Why was the Vietnam war the start of the American public losing support for the military
Why was the Vietnam war the start of the American public losing support for the military
Carson Kelly
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Jacob Campbell
There is more support for the military right now than at any other point in US history.....right?
David Anderson
That would be the korean war.
Wyatt Jenkins
Where were you after Iraq holy shit!
Landon Hughes
Fair to say.
Brayden Wood
Most people don't even know that the Korean war happened. Even at the time, it was viewed as something less than a real war. The US government kept thinking that the whole thing was just some kind of distraction, and that the REAL war would start with Russia making a push into Europe, or the Middle-east, or both.
Samuel Sanchez
Kind of. The current view of the military seems to be a weird mix of
>jingoistic circlejerking and worshipping the individual soldiers
>whining about supposed corruption and mismanagement while almost without fail missing the real issues
>seeing it as less of a risk and more of a career path
We did see a bit of the Vietnam-era sentiments start to leak through during the worst parts of the War in Iraq, but fortunately the almost autistic reverence towards veterans seems to have shielded the veterans from the kind of animosity Vietnam Vets suffered.
Juan Green
That's because veterans don't exist. They come back from a Sandy shit hole and shoot themselves or OD because they can't find a real job. It's sad, but that's the real of it. No one wants to hire some grunt that spent 4 years lugging a ruck in the desert. When they could hire someone who soend 4 years lugging textbooks around and learning stuff pertaining to their field.
Grayson Davis
This is literally why the GI Bill exists.
Levi Brown
So? The college graduate that didn't spend 4 years winning hearts and minds of 3rd worlders. Would have 4 more years of relevant expierience because they weren't spent in a desert. See how that works? I'd rather hire the 22 year old college grad to my company than wait 4 more years for Joe to catch up.
Adam Nguyen
The 26 year old enlistee turned bachelor's degree has a bunch of government brownie points and is probably used to working 16 hour days and getting yelled at.
It's the guys who don't take advantage of the GI bill that get fucked, but I find it hard to believe that they wouldn't have either way.
Andrew Adams
The US has pretty high public support for its military overall, only wavering in Vietnam for apparent reasons and are parallel with today's Afghanistan.
The Vietnam War was difficult to report progress on, and therefore harder to justify the dead bodies coming home without it meaning much in the grand scheme.
Take for example WWII, there was a front line that shifted and reports came in on enemy armies defeated and the advance of your own troops to keep morale up, both in the military and at home.
Vietnam however didn't have the more conventional warfare that the general public can digest easily. There was no frontline of where the enemy was and few to no reports on what territory was gained at the end of battles, simply reports that there was fighting, the enemy disappeared, and fighting erupts again a few days later with no decisive conclusion.
When bodies start coming home, the families of the fallen and the public generally want to know if the deaths went towards something substantial to the war effort, that the deaths weren't meaningless. Vietnam couldn't provide that concrete proof that Private Smith's death contributed much of anything to a battle because the battle itself didn't move a front line or defeat the enemy in any decisive way.
the US constantly reported information about Communist retreat and that they were on the verge of defeat all through 1967, but then the Tet Offensive came as a surprise to everyone. An enemy that was reportedly on the brink of defeat attacked every major city all at once in a fully coordinated offensive. At that point it became harder and harder to prove that the war was "being won" by anyone at all.
With nothing to boost morale like territory gained or decisive battlefield victories, morale in the army began to drop and public support at home wavered, leading to unrest and demonstrations against a war that was increasingly seeming to be pointless, that dead bodies were coming home to families for nothing.
Michael Murphy
You're exaggerating a little bit, but you're right in that respect.
People love to pretend to worship soldiers, but when it comes to actually doing anything to *really* thank them for their service, they don't give a shit. They'll bitch and moan about how not standing for the flag is literally worse than an ISIS of Hitlers, but they don't seem to be bothered by the fact that the VA is so incompetent that it's just taken for granted that a wounded veteran is going to be dependent on charity to get by. And the depictions I see in the media don't help at all. The generic jingoistic movies and TV shows (like that retarded SEALS one) just circlejerk over how cool and serious the military is supposed to be and completely detaches people from the reality that these guys are for the most part kids who end up seeing a mix of incredibly horrific and hilarious things while out on deployment.
At least we've improved from Vietnam's low point of blaming the soldiers themselves, but holy shit it's bad nowadays.
