American Involvement In The Vietnam War

In the era leading up to the Vietnam War, many factors lead to American interference. For example, the policy of Containment proposed by George Kennan allowed Communism to continue existing, but aimed to prevent it from spreading. The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan were both efforts to prevent the spread of Communism with financial aid for countries resisting it, but in the case of Vietnam, the U.S. decided that military force was necessary to pursue Containment. Thus started the Vietnam War, one of the most unpopular wars in American history. The Geneva Accords divided Vietnam into two halves; North Vietnam was led by Ho Chi Minh, a communist, and South Vietnam was lead by the nationalist candidate endorsed by the US, Ngo Dinh Diem.
He was not drafted, and he claimed this was due to luck, but also mentioned his reluctance to join, saying that, “It was luck, but I was ready to go to Canada. I was not going to be drafted,” (Borchard). He described the state of life before the war as having an air of “prosperity and peace, and everything was wonderful… there wasn’t a lot of awareness on my part of what was going on in political spheres,” (Borchard). However, the government’s fear of communism fueled the beginnings of the war, as they were claiming to promote capitalism and with it democracy. Borchard and his family believed that preventing the spread of communism was only the artificial reason that the US went to war in Vietnam, and this claim was spread to instigate fear in the American population, hoping to garner support for the war. They did not support the fact that old politicians had the power to send young people to a war that they did not support, as they believed it was fought to prove that capitalism was an advantage and to make the US more
At a protest at OSU, he witnessed “guardsmen all lined up with guns, and people just in their faces, yelling at them, and screaming at them; really taunting them to do something so that people could go ‘See!’”(Borchard). As protests became increasingly violent, and after the Kent State Shooting, at which the Ohio National Guard opened fire on protesters, killing 4 and wounding 11, Borchard and a few other protesters believed that the violence was not helping their cause. On his way to a protest at OSU that was expected to be confrontational, Borchard was approached by two “hippies, with hair down to their waists,” that said “‘Man, don’t go there, it’s just two sides of the same coin, it’s all about violence; don’t be apart of it, don’t feed it” (Borchard). This and the increasing tensions at protests prompted Borchard to move the the countryside of Meigs county, for a few years, isolating himself from the increasing violence and division of the