Explain how the following were all important to the growth of the peace movement in America?

During the Vietnam War, the following were all important to the growth of the peace movement in America for a variety of reasons. Early in the sixties the public was favourable towards USA’s involvement in the war. There were extremely confident nations who had never lost a war to date, and whose resources were limitless. So they naturally assumed that all their weapons and firepower would ensure the victory in a couple of months. However later in sixties there was a real shift in public opinion regarding the war. They started to question why they were being sent thousands of miles from home to fight to war, that was nothing to do with America. Further, in November 1965 there was an Anti war protest start to grow in USA, plus this increased more and more for the subsequent years, as significance there was a huge anti war protest meeting occurred in May 1970.

The war was meant to be a quick victory, in and out with minimal American casualties. However, the reality was that it all lasted for far too long. Later in sixties, the soldiers were traumatised because of the horrible events that were going around them and they were very distressed about proceedings such as the way they’ve been encouraged to kill anything that moved. Since they were going through these difficult experiences, they became disgusted and wanted to leave Vietnam to join peace movement. Wounded soldiers and the veterans came back to home with these awful stories, which left the Americans in shock.

The soldiers’ experiences were broadcasted on the television news bulletins. This showed the public how the troops were inhuman and the oblivious differences between the civilians and the Vietcong. Returning soldiers were not given the hero’s welcome, far of it in fact. This was especially towards the end of the war when the public generally shunned them.

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American people were horrified of the fact that their own country had used weapons such as “Agent Orange” and “Napalm”, which were used to burn down the trees, foliage and jungles so that the Vietcong would not be able to attack at nighttimes, as there wouldn’t be any jungles, foliage or trees to hide. The reason for this, The US soldiers found it difficult to combat, as they were not used to the jungle. However, the result of using these weapons didn’t just become a reaction for destroying the Vietcong, furthermore these weapons had harmed and disfigured the innocent Vietnamese.

In addition to this, the blanket bombing by B52 bombers too disappointed the Americans, for the reason that, the scale and the nature of the destruction was large so they increasingly become willing to join the protest. Their control of the air accounted little as they were unable to see whom they were killing. These Blanket bombs were partly used to destroy swam and paddy fields so it would become clear and the Vietcong could no more be suitable for tanks. As a result of using such terrific weapons, there were further blow to the already low morals in America.

The result of this was the huge My Lai Massacre in March 1968, to end the massive loos of innocent lives. Over 300 Vietnamese women, children, babies and old men were gunned by American troops this event. The truth of the massacre shocks us even more and has changed the opinions of Americans. Soon the public began to oppose their own armies because they became more aware that the army was covering up atrocities.

The young generation were playing an increasingly more important part in the public opinion on the war at that time. The youth culture came to the forefront during the sixties, as they were providing figures capturing the heart of teenagers across the country. This was partly because of the wealth of America, which leads to young people having more money to spend on music and fashion. Young people seemed to act more on liberal attitudes and were more concerned with freedom of speech and self-expression. Due to this young people threw traditional values out of the window and it was a period of huge social change in all areas of society. For example it was the time of women’s liberation and the sexual revolution with the introduction of contraception such as “the pill”. This was all part of young people’s struggle against authority, and so as you can imagine, the idea of a war was not going to go down too well. Partly because of young people’s negative attitude to the war was connected with the desire to rebel against their parent’s ideas and values. The main issue that made Vietnam unpopular with young generation was conscription, which came in at this time. The further reason being for the war to become much unpopular is the fact that the armed forces were being filled with the people who didn’t want to be there. This led to low morale in the army.

One other factor that was important to the growth of the peace movement was the media. Unlike the Korean War and world war two, the government decided not to censor it and let the press have free access. They sent horrifying scenes such as small children being burned alive by napalm. They could actually see all the blood and the guts, as practically every citizen owned a television, these shocking images bombarded all over the public, and they become emotionally involved and sympathises for the war fell. The sickened American was appalled at these sights and stories and so growing youth movement, among started the protest against the Vietnam War. This was very damaging to the war effort. Even the My Lai Massacre brought up to the public attention in the course of the media, this shocked the world, and creates yet more opposition to the war.

News editors made people question why the American were involved in a war many thousands of miles away. They have also made people aware of the growing number of casualties and the high costly of the war, as well as emphasising that the war was dragging on.

Pauline Alagarajah

11Mur

History