaths and an equal number of civilian deaths in North and South Vietnam to exceed 1 million. The war had also expanded into adjoining Laos and Cambodia, where North Vietnamese forces were refitted and supplied, impacting those civilian populations.
The North Vietnamese, with far less weaponry than the U.S. and with what was shared with the South Vietnamese, had been more motivated and disciplined. They knew the people and the terrain, and had the drive that comes from the desire to reunite and defend a country against a foreign force. American soldiers only served in Vietnam for one year, exactly 365 days, or 13 months, and returned home to be replaced by others.
The war years for the U.S., when men were being drafted to fight and an increasing number of Americans questioned the reason for it all, wrested the country apart. U.S. leadership, we would learn in 1971 with the uncovering of the Pentagon Papers, had early on seen U.S. efforts as unsuccessful and unwinnable. Communism also, practiced in small countries in Southeast Asia, was clearly not a threat.
Some potential draftees had access to continuing education or to doctors’ orders, some joined the Peace Corps or were approved for conscientious objector deferments allowing them to perform an alternative, rather than military, service. That left military service and Vietnam to those without resources or other assistance. Anti-war demonstrations on campuses and on city streets were large and sometimes destructive, with offices and buildings burned. Some men fled to Canada, a few veterans returned their medals in dramatic fashion.
What was to follow? Some returning veterans were subject to insults, and avoided admitting they’d been in Vietnam. The war wasn’t talked about.
The first recognition of what veterans had experienced did not come until May 22, 1971, with the dedication of the Peace and Brotherhood Chapel at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, in Angel Fire, New Mexico, built by parents who had lost a son in 1968.
There was a significant decline in the appeal of being a member of the U.S. military, and a reluctance among politicians for the U.S. to become involved in the world.
The war drove the passage of the 26th Amendment in 1971 lowering the voting age from 21 to 18: if you were old enough to fight, you were old enough to vote. The conflict also gave Americans derivatives of the M-16, a rapid fire assault rifle that has done so much wanton damage in recent years in the hands of troubled young men.
The Vietnam War provides much to reflect on. Applying force may be tempting from afar, but its effects can be wildly destructive, and unsuccessful.
