The Vietnam War,

Transcription

1 The Vietnam War,

2 U.S. Expectations for the War in Vietnam

3 Johnson Sends Ground & Air Forces

4 U.S. Troop Deployments in Vietnam

5 Military Preparations & Training As the U.S. increased its involvement in Vietnam, the need for American troops grew. How do you raise an army during a time of war? Use the DRAFT! 30% of those who fought in Vietnam were draftees who were drafted for 2 years of service. Enlisted men signed on for 3-4 year terms. Draftees were given 10 weeks of basic training. Enlisted men were given several additional months of training.

6 Govt implemented a Selective Service Act that allowed the govt to draft men btw the ages of (in place since 1951) Not much resistance to draft in early 1960s those who did were mostly conscientious objectors. About 1.8 million men were drafted between However, in July 1965, LBJ doubled the number of men who could be drafted into the military. By the end of the year, he d doubled it again > led to rise in a draft resistance movement. As more and more men were drafted, Americans began to question the morality and fairness of the draft. College students could receive draft deferments so a majority of draftees wound up being young men from minority communities who were too poor to afford college. College students who received low grades were able to be drafted from 1966 on. From 1967 onward, draft resistance spread > many tried to claim physical disability, conscientious objector status, or left the country to avoid the draft (by the end of the war, roughly 100 thousand draft resisters had left the country for Canada.)

7 Reacting to complaints about the system, Congress made some changes to the selective service system in order to address supposed inequity December 1, 1969 marked the date of the first draft lottery held since 1942 (first lottery-by-birth.) This drawing determined the order of induction for men born between January 1, 1944 and December 31, A large glass container held 366 blue plastic balls containing every possible birth date and affecting men between 18 and 26 years old. The first capsule was drawn by Congressman Alexander Pirnie (R- NY) of the House Armed Services Committee Drew both birthdays and 26 letters of the alphabet to determine the order in which people would be drafted for that given birth date.

8 The Draft Lottery

9 Selective Service Classifications This is your Notice of Classification, advising you of the determination of your selective service local board that you have been classified in accordance with Selective Service Regulations. The various classifications are described on the reverse side of this communication. You are required to have a Notice of Classification in your personal possession. When a subsequent Notice of Classification is received you should destroy the one previously received, retaining only the latest. For information and advice go to any Local Board. SPECIAL NOTICE: A registrant who was deferred on or before his 26th birthday should ascertain from his local board if his liability has been extended to his 28th or 35th birthday. CLASS I Class I-A: Registrant available for military service. Class I-A-O: Conscientious objector registrant available for noncombatant military service only. Class I-C: Member of the Armed Forces of the US, the Environmental Science Services Administration, or the Public Health Service. Class I-D: Qualified member of reserve component, or student taking military training, including ROTC and accepted aviation cadet applicant. Class I-S: Student deferred by law until graduation from high school or attainment of age of 20, or until end of his academic year at a college or university. Class I-W: Conscientious objector performing civilian work contributing to the maintenance of national health, safety, or interest, or who has completed such work. Class I-Y: Registrant qualified for military service only in time of war or national emergency.

10 CLASS II Class II-A: Occupational deferment (other than agricultural and student). Class II-C: Agricultural deferment. Class II-S: Student deferment. CLASS III Class III-A: Extreme hardship deferment, or registrant with a child. CLASS IV Class IV-A: Registrant with sufficient prior active service or who is a sole surviving son. Class IV-B: Official deferred by law. Class IV-C: Alien not currently liable for military service. Class IV-D: Minister of religion or divinity student. Class IV-F: Registrant not qualified for any military service. CLASS V Class V-A: Registrant over the age of liability for military service.

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13 Vietnam Troop Levels , , , , , , , , , , , ,200

14 Strategy: attempted to fight a "limited war," one that would impose few demands on civilians in the US. This was accomplished through a simultaneous ground and air war which was so effective, by 1967, all major military targets had been destroyed. However, with 500,000 troops stationed in Vietnam and a cost of 2 billion dollars a month, there was no evidence the North Vietnamese were weakening. In fact, the bombings, the destruction of fields and crops, only increased support for the Viet Cong.

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16 The Air War,

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18 Chemical Warfare

19 Napalm Sticks to Kids Collectively written by the GIs of the First Air Cavalry in Vietnam We shoot the sick, the young, the lame, We do our best to kill and maim, Because the kills all count the same, Napalm sticks to kids. Ox cart rolling down the road, Peasants with a heavy load, They're all V.C. when the bomb explode, Napalm sticks to kids. A baby sucking on his mother's tit, Children cowering in a pit, Dow Chemical doesn't give a shit, Napalm sticks to kids. Blues out on a road recon, See some children with their mom, What the hell, let's drop the bomb, Napalm sticks to kids. Flying low across the trees, Pilots doing what they please, Dropping frags on refugees, Napalm sticks to kids. They're in good shape for the shape they're in, But, God I wonder how they can win, With Napalm running down their skin, Napalm sticks to kids. CIA with guns for hire, Montagnards around a fire, Napalm makes the fire higher, Naplm sticks to kids. Drop some napalm on the barn, It won't do too much harm, Just burn off a leg or arm, Napalm sticks to kids.

20 Vietnamese children flee from their homes in Trang Bang June 8th, A South Vietnamese air force plane has accidentally dropped a napalm bomb on the village 26 miles outside of Saigon. This is without a doubt one of the most remembered images of the war. Twenty-five years later, the young girl running naked from her village, Phan Thi Kim Phuc, was named a UNESCO goodwill ambassador.

