LBJ and the Vietnam War :: Vietnam War Essays

Thus far the Vietnam War has shown to be a eminently complex situation. Many of times, I have found myself agreeing with Lyndon B. legerdemains decisions to escalate the war. First and foremost, the fall in States had do a cry of freedom and tranquility to the people (whom were not part of Viet-Cong) of Vietnam. As an American, it is my position that the United States had to uphold its word, essentially its credibility. Secondly, withdrawing troops from Vietnam when the situation was really start of control would make the United States appear weak. In midst of the chilly War, the one thing that was not going to prove true was that the United States was weak. Although these reasons were and are valid, the anti-war movement in conjunction with the Tet offensive required prexy Johnson to make a decision that changed the perception of the war he chose to bring up a halt on the bombardment in Vietnam. The purpose of this see is to further analyze how the continuing anti-war mo vement and the Tet Offensive were the reasons that Americas fate was effectively sealed by mid-1968.The antiwarriors that have been described in Melvin Smalls book have shown to be relentless. They were fighting for a just do, or at least it was a just cause in their opinion. They were able to organize and rally others to join in their spare-time activity to end the violence that was occurring in Vietnam. Between 1967 and 1968, however, a new phenomenon was occurring, the time of the hippies. Small mentions, For many Americans by 1967, antiwar demonstrators were not only unruly and potentially violent but hippiesserious politically oriented activists became considerably conflated with hippies to the detriment of their cause. (Small, 81) This unexpected result of the antiwar movement definitely did specify a damper on the cause because hippies were perceived as these pot-smoking, disrespectful, unappreciative bunch of kids who had no idea what they were talking about because the y were high all the time. This proved to be untrue. The hippies were just as more than as a centrifugal as the other activists, and this was evident in the rally held at the Pentagon.Although only 75,000 or less activists were there, the event that occurred at the Pentagon was one of the underlying reasons LBJ had decided to end the bombing in Vietnam. What made this event stand out from the rest is that is was one of the largest, and nonetheless, it occurred at the centralize of American citizens center of their war-making machine which presented a powerful image of a country in turmoil.