US Soldiers During and After the Vietnam War Essay Example for Free

US Soldiers During and After the Vietnam War Essay The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina war, was the battle between the South Vietnam Government supported by the United States of America against the National Liberation Front (NLF) and the North Vietnamese (Atwood Brigham, 2005). The US had to come to the scene when they felt that there was a need to prevent the â€Å"domino theory† (Atwood Brigham, 2005). With the advice of the US policymakers, they sent their US troops to Vietnam in 1965 to start the prevention of the spread of Communism in Vietnam (Atwood Brigham, 2005). They had this belief, as in congruence with their â€Å"domino theory† that if Communism enters Vietnam, it would most likely spread throughout Southeast Asia (Atwood % Brigham, 2005). As reinforcement to the Southern Vietnamese Government, the US soldiers had to make sure that this non-Communist government does not disintegrate. With this, the US soldiers had several difficulties during and after the war. First, a lot of people, Cambodians, Lao, Vietnamese, and American Soldiers died during the war. The numbers show that during the war, there were 3. 2 million Vietnamese, 1. 5 million to 2 million Lao and Cambodians, and 58,000 Americans (Atwood Brigham, 2005). It is sad to note that some of these died fighting for their principles while some died without them knowing it. Those who died with the latter group were mostly the civilians who were just caught with the war. As can be seen from the statistics shown above, the highest number of deaths came from the Vietnamese. This is a sad part for the US soldiers who had to watch civilians die amidst the war and never got the chance to see it come to an end. Apparently, there were alleged war crimes committed in the duration of the war by the American soldiers. However, it could still be noted that at the very least, some soldiers never wanted to be there and watch people die. Among the thousands of soldiers sent there, there would be a considerable, yet unsure, amount of soldiers who never wanted people to die when they were not supposed to do so. In addition to this, it is very hard for the soldiers to see the souls of their fellow soldiers fall one by one from their team. They had to move on with the battle they have started and just hope that it would soon come to an end. In addition to deaths of US soldiers in the battlefield, there were also deaths that were caused by other factors (Atwood Brigham, 2005). A table below shows the statistical breakdown for the deaths that occurred during the war in the side of the American soldiers. This table also includes the statistics of the incidence of nonfatal wounds that the American soldiers had. During this kind of war, where they had to fight against the Viet Congs, they constantly had to look out for each and everyone else’s safety, sometimes just their own. Nobody would know when there would be an attack or if someone shoots out during their sleep. The fear they had to go through had effects on the emotional and mental health of the soldiers. The presence of the dead bodies around them also had affected their hopes and diminished it to a certain extent as they had to trudge down dead bodies, wondering if they would have the same faith or see this war to an end. Second, some of the US soldiers inflicted several illnesses, one of them is malaria. More specifically, one of the diseases is cerebral malaria which some of them carried on even after the end of the war. A Vietnam War veteran who has inflicted such disease is Jim Manuel (Lloyd, n. d. ). The effects of such disease has affected their brain and even resulted in, as in the case of Jim Manuel, deterioration in his level of IQ (Lloyd, n. d. ). Fourth, there were Prisoners of War (POWs) who had suffered greatly in the war, many of whom never had the chance to step back into their motherland, America (O’Neill Corsi, 2004, p. 118). Fortunately, there were several of them who had the chance to go back to America and tell the tales of their captivity in Vietnam. They served as the shield of the Viet Congs against an intensive defense strategy of the Americans with the North Vietnamese group. Third, after the long efforts and lives lost during the war, the American soldiers have failed from preventing the Communism in Vietnam. They withdrew their troops as US, South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) signed into the Treaty of Paris in January 27, 1972 (Atwood Brigham, 2005). The conditions set forth in the agreement were the release of all American prisoners of war from North Vietnam; the withdrawal of all U. S. forces from South Vietnam; the end of all foreign military operations in Laos and Cambodia; a cease-fire between North and South Vietnam; the formation of a National Council of Reconciliation to help South Vietnam form a new government; and continued U. S. military and economic aid to South Vietnam, [and a] $3. 25 billion in reparations for the postwar reconstruction of North Vietnam. (Atwood Brigham, 2005). After their withdrawal, the US soldiers still had to deal with another battle as they got back into their own country. During and on to the end of the war, there were campaigns rising for the war crimes and atrocities engaged into by the soldiers (Vistica, 2003, p. 233). This created a very negative impact even for those who had been fighting as anti-Vietnam War protests suddenly sprang up in America putting questions of doubt in the morality of the US military involvement in the Vietnam War (Atwood Brigham, 2005). Every strategic defense acted upon and carried out by the US soldiers has contributed to the intensity of the sentiments against the US soldiers by even the American protesters (Atwood Brigham, 2005). Another impact on the soldiers is the trauma they felt because of the war. Most, if not nearly all, of them showed different degrees of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (Atwood Brigham, 2005). This mental disorder had symptoms of anxiety and depression (Atwood Brigham, 2005). What is more, over 20,000 of the Vietnam Veterans committed suicide and the incidents of veteran imprisonment rose (Atwood Brigham, 2005). Those who continued to live on still had the memory of their lost brother as they remember them during the hardest years of their lives (Atwood Brigham, 2005). There are surely a lot of ifs and buts questions going into their mind as soon as they got home. Sometimes, one could just wonder how they cope up after a situation similar to throwing oneself into a pool of sharks. The situations that the US soldiers went through during and after the Vietnam War contributed to making a double battle for them. They had to fight for a lot of reasons and against a lot of factors. While seeking for their main purpose as directed by their homeland, they had to fight for their own personal reasons and for their own life. The Vietnam War was never a simple war and will never be. The battle alone in mind has proved that these Vietnam Veterans are worth the salute and honor.Despite everything, the mere fact that they kept on going has made everything hard for them and for everyone else, too. References Brigham, Robert K. , and Atwood, Paul. Vietnam War. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006 [CD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2005. Lloyd, S. (n. d. ). U. S. Vietnam war soldiers and malaria. Retrieved January 12, 2008, from http://www. historynet. com/wars_conflicts/vietnam_war/3038271. html. O’Neill, J. E. Corsi, J. R. (2004). Unfit for command. USA: Regnery Publishing, Inc. Vistica, G. (2003). The education of Lieutenant Kerrey. New York: Thomas Dunne Books.