How did the American feel about the Vietnam war?

Answer 1

Americans at home were very indifferent and sometimes opposed to the war. Overall, it was unpopular. Soldiers would come back to little to no celebration, and were sometimes treated with disrespect.

Answer 2

They were sick of hearing about it. Everytime you turned on your car radio or television (news) it was "...two US Navy F4 Phantoms were shot down yesterday while attacking the Haiphong rail yards, all four crewmen are officially listed as missing..." or "...One B52 was lost to a surface to air missile yesterday, the Pentagon has released the names of the six crewmen..."

Answer 3

The criticism of the war in Vietnam started out mainly as a conservative reaction to President Johnson’s policy of fighting for a limited purpose, a negotiated peace, rather than all out victory in Vietnam. Those critics included Senator Barry Goldwater, retired military men, and even some extreme members of the John Birch Society. These people were known as “hawks.” As the President escalated the war effort, and became a hawk himself, his chief critics became known as “doves” and included antiwar protesters, college students and faculty, liberal Democrats, and many other people in various walks of life who felt that the war was immoral, dragging on to no benefit for the US, and was causing increased casualty lists to mount. Many believed the US was fighting a war against the wishes of the majority of the Vietnamese people. These critics felt the war was a civil war in Vietnam between north and south and we had no business interfering. Some supported the communist effort in Vietnam and hoped for a defeat of the “imperialist capitalist” United States. Many Americans felt we were fighting a small, unimportant county, while the real enemy was China and the Soviet Union. There were many demonstrations against the war which took the form of sit ins in college and high school campuses, marches both for and against the war, and editorials written for and against the war. One of the most infamous demonstrations took place at Kent State University, 1970, when National Guard troops fired on Kent State students and protesters and four were killed and eleven were wounded. Nixon had been elected on a promise to Vietnamize the war, meaning more fighting would be turned over to the South Vietnamese army, and to start bringing home American troops. When the President ordered US troops into Cambodia and ordered more bombings, the result was a tremendous uproar at home with more marches and demonstrations. Congress reacted to the antiwar feeling and repealed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which gave the President the authority to send troops and fight the war in Vietnam. Our purpose in the war is debated to this day.

Answer 4

A large number of Americans did not support the Vietnam War and actively protested against it. There were changing messages from the government regarding why American involvement was necessary and many people believed it was not.

Answer 5

The Vietnam war was a war fought to help unify Vietnam and stop communism. Americans had differing views on the war. Some opposed and some were for it. In the beginning there were few protests. As time went on and more US soldiers were sent home in body bags more Americans began protesting.

Answer 6

People in the US simply considered it a foreign affair, along with everything else that occurred in foreign matters going on in the world at that time. Only when a neighborhood boy was killed, or a draft notice (referred to as, a "Greeting Letter From Uncle Sam") suddenly appeared in the mail, did the war hit home.

Answer 7

In the early part of the war, most Americans felt it was necessary to stop the flow of Communism. Many of youth that didn't like the draft felt otherwise. Journalist Walter Cronkite did an editorial about Vietnam after the Tet Offensive. Cronkite said, "But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could." Johnson said that if he lost Cronkite, he lost middle America. The mood of the country had shifted and Americans wanted out of the Vietnam War.

Answer 8

They feared the draft; then the war (for those that got drafted).