Why Did America Withdraw Its Forces

By 1973, after a decade of brutal armed linkup and with nearly 60,000 the Statesns dead, the once proud and mighty USA had been brought to its knees. Feeling isolate the USA decided to abandon its commit custodyt in Vietnam after move pressure from years of mistakes. America withdrew from Vietnam due to several main reasons both(prenominal) were long-term e.g. Protests of the American citizens, and others were short-term factors e.g. Morale of American soldiers. In this act I will discuss the main factors for American withdrawal from Vietnam and taste to process the intimately important unriv completelyeds. I will show how the US media combined with defys in the USA was the most important reason for American withdrawal and ultimately led to the American withdrawal from Vietnam.Americas get-go mistake regarding the flake was the most funda handstal. Their tactics. all of Americas tactics were inappropriate, brutal and they were only looking for fast solutions and never t he strikingr picture. America did the worst thing possible in a state of war and based all of their tactics on assumptions, which by matter of proportion were all wrong.The first indication of American tactics being judicious and inappropriate was the infamous Operation Rolling Thunder ordered by LBJ and subjected the Ho Chi Minh Trail and other suspected communist bases in South Vietnam to bombing for 8 weeks. 3 years later more bombs had been dropped on South Vietnam than all the bombs that were dropped in the Second World War, the Ho Chi Minh Trail was console intact and the most casualties inflicted were those on Vietnamese civilians crowning America to lose the Hearts and Minds of the Vietnamese. aft(prenominal) the very first battle of Vietnam, set in The Ia Drang valley, America set a manikin for their tactics which would remain for the rest of the war tactics which would question the very competence of the American g everywherenment. General Westmore state was co nvinced that if the communists maintained heavy losses they could not and would not continue the war, and also that the American tribe would repeat the American losses if it meant the communists could be defeated.This lead to America measuring their victor in the war by using crop up to death ratios. In other words, if communists were losing more soldiers than America, so America was winning, and vice versa. General Westmoreland go on to believe that a use of superior fire role over the communists would lead to achievement in any battle combined with the usage of search and repeal bangs (for lack of a better word, wandering aim littlely into communist dirt and expecting to surprise them).In light of the above its not strike that whilst American tactics were failing, the communists guerrilla tactics yielded winner over the Americans. After the first battle in The Ia Drang Valley the Vietcong k newborn they could not win large battles with the US as they had backing arti llery and publicize support. They instead opted to do Hit & Run guerrilla raids on trusting American parade during search and destroy missions. This would mean much fewer casualties and also having the element of surprise over the Americans. If they were forced into a large battle the Vietcong would try to apprehension close to the confrontation to stop the Americans from label artillery and air support (they wouldnt want to hit their aver troops of racecourse).Over 51% of Americans killed in the war were killed by minuscule arms i.e. pistols, machine guns, basic military equipment. The communists never tried to esteem they could go face to face with the full might of the American array and so devised guerrilla tactics to fight a war the Americans were strange with and were reluctant to fight. Whilst America was always on the lookout for NVA troops to earn a large battle they assumed that the less trained Vietcong guerrilla fighters would be of little panic and go fo rthover them to the ARVN. Whilst the Americans hopelessly looked for the NVA, the Vietcong would watch on and when they least expected would raid the Americans, and forward US troops could portend for back-up the Vietcong would be g wiz with miner losses and the Americans in severe distress.The Vietcong were not only dependent on Hit & Run performances yet also used booby traps and mines. Booby traps were simple and easy to key out and would mainly consist of a trip wire and some change bamboo sticks. Mines were more sophisticated moreover now had the same idea. Bouncing betty mines would be triggered when a soldier stepped on them, fly up a metre in front of the man walking behind and go off (they were designed to reach the height of a mans genitals). Over 11% of men killed in the war were realised by booby traps and mines and left the survivors frustrated that no enemy was seen, no one to shoot at.Guerrilla war success was due to Americas stubbornness over its tactics, r eluctant to believe that much(prenominal) simple ways of fighting could defeat all the fire power in the US army, and also how the communists always learnt a lesson from their mistakes until they had a scheme for defeating Americans in struggle, and seeing as America didnt want to prize it made a mistake in the first place its tactics stuck and a pattern was set for the rest of the war. American soldiers were left frustrated that they could never get a good full on fight with the communists like they were trained for, and with no one else to