'Get the hell out of Vietnam'- The War at Home

‘Get the Hell Out of Vietnam’

The War at Home

The Vietnam War began in 1954, a conflict against the communist regime of the Viet Minh in the North against the South and their anti- communist ally, the USA. It was a conflict which was fought in the overriding shadow of The Cold War. It was an extremely costly war, billions of dollars were spent and over three million were killed in the brutal conflict. The first major battle between the Vietcong and the Americans was the Battle of la Drang in November 1965. It was a deceivingly American victory with 2,000 Vietnamese casualties compared to a mere 300 American casualties. It was at this moment in the American campaign that protests against their military action began to make ground. This was the same year when US planes began regular bombing of North Vietnam cities another factor explaining why protests began to grow.

A major group against the war were students. They began to question the governments participation in the war and if it was even necessary to be using all these resources. The US government introduced conscription for the conflict and began to draft young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty- five. During the sixties, the student population began to grow so it was not welcomed by young men when the draft was brought forward. Champion boxer, Muhammad Ali publically resisted being drafted into the war stating he was a ‘conscious objector’ to the war.  

March on the Pentagon

By 1967, American troop strength had reached nearly half a million with 15,000 fatal casualties. It was costing the US 25 billion dollars a year and this was creating great tension back home. In April 1967 Martin Luther King Jr openly opposed the American involvement in the war during a sermon. Mass protest and demonstrations were clearly imminent and on October the 21^st 1967, the most prominent anti- war demonstration took place at the Lincoln memorial where 100,000 demonstrators gathered and 30,000 of them marched on to the Pentagon where they came into a brutal confrontation with soldiers and US Marshall's.

 The power of the media

So why did this war, like no other war or conflict, cause so many problems and protests back home and across Europe?

This was because of the growth in television. In the 1950's, only 9% of the American home had a TV compared to 1966 where a huge 93% owned a TV.  Many Americans would start and end their days watching the news and due to advances in technology such as the video camera and audio recorder they would see horrible images of the atrocities happening in Vietnam and the actions of their country. These types of imagery heavily influenced public opinion and would also be blasted across the world causing protests against the war to pop up across Europe.  As the war dragged on and the images reached home, news companies sent more journalists out to the country providing Americans back home a first-hand account of the events in Vietnam.

 Making History

The 1960s were a time of mass protest for example the civil rights campaign, the nuclear disarmament campaign and student protests. The Vietnam War is to this day one of the most publicised wars in American history also one of the campaigns that caused the most serious mass protest movements, even well into the seventies.  

Lucy Bracher