What were people's reactions to the Vietnam War.

        In 1968 during the Vietnamese New Year holidays the US relaxed its forces thinking that the communists would be celebrating however the Viet Cong launched the Tet Offensive his was a massive attack on over 100 cities and military targets they even got inside the American Embassy which had to be defended room by room as the American people watched on TV as they saw there own soldiers get killed they started to ask questions like why couldn’t they defeat a small army from a small undeveloped country and why so many Americans were dieing.

        In March 1968 an American unit called Charlie company left there base on a search and destroy mission looking for Viet Cong forces they had intelligence that Viet Cong forces were hiding in the village called My Lai on the morning of the 16th between 300 and 400 civilians including Women and children were slaughtered no Viet Cong forces were found and only 3 weapons however the soldiers lied and claimed that they killed 200 Viet Cong and only 20 civilians. One year later the American people found out the truth when a solider came forward to tell the truth to the government. At this point a lot of people had turned against the war but this was the last straw and the war become very unpopular

        In America there were regular protests most peaceful but there were a few violent ones like at Kent State University were the students had to be fought off with riot police and continually fired tear gas this also showed the American people that they could protest also to show they were against in November 1969 70000 anti war protesters demonstrated in Washington and they used chants like “hey hey LBJ how many kids have you killed today” the war many young men refused to go a famous man who refused to go was Muhammad Ali the future heavy weight champion of the world. Also some celebrities even went to the extreme by going to North Vietnam to visit the solders. With there own people and the South Vietnamese citizens against the war the American Government had to pull out if it had any chance to win the General elections.

        As the war progressed more and more South Vietnamese citizens turned against the Americans because they were turning all there young girls in to prostitutes due to the amount of money the American soldiers had because Vietnam was a poor country and the American soldiers had lots of money to spend. The Viet Cong in the south of the country supported the war from the start, as they wanted all of Vietnam t o be united under communist rule along with the Viet Minh in the north who supported the war. China and the USSR also supported the war by supplying the communists in Vietnam with weapons and soldiers to fight the capitalists, as they also wanted Vietnam to be communist as this was during the cold war. The Australians supported the war by sending there troops to fight for capitalism also South Korea sent there troops as they had been fighting communists from north Korea and felt that South Vietnam could use all the help they could get. In most countries there were anti war demonstrations taking place out side American embassies.