Impact of WWII & Vietnam War in U.S

A common exercise among academic historians and laymen alike is the act of seeing in how many ways the events of World War II and the Vietnam War were similar. For the purposes of this answer which is to discuss the long term impacts of these two Wars on American society, we will argue that both wars had historical imperatives, at least within the entire myth structure of America.

World War II, for example, is often heralded as an example of allied nations banding together to fight enemies of freedom -- at that time, the nations of Japan and Germany. The Vietnamese War was a bit more tricky. The "enemy" here, instead of being a nation state, was an ideology, specifically that of Communism. America had already endured many years of the "Cold War" following the end of World War II and we had learned through the media that the threat of Communism was greater than any we as a nation had ever faced.

The problem was that it was much harder to identify "Communists" since they had no specific uniforms, or badges of honor. With such a vaguely-defined evil enemy, it was hard to rally many of the American people to develop great concern over the Vietnam conflict, which was, to many eyes, nothing more than a civil war between North and South (Fleming, 2001).

Both of these wars, however, had the political impact of forcing the United States government to get involved in incidents without our borders, and here is where one of the primary differences occurs. The citizenry of the Un

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crime and delinquency, removal of obstacles to the right to vote. Both of these Presidents -- as well as the New Deal legislation and the Great Society legislation -- are considered strongly liberal, and liberalism, as Robert Reich often posits, is not a popular position at times. As he observes, liberalism no "longer tells a story that is particularly compelling for people, at least in contrast with the conservative tale that manages to make sense out of a great deal of our troubling collective experience" (Reich, 1992, 44). The list of social problems that Reich talks about is long, and includes the racial riots of the 1960s, the anti-war fervor of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the hyper-inflation and international humiliations of the late 1970s, to the drug epidemic and crime wave of the 1980s; "from the growth of welfare rolls, the breakdown of the traditional family, to the stagnation of working and middle class incomes" (Reich, 1992, 47). References: Reich, R.B. (1992). The Work of Nations: Preparing Ourselves for 21st Century Capitalism. New York: Vintage Books Rozell, M.J.; Pederson, W.D. (1997). FDR and the Modern Presidency: Leadership and Legacy. New York: Praeger Wicker, T. (1991). JFK and LBJ: The Influence

Category: History - I