How is the Vietnam War taught in the U.S?

[o_d]

I don't think that counts as "winning" the Vietnam War though. It sounds more like putting a bandage on a wound that needs stitches and saying it's stopped the bleeding and you can go home.

It wasn't just putting a bandage on it though, the Peace Treaty ended the war. That was the stitches, it was after the US left that the North Vietnamese ripped out the stitches

The peace treaty was meaningless, however, without continued US presence as was seen when the North broke the treaty after the US forces left. While it was certainly the fault of the North Vietnamese for breaking the treaty, it does, however, throw into light how the US campaign cannot be called a victory. It is clear from the results of the treaty that communism could not be contained to the north without a US presence. Given how no-one would wish for US soldiers to have to remain permanently in Vietnam to maintain order, it would have to be assumed that the war in Vietnam would need to end with South Vietnam being safe from invasion without a continued, external military presence.

The US' inability to neutralize the threat to South Vietnam pretty much left them in the exact same position they were before the war started. This cannot be viewed as a victory. Even if the military's aim was simply to hold off the threat while they were present, this does not count as a victory. Why? Because the Vietnam War did not end when the Americans pulled out. It ended when North Vietnam gained control of South Vietnam, something the US failed to stop due to the withdrawal of their troops.

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

Well, I'm not in America, but my school is American and so is my US History Teacher.
He taught it as a police action that was supported by many in the beginning, but it was one hell of a brutal war where both the commies and democratic forces did some seriously bad shit and as time wore on seemed to be less and less winnable.
And there were government cover ups that made it sound better than it was.
But that things were going alright with Nixon and his Vietnamization policies until Watergate, when the us closed in on itself and left South Vietnam on its own.
Overall, we actually went pretty in depth with it. The things we glossed over were the 50's and such.
Had our local 'Nam vet talk about how much of a piece of shit the Search and Destroy missions were, teacher described Vietcong tactics and how effective they were, had pictures of GIs after razing villages, explained how'd that happen. Overall his verdict was it was a brutal, un-winnable war and a failure of a police action, but that South Vietnam would probably have done better had things not gone to shit with the US government after Watergate.
Edit:

snip

They just bombed the Ho Chi Minh trail. Also: there were NO official declarations of war. It was a "police action." Yeah, same thing, but there were absolutely no declarations of war - not even to North Vietnam.
Edit2 :

Most schools just kinda gloss over it, they instead focus on the Home Issues at the time, and not the fact that technically the US won the Vietnam War

ROFLMAOTIP! um... what kind of government does Vietnam have today? I'd think if it was communist that'd mean the US lost that one...

North Vietnam overran South Vietnam AFTER the US left, not during.

 

[Andrew_Waltfeld]

MY history teacher taught as a whole "don't ever ****ing do this ever again* type war. He went over the strategy of the military's involved etc, politics etc. It was kind-of impressively stupid how things turned out. =/ Mostly because we only lost because the U.S. Military was using the wrong strategy and trying to run the war on numbers.

 

[Hatchet90]

It took about 2 weeks to cover the 50's through 70's in my AP History Class. I thought it was easily the most interesting thing we talked about in the entire year.

 

[dancinginfernal]

"We fucked up."

Is how my U.S. History teacher described it. He actually fought there as well, it was what inspired him to teach about U.S. History. We got more in-depth, obviously, but my point remains. I was taught/am being taught a good amount about it. We're actually covering it right now.

 

[loc978]

Well, in US history class I was shown the Vietnam war engagement by engagement and given approximate body counts for both sides, starting with the attempted French occupation. I was also shown videos of Presidential speeches, senate meetings, protests, et cetera, and I was tested on who took what positions. Generally the gory details of engagements were glossed over with numbers, but political motivations were laid out starkly for students to make their own values judgements on.

The class tended to agree that we were an entity of bad guys fighting another entity of bad guys, while the soldiers involved on both sides and the people of Vietnam were both victim and patsy to our country's ham-handed attempt to stave off a non-existent threat.

 

[Jegsimmons]

I was taught that we went in to first train the south Vietnam, but then it escalated to the point we were sending in troops to stop communism from spreading to south east egypt. From everything else ive read, the war was fought fairly legit on the US troop side (cannot say the same for the VC) the negotiations broke down and we pulled out and NV broke the treaty and invaded 2 days later and the result costed the lives of hundreds upon hundreds of innocent civilians. and unfortunately and WRONG stereotype of the US being baby killers and murderers out of the media exploitation of a few incidents. also Oliver Stone movies don't help. (what a jerk)


also note that the myth of US forces murdering whole villages was just that...a myth brought on by an incident that was exploited by media coverage. It didnt help that the VC had some really fucked up tactics that would make anyone paranoid (grenades disguised as wrapped up babies, women suicide bombers...think of an communist al-queda)


also i refer people to this simple little page for some statistics.

http://www.vvof.org/factsvnv.htm

 

[Singularly Datarific]

History Class was not indepth, but my awesome English Teacher (Mr. Boling) had an entire unit for Vietnam and the 60's!

