Do you agree with this interpretation of the problems faced by united states soldiers in vietnam? use the source and knowledge from your studies to explain your answer

STUDY SOURCE ‘A’. DO YOU AGREE WITH THIS INTERPRETATION OF THE PROBLEMS FACED BY UNITED STATES SOLDIERS IN VIETNAM? USE THE SOURCE AND KNOWLEDGE FROM YOUR STUDIES TO EXPLAIN YOUR ANSWER.

According to source ‘A’ the problems faced by US troops in Vietnam are; that new recruits were not very intelligent at all. This is true because I know that after the official, trained US army had arrived in Vietnam, the US was forced to conscript/draft. If you were not well educated, you stood a greater chance of being drafted so therefore a lot of new recruits in Vietnam were not very intelligent. This meant that they couldn’t cope with working the equipment, artillery, etc.

Source ‘A’ also states that as the recruits were gaining experience they were being sent home because their 12 month tour of duty was ending. This was a major problem for the morale of the troops, as well as having a less experienced army. Once somebody had fully settled in and made friends they were being sent home and replaced by new inexperienced soldiers, nicknamed ‘cherries’. We can also verify this from the death rate of the soldiers. This shows that in the last three month’s of duty they only stood a 6% chance of death (on average), whereas in the first three months this number was much higher.

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I do agree with the problems stated in the source as for the reasons above. However, there are many problems that are not listed in source ‘A’. One of which was the morale of both sides in this war. Most of the US soldiers in Vietnam were drafted and so would not want to be there; they did not choose to go. Therefore the low morale of these men would not be very high, and so the US army in general would not be very enthusiastic about fighting. The morale of the Vietcong in comparison was very high. They were fighting for their freedom and for their own country and beliefs. This meant they were willing to fight and so had an advantage over the Americans. Also the Vietcong were more used to the jungle environment and more aware of how to live in it and so this wouldn’t affect them as much as it did the US army. The guerrilla fighters were experts at their method of warfare and specialised in ambushes and creating booby traps. These were very frustrating for the US soldiers as they caused 11% of all GI deaths and there was nobody around to take revenge on immediately after one struck somebody. Also they were mainly aimed to maim the soldiers and not to kill them, for example one trap is a camouflaged ditch about a foot deep. It is filled with vertical spikes, aimed to injure, and sometimes the spikes were smeared with excrement as an attempt to infect a wound. The logic with this is that it takes an extra healthy man to help an injured man, whereas if a man is killed he is left behind and the extra healthy man is left free to fight. Booby traps were therefore very disheartening for the US soldiers, and also, for some, deadly.

As the Vietcong were hidden under cover of the tree canopies, the US found it hard to bomb the enemy. The US decided to drop defoliants, from the planes onto forests where the Vietcong were suspected to be. The defoliant used was called ‘agen orange’ and is harmful to humans when consumed. This was a problem for the US as it found its way into their water supply, which caused sickness. This again did not help morale.

I do believe that the provenance of this source backs my view that the problems faced by the US in Vietnam, stated in source ‘A’ are correct. It is a secondary source written in 1992 and so the writer would probably have gathered information from many different sources and came to a correct and sensible conclusion. It was written by Michael Bilton who wrote it for a book. Therefore he would probably try to create an accurate account of the problems faced by US soldiers in Vietnam and so should not be biased.