Essay --

The Vietnam War was fought from December 1956 to April 1975 in the Indohchina region that encompasses Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. At its most basic level, it can be described as a war between the communist regime in North Vietnam, headed by Ho Chi Minh, with its sympathizers in the South and the Southern non-communist Vietnamese regime. Its roots can be traced back to the end of the Second World War, when Ho Chi Minh and the Vietminh (nationalist communist party) seized power in formally French-controlled Vietnam after the Japanese occupants withdrew. France, unwilling to relinquish their power, sent troops into Indochina in order to regain their control. Meanwhile, Ho Chi Minh continued to consolidate his power through his Soviet and Chinese communist allies—employing tactics such as imprisonment, exile, and sometimes even murder to be rid of any political opposition or threats to his Communist regime. The struggle continued until the Vietnimh—with Chinese support in weapons and advising—took siege of the village Dien Bein Phu, where French troops were located. In May 1954, the Vietnamese successfully took the village, and soon after that the French left Indochina all together acknowledging their defeat. In the late 50s, South Vietnam was under control of Ngo Dinh Diem, who implemented a severe and brutal anti-Communist regime, leading to small collectives of communist revolutionaries, who eventually in 1959 were supported and aided materially by the North. Thus the Vietnam War as we know it today began. The Communist North, aided by Chinese and Soviet allies, fought battles with the anti-communist South, aided primarily by the U.S. Yet, how did the U.S. become involved so heavily in a war that seemed to have nothing to do with... ...relenting. It is argued that a fundamental difference between the experiences of Vietnam vets as opposed to veterans of other wars is that veterans of a war such as World War II, though still had a difficult time with what they did and witnessed, had a feeling that what they did in the war was significant and important beyond what they individually may have seen or done—there was a greater purpose to all of it (i.e. WWII stopping the Nazi invasion and terror). However, considering the turn the war in Vietnam took—how the U.S. public eventually protested strongly against it and its goals—that feeling was not always present for the surviving soldiers. This fact among the various other factors like the horrors and gruesomeness of the war contributes to the widespread psychological problems that plagued the veterans of the war long after they returned home to the U.S.