21 Viet Cong Air Defense Tunnels To counter the immense technological advantage held by U.S. forces, the Viet Cong developed an extensive network of underground tunnel complexes. From these tunnels, the enemy could effectively ambush American forces and then safely vanish underfoot. The tunnels became so highly developed that they eventually contained armories, hospitals, mess halls, manufacturing centers, and storage facilities. Some complexes ranged up to 40 miles long; the Cu Chi tunnel complex contained 130 miles of passageways. Variety of tunnel types: squad-size tunnels (less than 6 deep and 100 long); company-size tunnels (wider but not extensively compartmented); and battalionsize tunnels (could run 50 underground and sometimes contain up to four different levels.)

22 Tunnel detection was difficult; airshafts were camouflaged and entryways disguised by filled wells dropping 50 feet. Extensive boobytrapping made it nearly impossible for American troops to remove the enemy from their safe-havens that allowed them to withstand intense aerial bombardment even by crater-making B-52 bombs.

23 "Caucasians," one general told the press, "cannot really imagine what ant labor can do."

24 Impact of the Air War Major roads were destroyed, but supplies moved instead through the jungles, carried by human caravans at night, or through networks of tunnels. The bombings, conducted from the air on distant targets, had an element of coldness to them. Many American soldiers never saw the enemy as human, because of the technological and cultural gap between the two nations. Asked if bombings killed civilians, one sergeant laughed and replied "What does it matter? They're all Vietnamese. General William Westmoreland claimed that: "Human life is cheap to the Asian. They don't feel the same way about death that we do.

25 Who Is the Enemy?

26 Who Is the Enemy? The war was tough on American GIs: Ordinary people living in South Vietnam were often supporters of Viet Cong. So the war was fought not against a clearly defined enemy, but against an amorphous, shifting enemy that was literally everywhere. American bombings, and the slash and burn approach to ground operations US forces often took, made ordinary Vietnamese in the countryside hostile to Americans--acts of sabotage were common, as were hidden bombs, sniper attacks, and booby traps. It became difficult for Americans to tell North and South Vietnamese people apart, and after a while they stopped caring.

27 The War on the Ground

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35 Who Is the Enemy? The Army wanted proof of enemy casualties, high "kill ratios, to present to Washington. Philip Caputo recalled: "If it's dead and its Vietnamese, it's Viet Cong, was the rule of thumb" in compiling casualty statistics.

36 American Morale Begins to Dip

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39 Are We Becoming the Enemy?

40 My Lai Massacre (March 1968)

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43 The My Lai massacre became public in 1969, but officials at the time said My Lai was an "isolated incident. After that, GIs described dozens of other My Lai-style atrocities in which they said they had taken part. Those GIs were called liars and traitors, and no one was ever publically punished for any of the events they described.

44 In the words of one GI: I have learned a lot about the human capacity to adapt to evil, to accept it, to routinize it, to call it by pretty names. To forget what is inconvenient and to lie about the rest. I am not being cynical, but realistic--two seconds' worth of examination of widespread public attitudes towards "our" government and "democracy" will show anyone who's not in total denial, that the things I am pointing to are simply business as usual. The War taught me about business and the price of doing business; the photograph of My Lai is a good illustration of what routinely is not shown to us: the cost of doing business.

45 Winter Soldiers Investigation, 1971 Attempt by a group of soldiers organized under the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) to let the American public know about the brutality & viciousness of the war in Vietnam. Group of 150 soldiers got together [in Detroit] and gave testimony about so-called war crimes in South Vietnam in which soldiers reported on either things they were directly involved in or had heard about. Senator John Kerry testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April The Winter Soldiers were subsequently called to testify before Congress. The Army launched an investigation of the Winter Soldiers claims. Their investigation remained secret until a PhD. student stumbled across the 9000 page document in 2006.

46 The Truth About War-time Atrocities My Lai was NOT an isolated incident. Military investigators documented 7 large-scale massacres from in which at least 137 civilians were killed. There were also 78 other attacks on civilian noncombatants in which US troops killed at least 57, wounded 56 and sexually assaulted 15. There were at least 141 incidents of torture of civilians, including the use of electric shock. Atrocities were committed by "every army division that operated in Vietnam." There was a pattern of "recurrent attacks on ordinary Vietnamese--families in their homes, farmers in rice paddies, teenagers out fishing," who were "murdered, raped and tortured with impunity" by American soldiers. In one instance, an elite unit of American soldiers in the 101 st Airborne Division mutilated and killed hundreds of unarmed villagers over seven months in Soldiers said they sought revenge in the villages after unit members were killed and injured during sniper and grenade attacks. Soldiers dropped grenades into bunkers where villagers -- including women and children -- hid, and shot farmers without warning, the newspaper reported. Soldiers said they severed ears from the dead and strung them on shoelaces to wear around their necks. "There was a period when just about everyone had a necklace of ears," former platoon medic Larry Cottingham told investigators.

47 In Feb. 1968, one company of American soldiers was told to kill anything that moves when they set out on a sweep of the rice paddies on Vietnam's central coast. They shot & killed 19 unarmed civilians, women & children. When one of the solders got home, he held a news conference describing the slaughter. The army investigated his report & concluded it was accurate but did nothing to punish the guilty. One sergeant reported in a 1970 letter about a pattern of American soldiers murdering civilians in the Mekong Delta in "I am trying to tell you about murders, or a My Lay [sic] each month for over a year," he wrote. His complaint was not investigated further. The evidence against 203 soldiers was strong enough for the military to bring formal charges of war crimes. 57 were court-martialed, 23 convicted (only 10%), 14 were sentenced to prison for terms ranging from six months to 20 years (most appealed and won significant reductions.) The longest sentence, 20 years, went to an interrogator convicted of "committing indecent acts on a 13 year old girl in an interrogation hut." He served 6 mo. Army investigators came to no finding about 500 other reports of atrocities, some of which described extensive killing.