Brayden Reed
to put it short, public support for the military is high when there's concrete reports of advancements and victories by your side, and morale drops with defeats and lost territory. But when a war doesn't have anything of the sort, no territory gained, no decisive victory, but no defeat either, morale still drops without that indication of eventual victory. In a more nuanced war like Afghanistan, public support will waver whereas in the Gulf War, war enthusiasm will be high because there's constant reports coming in of indisputable victories.
Brandon Morgan
TV
Christopher Edwards
It's more that people now blame the politicians instead of the soldiers
Bentley Gray
>government brownie points
Those aren't a thing and plenty of people hold anti government sentiment. The fact of the matter is, the military important. However it has become diluted so that any idiot with a high school diploma can enlist. A military pedigree means nothing anymore and the fact of the matter is, people prefer younger college graduates over veterans.
Agreed. I'm not saying its right or advocating it. I'm just telling it like I see it. There are some veterans who legitimately need help, however there are also veterans that chose a shit career path and are now facing the downfalls of it. Those are the people who don't "need" help, they just need to get their shit together and find a career, they made it harder for themselves and that's not on the rest of society to prop them up.
Wyatt Scott
>However it has become diluted so that any idiot with a high school diploma can enlist
I don't think you understand how low standards once were.
I'd venture to guess that Vietnam was the first conflict where there weren't a significant number of fifteen year olds who managed to sneak their way in.
Even ten years ago, they were handing out felony waivers like candy because the surge was consuming so many infantrymen.
Ryder Diaz
>fight some jungle gooks which could’ve been avoided if Truman just recognised their independence instead of kissing the ass of the French
Leo Kelly
>just
>if the US had JUST chosen to alienate their most powerful ally in continental Europe at the height of the Cold War
I don't think you understand the implications this would have had.
Ayden White
because A: wimpy weenies had to see it on TV and B: nobody actually wanted to bully a bunch of jungle gooks, it was a war that was created in shadowy NATO meetings for purely pragmatic reasons of weakening global communism rather than a war waged in response to any sort of injustice or to meet any sort of morally defensible national goal.
Ryder Davis
I recently read this book. There is a funny (in a dark sort of way) page where MacArthur mentions the situation in Vietnam during a meeting with the President. Mac says something like "I just can't believe that the French are having so much trouble with a tiny group of guerrillas, they must be really incompetent." Truman responds in agreement, saying something like: "I don't get it either, it really seems like they're a bunch of idiots." Of course, that's not exactly what was said at the meeting, but that's the general vibe. That's the only time in the book when Vietnam is mentioned, but wow. It really says something.
Isaac Flores
You're right, but a high school diploma didn't used to be necessary. The only ones who joined up were the one's who needed the felony waiver. Those are the dudes I WANT to give a gun to and send them at my enemies. I don't Juan from South Central to join because it was his only way out of the bario.
Adam Wood
>However it has become diluted so that any idiot with a high school diploma can enlist.
It's a lot better than when we filled the ranks with literal criminals as a form of sentencing.
Jose Jones
No.
No. WW2 was by far the time that morale was highest for military. Only a microscopic minority did not support the military.
Hell the only politician that didn't "support" it, was some woman, her only reason was because she didn't believe a woman had the right to declare war.
Cameron Wood
>The only ones who joined up were the one's who needed the felony waiver. Those are the dudes I WANT to give a gun to and send them at my enemies.
I hope you realize that in the modern world with cameras, those people are an international nightmare because armies composed of convicts have a tendency to loot and rape everything in sight.
Zachary Davis
Yeah and that's a problem. War isn't about who can make freinds the best. It's about killing the other guy. We tried to win the hearts and minds in Afghanistan and where are we today? Almost 20 years later and all we have to show for it is a bunch of dead soldiers and an opioid epidemic. I'd rather be just have swept through, did our thing and got the fuck out. You don't go to war to make friends.
Nathan Thompson
The draft. The iraq war would have been just as unpopular if they had the draft.
Probably more accurate anyway.
Jordan Turner
> Why was the Vietnam war the start of the American public losing support for the military
They failed to catch the dreams
Carter Howard
Why have Vietnam been such a juicy rape-target through history?
Isaac Harris
I think the best answer is that in Vietnam you fought left, in Afghanistan you fought right. What good guy could fight left?
Joseph Turner
Excellent post