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US Involvement In Vietnam

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US Involvement In Vietnam
With World War II not being over long, and already being back at war with the Soviet Union, America’s involvement with the Vietnam War became a highly controversial topic. The draft system was being used again and it had a good portion of America’s population on edge. However, the fear of communism and its possible spread to other places kept Americans willing to fight during both the Cold War and the Vietnam War. America’s involvement in the Vietnam War spanned six presidencies. The average age of a solider that left to fight in Vietnam whether they were drafted or volunteers was between 19 and 21. The United States involvement brought up many important questions, “such as should they stay out of other countries business?” “Should the draft …show more content…
After World War II where they had seen the effects that communism could have on a country and the type of dictators that commonly arose from that kind of power, there new goal was to stop the spread of communism, and eventually get rid of it all together. There was widespread propaganda being used to show the horrors that communism could bring and Americans readily bought into it. This caused them to go to war with the Soviet Union; it was in the middle of the cold war that the rapidly growing crisis in Vietnam was happening. Because of the Americans strong views on communism efforts to help stop its spread in Vietnam was widely supported by the first few presidents that were involved with it. Harry S. Truman was president when the French were trying re-gain control of Vietnam; he had made promises to offer relief and aid with a multi step program. There was virtually no resistance from the United States population. When Dwight Eisenhower was elected president, he gave his infamous Domino effect theory where he stated that if Vietnam fell under communist control then all the other South Asian countries would too. This helped reinforce what the American population already believed. After Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency ended and John F. Kennedy took office, his plan was to stop communism at any cost saying, “Pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, and support any friend to assure the survival and success of liberty”. He agreed with Eisenhower’s Domino theory and had no intentions of letting communism spread (historylearningsite.co.uk). After the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon John became president and was the first president to send in American soldiers to fight in Vietnam. At first the American people were okay with their troops going and fighting in Vietnam, but as time went on and they saw the bloodshed and destruction that was
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