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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 ôenemyö here, instead of being a nation state, was an ideology, specifically that of Communism. America had already endured many years of the ôCold Warö 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 ôCommunistsö 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 United States seemed galvanized by the event of Pearl Harbor, which marked the initiation of American involvement.

The entire country was united behind the war effort, or so we were led to believe. Vietnam, on the other hand, had no real emotional causes to fight for, and it seemed to be a war without end. Also, thanks to the developments of communications technology, this was the first war that could be watched on television, and that let the Ame...

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Impact of WWII & Vietnam War in U.S. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 04:46, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1709838.html