Vietnam WarNoora AL.k & shamma Al.Q

The Vietnam war was kind of tricky because there was no clear enemy. people couldn’t tell who the bad guy was because they were all Vietnamese unlike in WWII.

Soldiers found themselves rounding up and killing villagers, farmers, people who were no threat to anyone. The elusive guerillas

faded into the jungle. US Soldiers were captured and tortured.

The difference between WWII and the Vietnam war.

WWII Vietnam war

Occurred in 1941. Occurred in 1961.

There was a clear enemy. there was no clear enemy.

Grasslands, woods.. The battle was mostly in the jungles, rice paddies, and mountains of Vietnam.

Superpowers. Vietnam was a battle between a third world country and a super power.

Found support by many people in the country.

Vietnam was opposed by many back in the states.

Was about taking territories. Not about taking territories.

The war was easier. The war was harder.

Comparison of the cold war & the Vietnam war.

• The United States and other democratic nations protected South Korea from the communists, while it lost to them in South Vietnam.

• Much of this had to do with the way in which each of these wars were fought.

• In Korea, the U.S. was pushed back mainly by Chinese forces when the U.S. neared the Chinese border.

• General Douglas MacArthur wanted to expand the war into China. Each side fought most of their battles on open ground.

• This gave America the strategic advantage because of its superior air power and more technologically advanced weapons.

• Battles tended to be quick and fierce, resulting in pushing back to the original line of division and thus the Koreas ended back at the 38th parallel.

• Vietnam on the other hand, resorted to guerrilla warfare given its smaller fighting force and environment.

• The Vietnamese had previously built some underground tunnels in their resistance movements against the Japanese and then the French.

• Most of these tunnels were invincible from American air attacks and were sometimes built right under US military stations.

• For months, Americans could not figure out how enemy fire came right into their camp.

•the military realized the problem, they went into the network of tunnels, The difference in the fighting methods of each war gave rise to sharp differences in casualties.

•54,000 American soldiers died in Korea and the war ended within three years. In Vietnam, 58,000 soldiers perished over a course of ten years.

• The Korean War was characterized by short bursts of fighting whereas Vietnam tended to be long and drawn out. Because of the psychological impact of this, their was an enormous difference between how the veterans of both wars were received back in the USA.