express their temper on they turned on the civilians.This leads onto my next point that through Americas brutal tactics they inadvertently helpless the support of Vietnamese civilians. The Americans knew from an early stage that winning the support of the South Vietnamese nippers was a vital key to the war ( the policy was called winning the Hearts & Minds of the plurality) but unlike the Vietcong the USA didnt know how to do it and the South Vietnamese government didnt want to do it. The main issue was land reform and the Vietcong made sure to take land from the rich landowners and make it it to the poor peasants, a decision the South Vietnamese government were opposed to make.Happy with the communists ideas peasants would give food, weapons and intelligence to the Vietcong as well as housing them, making it almost impossible for American soldiers to purloin amongst friend and foe. Soldiers were angry they were fighting an enemy that could not be seen and would mercilessly kill them in surprise attacks, and so felt they had no choice but to eliminate all threats from nearby-by villages, always suspecting anyone could be a Vietcong and believing it was better to be safe than sorry. Zippo raids were frequently carried out on villages (which mostly werent collaborating with the Vietcong) w present soldiers would destroy all supplies in the village including animals and then execute suspected communists.Defolia nts would be sprayed on all the food and surround forest area so Vietcong wouldnt be able to consider supplies or hide (with the most used defoliant called Agent Orange, which was known to cause cancer, and would be washed into the streams by rain and drunk by soldiers on both sides). Although soldiers were directly told not to harm civilians, most peasants couldnt be distinguished between innocent and guilty as the Vietcong wore civilian clothes. Soldiers would kill the civilians from anger and mistrust over months of low morale and failure (which would lead onto massacres like My Lai). Innocent civilians would be mutilated, raped or killed without a trial, and when the GIs would leave only resentment and a lust for vindicate would be left behind ironically turning most anti-communist civilians into communists themselves.An business relationship from one GI after completing a raid was if they werent pro- Vietcong before we got thither, they sure as hell were by the term we lef t. foiled with their failure to break the support of the peasants for the Vietcong, America initiated the Strategic Hamlet action in 1962 where peasants were moved away from areas where the NLF was strong and into guarded hamlets, kilometres away from their interior(a)s. The operation was a complete failure. In legion(predicate) cases the NLF would already have supporters at bottom the villages and all that would have been done is moving communist supporters to a new area to spread their ideas. Those villagers who werent already in the NLF often would pass away supporters because of the way they were treated.GI soldiers were always told to see their enemy as infrahuman and before long they would treat civilians as they treated the enemy. In the hobo camp GIs couldnt trust anyone who was not an American, as they had conditioned from past experiences, and werent prepared to spare the life of a peasant who could possibly be conspiring to kill them in a moment without mercy. Amer ican soldiers started wondering why they were fighting for a group of civilians that just valued them dead anyway, and without a just cause many of the soldiers lost dogma in the war. The argument that will be put forward here is that combined with the realisation that guerrilla warfare tactics dominated over US tactics and the understanding that they were surrounded by enemies, all just in a searchry whose citizens didnt want their help, US soldiers lost sight of the point of their occupation.The soldier questioned why he should fight and risk his life for someone who just wanted to kill him. Over time the average US soldier lost faith in his mission and morale dropped to new lows. Without the morale of the soldiers, fighting an already superior enemy was hopeless. At the beginning morale wasnt an issue at all. All the soldiers in the army were career soldiers who believed in whatever cause the US government believed in, but after time more and more of them died, release only drafted soldiers who didnt want to be there nor fight for a cause. A one year tour of barter was thought to living morale high, but unfortunately this tactic was also a atrocious failure. A constant supply of replacements was postulateed for men who had either died or finished their tour of duty and those who were close to the end of their tour of duty (being short) were desperate to avoid combat or risks, making them less effective.Replacements or cherries as they were nicknamed, were inexperienced and would be put into squads with more flavor veterans of war, whom would not except the cherries until they had proven themselves in combat. Platoons would be divided in two causing a breakdown in communication between the soldiers, making the unit less effective. Fragging also became a major conundrum in platoons. Relationships between conscripted soldiers and officers would usually be strained. Many officers were career soldiers looking for promotion and so needed a high body c ount of enemy kills, whereas most GIs who were conscripted just wanted to stay alive until their DEROS (Date Eligible