The Escalating Conflict in Vietnam

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The Escalating Conflict in Vietnam

In the past I had heard stories where military forces in Vietnam raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, cows and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country. My eyes soon opened up to see the truth of what was going on during the war in Vietnam. Within the text we will find escalating circumstances and stories that led to the Vietnam Conflict.

Malcom Elmore served this country proudly during the conflict and served as my Criminal Justice teacher in high school. I looked up to this man because of all the adversity he overcame to become the person that he is today and since he fought during the conflict I decided to interview him. With memories from the past, he recaptured the situation that not only he was in, but the situation many Americans were experiencing during the time of this conflict.

"South Vietnam is fighting for its life against a brutal campaign of terror and armed attack inspired, directed, supplied, and controlled by the Communist regime in Hanoi. This aggression has been going on for years, but recently the pace has quickened and the threat has now become acute." (PFC. Elmore)

The war in Vietnam was not a spontaneous and local rebellion against the established government.

In Vietnam a Communist government has set out deliberately to conquer a sovereign people in a neighboring s...

... middle of paper ...

...e been slaughtered and butchered simply for peace. Was peace worth it?" (PFC. Elmore)

The answer to all this lies behind the United States government. Though we shall never know if its lasting effects was worth the fighting we have learned from our mistakes.

Bibliography:

Work Cited

Kutler, Stanley, I., Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1996.

Bowman, John S., The Vietnam War: An Almanac, New York, N.Y.: World Almanac Publications, 1985.

Karnow, Stanley, Vietnam: A History, New York: Penguin Books, 1991.

Clodfelter, Michael, Vietnam in Military Statistics: A History of the Indochina Wars, 1772-1991, Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1995.

Baskir, Lawrence M., Chance and Circumstance: The Draft, the War, and the Vietnam Generation, New York: Knopf, 1978.

Elmore, Malcom PFC., Interviewee, January 23, 2001

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