 

[Chris^^]

It was more a matter of fact thing, there were Australians.

did your book omit the troops from South Korea, The Phillipines, Thailand and New Zealand who were also roped in to fight and die for Americas war?

 

[Gaiseric]

In my high school classes it was taught in about as much detail as any other time-period which was a lot. Unfortunately, I don't remember too much. I can ask my dad if I need to know something about 'Nam. He has some stories.

 

[Vault Citizen]

It was taught to me more or less as this, not a whole lot of time spent on it: Communism was spreading and we wanted to stop it, so we went in and supported the democratic side. We did a lot of things we aren't proud of, and pulled out while we were winning because of protests back home. In a nutshell, we were in the right and hippies prevented us from stopping north (or south, I keep forgetting) from winning.

(I could be wrong but)

1) America supported an unpopular dictatorship, not a democracy. Throughout the Cold War America had a philosophy of they may be bastards, but they are our bastards. A strategy which has come back to bite them in the ass rather beautifully since the 90's

2)You weren't winning, not even a little bit. You had superior weaponry but the environment and the fact that the Vietcong knew the landscape better meant that the superior technology didn't make a difference, for example America had M16's but these weren't able to withstand the conditions while the AK-47s of the Vietcong were less powerful but a lot more resistant to the weather and a lot less reliable.

Whoever taught you that either didn't know what they were talking about or were suffering from a really strong case of denial.

 

[lokun489]

Woah they withheld more then a butt ton of information from you.

 

[rutger5000]

As far as High School goes, it's kinda glossed over. We cover up until WWII usually, and by then the year's over. I can tell you that a lot of us aren't proud of what we did over there and would probably rather forget it.

But that's wrong, the history that can make you better should be remembered. The mistakes the US made should be a lesson for generations to come.

 

[Chris^^]

Now, I want to know how come this guy [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov], who SINGLE HANDEDLY averted NUCLEAR ARMAGEDDON isn't taught ANYWHERE?!

if you like that, look into a book called 'What if: America', theres a chapter in that on the Cuban Missile crisis which demonstrates another incident of one man's decision saving the world. Also have a look at the Operation Able Archer debacle of late 1983.

 

[Scars Unseen]

High School: Mostly just taught as the war we lost.

College: Just got finished taking a course on the war. It focused on the politics that guided the war, starting from French Indochina, and leading into how our government's irrational fear of communism caused us to make a series of incredibly stupid decisions in order to avoid political suicide. The course ended with Nixon, who made the first major, positive change in American foreign policy since we abandoned isolationism.

Though not the focus of the course, we were also shown how the manner in which we fought the Gulf War was a direct reaction to the way we fought the Vietnam War. Sort of a way of proving that we could still take care of business after the rather embarrassing stain on our record that trying to fight a gradual war gave us.

 

[ScoopMeister]

I recall spending a couple weeks on it. Propping up what amounted to a dictatorship in South Vietnam, pouring more and more resources into a clearly losing conflict...

I don't know about that 'Search and Destroy' thing. There were a few guys who snapped under the strain and just started shooting, but I never heard of it as official policy.

Massacres like My Lai did happen, but atrocities like that would never be an official policy. They were a result of American soldiers snapping under pressure, the frustration of not being able to find the Vietcong, and the fear of a hidden enemy, who's traps and ambushes they could blunder obliviously into at any given moment.

So yeah, it wasn't an official policy. In fact, the man in charge of the troops at My Lai, William Calley, was put on trial and sentenced to life in prison (although he only served three and a half years until he was released on house arrest).

 

[MisterDyslexo]

I'm extremely fortunate, and attended a class called, "The Vietnam War Era", and we studied it in-and-out, even the religious aspects that is often glossed over, and met over a dozen war veterans. Unfortunately, my state that did that only had 5 schools doing it. We'd be lucky to have 100 classes across the country like that. Its usually glossed over in over schools, just like the Japanese Internment, because its dirty laundry from the past where we were assholes acting violently out of hatred and self-interest, which would have kids question whether we today are being assholes acting out of hatred and self-interest *cough cough* Iraq *cough cough* And well, if that happened, the schools wouldn't be raising any blind money-cows for the government, would they now?

 

[Iklwa]

In my experience the war itself isn't much discussed, rather what happened in our country because of it. Protests, etc. But like what's been said, most schools don't get that fat into American history by the end of the year.