for Return from Overseas). Hostility towards the officers sometimes led to their men cleansing them and 3% of all officers who were killed in Vietnam were killed by their own men.During 1970-1971 there were over 700 cases of Fragging alone. Another case of low morale among the GIs was medicate-taking, which further diminished the effectiveness of the US forces in Vietnam. Marijuana was the most popular drug among GIs in R & R (rest and recreation), but cocaine, heroin and amphetamines were also used to get High. In 1971, 5000 men were treated in hospital for combat wounds and 20,000 were treated for drug abuse. The fact that more troops were treated for drug abuse than combat wounds as well as sometimes Fragging their officers is definitive proof of low morale. More important reasons for low morale occurred during the war also. All soldiers need to know that the ca use they are fighting for is a good one as well as designed that the people back home support them and the cause.If they think that the war isnt a good one or that the people back home are opposing them then they quickly lose faith in their duty. Between 1966 and 1973 there were 503,000 cases of abandonment in the US army in Vietnam (Note The figures include Draft Dodgers and people who deserted multiple times). The truth is drafted soldiers no longer wanted to fight when they were despised by everyone, even their own people at home, and they couldnt find any good reason left to stay in Vietnam unlike the North Vietnamese who were fighting for their homeland. All the soldiers were broken men and how could the US imagine winning a war if their own troops werent willing to fight anymore.All of this helps to explain that the war was not just lost for military reasons alone, and that politics played a large exposit too. At the start of the war the media and people believed the war w as the right course of action but as time passed people started questioning the adjudicate of it all. People began to realize that America wasnt really at threat from communism and the war wasnt worth the lives of thousands of young soldiers. In 1966 the North Vietnamese finally let a reporter from the New York Times anticipate north Vietnam. He reported on the destruction of civilian areas and casualties caused by American bombing raids.The US army always denied bombing civilian areas or if there were civilian casualties, they claimed, there werent many of them. The reporters views widened still the Credibility Gap and US citizens began distrusting what the American military was telling them. After the Tet offensive in 1968 the American people were outraged that the North Vietnamese so easily infiltrated South Vietnam with such(prenominal) numbers. For years they had been told that they were on the line of winning the war but now they seemed further away than ever. Media covera ge also helped to portray horrors committed by the American troops towards civilians such as My Lai. The American people were appalled with what they saw and began wondering who the poisonous guy really was, asking how they could support their own men when they were killing innocent women and children.The war was addressing US citizens $20 billion dollars a year which meant that taxes would rise dramatically and LBJ would have to cancel his Great hunting lodge programme of reform. This was obviously not a popular decision with the Public. electric chair Johnson decided not to stand for re-election in 1968 knowing the war would cost him any chance he had of winning. What finally sparked off the entire dry land was when the new president, Nixon ordered the initiation of Operation Menu. The order include the invasion & bombing of communist bases in neutral Cambodia and Laos. This only appeared as another act of war and a chance of another Vietnam, which greatly angered the America n public.Protests sprang up in universities across the country at the escalation in their countrys role. In one of these protests 4 students were scape and killed by the National Guard at Kent University in Ohio. This Sparked off a further 400 protests in other universities. Other huge protest marches took place in 1969, 1970 and 1971 under the Anti-war movement, and in April 1971 as many as 500,000 people protested in Washington. Two weeks later another introduction in favour of the war was launched. Only 15,000 took part. It was clear now that the people had spoken and with no other options Nixon began his process of vietnamisation.So after 10 years of hard gruelling war America finally left Vietnam in 1973, accomplishing nothing and leaving behind a corrupt government which would inevitably fall into communist hands. Because of the media it was the first television war and distinctly had an effect on their success, lowering the confidence of GIs and American people in the war. With taxes rising from costs of the war and not knowing if they could trust their own government anymore, the anti-war movement raged in America sparking riots and protests all across the country. The Vietnam War was a huge blow for American unconnected policies, showing that communism was a force to be reckoned with if it could beat America. The policy of containment had failed and Americas domino theory was a flop, as the domain of a function hadnt succumbed to communism as America had feared (apart from Laos). A complex cosmic string of cause and effect lead to the dramatic events of 1973, events which still cast a shadow over American policy today.