The Vietnam War Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Vietnam War - Essay ExampleThe public became more and more concerned about their future and started questioning about the merits and demerits of prolonging the state of war. More importantly, the American government instituted a skeleton to send the young men and women to war, the very same war that was being questioned for American involvement. Statistics of 1960s and 1970s indicate that approximately 0.125 million young American migrated to Canada and 55000 service men went off the radar. There were exemptions for the students in college and therefore, everyone of the age tried to put themselves to college in an attempt to avoid the draft (Klimke, 2010). However, they knew that as soon as their education ends, they would be standing in the same line in which the 38000 civilians and soldiers were standing and had lost their lives (the total deaths caused by the bout were over 58000 but by the time, the draft was signed, the death toll stood somewhere near 38000). Furthermore , the rising inflation, unemployment, mounting fiscal deficits and former(a) economic problems alike compel the youth so register their protests. On top of it, with the ongoing events in the political arena, Johnsons policies, Nixons Watergate scandal, appointment of President Ford, complete pardon to Nixon by Ford and others created an environment of complete distrust of politicians by the public. The result of all these appeared in the form of mass protests by students and nationwide student unrest (Gilbert, 2001). Historians bind to the fact that it was the student protests, which ignited the mass protests of Americans throughout the United States. Activists, celebrities and musicians like Abbie Hoffmann, Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, Jane Fonda, Jefferson Airplane and other soon joined the cause and the students protesting on the streets of untested York, Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles and others (Klimke, 2010). Without whatsoever doubts, the United States paid a h uge price for engaging itself into the Vietnam War for over two decades. Despite his domestic policies of Great Society and other plans, President Johnson had to leave his post due to the immense pressure of the general public (Kissinger, 2003). President Nixons promise to the nation was the systematic withdrawal of array from Vietnam however, the same did not happen. In fact, during the Nixon era, both death and influx of soldiers and civilians remained high (Lawrence, 2010). The country lost more than 120 billion US dollars on the war during 1965-1973. This increased the fiscal deficit and diverted the attention of the federal government from many domestic plans and policies. Furthermore, the economic strains caused by the war played an important contribution in limiting the US governments ability to cope up the economic recession of early 1970 caused by the oil crisis (Kissinger, 2003). The country also learned important lesson about the future military conflicts. They learned a lesson that they could not beat any enemy on their own land without any enough information about those enemies. Furthermore, Americans also learned the lesson that despite of them being a superpower, they cannot