The Vietnam War was a highly controversial war that spawned through three presidents and sharply divided the country. The Vietnam War is considered to be the only military conflict that America didn’t win in its proud history. Even though the U.S. didn’t lose the war, the result was catastrophic overseas and at home.
A protest placard.
Entire parts of the battlefield burned. The battle destroyed by the might of the ordnance employed which were hundreds of Americans who never came home and hundreds more who came back in a coffin. Yet, as popular as the military apparatus is in America, this war was one on which its veterans weren’t welcome back home. The ensuing years were some of the worst times the veterans of any war in America’s history have had. Here is a short video that includes five interesting, and perhaps little known, things about the Vietnam War, including facts and videos from the conflict.
This wasn’t even a ‘war’ in the U.S. because Congress hadn’t declared war. It was called the Vietnam Conflict. A couple of conspiracy theories also float around the Vietnam conflict.
Photo of a Vietnamese prisoner.
On the other hand, in Vietnam the war is called the American War, because some Vietnamese believed the U.S. started the war on its own accord while many others were very happy America at least tried to keep Vietnam democratic rather than going down the communist route. Talk about two sides of the same coin.
While the conflict began in Vietnam, it later spilled over into neighboring Laos and Cambodia in the early 1970s. It is interesting to note that more than two-thirds of the Americans in the war were volunteers.
A file photo of one of the platoons.
Not everything is funny, though. For instance, the U.S. task force called Tiger Force cut the ears of its victims to make necklaces. This team of 45 paratroopers would illegally torture and kill their prisoners, and slaughter innocent Vietnamese villagers, and collected their ears and scalps. As sick as it was, the U.S. still decided to drop any pending or actual charges. But the fact is that after America pulled out of Vietnam, and the Viet Cong army killed 3 million of people. That is the most alarming fact.
Movies like Platoon, Rescue Dawn, We Were Soldiers, and Full Metal Jacket among many others have each tried to bring forth an aspect of Viet conflict.
Check out the video to find out more.
