The average age for a U.S. soldier in the war was 19, and thus the majority of these kids were fresh out of highs school and often immediately drafted into Vietnam. The youngest of the men were just on the midst of overcoming a time period of their life's often considered as their childhood, where as some might dismiss it as a simple time presuming these kids didn't have much understanding of the real world. with that aside, these kids were about to experience a world realer than these people could imagine or fully understand.
The fear of being drafted was very real. Mothers cried and the men drafted were left in very crucially intense situations. The majority of those drafted were not supportive of this war essentially, especially due to the fact they now had to give up any plans they had to go fight in a war they knew nothing about. There was an immense pressure at the time from society for these children to play their parts and go out there to "fight for America" and many young men found themselves in personal disputes regarding their moral judgments on the matter. These kids had to put any questions and feelings and shame and relevance to a normal american society behind them and support their countries demands whether they liked it or not.
Arguably the biggest ethical problem of them all for these soldiers, was that they could not come to define why and what they were fighting for. The communist dilemmas in Vietnam often seemed like a load of irrelevant bullshit to these soldiers and U.S. military involvement in it just seemed to be a product of unreasonable government conundrums. The war had already been committed to by Johnson, and these soldiers were sent off to Vietnam and now ordered to kill people they didn't know anything about, and that they really had nothing against.
The realities of such violence played a jurassic toll on the soldiers. The actuality of fighting in a land amongst invisible enemies in the dense jungles under thick rain and around hidden mines and viscous booby traps eventually left over 153,000 wounded by the end of the war and over 211,000 dead. Not only was there an ethical concern regarding why and who the enemy was, but a vital factor to the struggle of this war was the it was actually almost impossible to define just who the enemy was under American circumstances. The Northern forces in the South naturally knew the land much better than U.S troops and would camouflage amongst the life surrounding and often attack effectively. Secret communist soldiers could have been any other person in the villages, and even woman and children were to not be trusted. The psychological results of such forced conscientiousness and relative paranoia affected many of these soldiers, some more intensely than others.
It is almost impossible to understand the extreme physical and mental circumstances these soldiers endured during their experiences in this war. Ones mind was prone to play tricks on him as emotional and sympathetic human relevance came to participate in a kind of tug of war (no pun intended) to the harsh situations and violence surrounding. It was hard to endure it all with a strong mind state, and U.S. soldiers would often behave in unstable or sometimes unethical ways as sorts of defense mechanisms to attempt to maybe better adapt to the extreme realities of such a war. Out of desperate measures, soldiers would often shoot themselves in the foot in order to be evacuated from battle grounds. Extreme events such as the My Lai massacre took place, and people quickly changed, leaving traces of the personalities they once were for their families to hold on to back at home.
Drugs were a huge factor among the socio-personal culture of American troops in the war who often fell under emotional distress often, and would use these drugs as comforters or distractors to numb the fear or the pain. A problem with this is that the soldiers were using drugs which would quickly lead them down a long and brutal road of addiction. The soldiers who did come home were not the same people who left home.
On their arrivals back to the states, those who survived were not treated with the overwhelming presumable honor and respect one might expect. These soldiers were degraded by a lot of society and were often spit on and called horrible things like baby killers. Even with all the burden they experienced in Vietnam, at home the war still stuck to these people, and veterans often found themselves struggling to fit back in to where they came from. Things had changed with time and circumstance, and what they experienced forever defined their beings and relevance to home as veterans found themselves in a vast struggle to relate to society again and to the normal life they left behind.
The true essences of the perspective into the realties of this violent era were held by the young American men out there in this foreign land who fought for a distant cause. It is hard for us to try to comprehend this battle under American circumstances from a second hand perspective, but the soldiers who took place in it witnessed a lot more inside of themselves and outside of themselves than we could probably understand about any old confusing war.
The fear of being drafted was very real. Mothers cried and the men drafted were left in very crucially intense situations. The majority of those drafted were not supportive of this war essentially, especially due to the fact they now had to give up any plans they had to go fight in a war they knew nothing about. There was an immense pressure at the time from society for these children to play their parts and go out there to "fight for America" and many young men found themselves in personal disputes regarding their moral judgments on the matter. These kids had to put any questions and feelings and shame and relevance to a normal american society behind them and support their countries demands whether they liked it or not.
Arguably the biggest ethical problem of them all for these soldiers, was that they could not come to define why and what they were fighting for. The communist dilemmas in Vietnam often seemed like a load of irrelevant bullshit to these soldiers and U.S. military involvement in it just seemed to be a product of unreasonable government conundrums. The war had already been committed to by Johnson, and these soldiers were sent off to Vietnam and now ordered to kill people they didn't know anything about, and that they really had nothing against.
The realities of such violence played a jurassic toll on the soldiers. The actuality of fighting in a land amongst invisible enemies in the dense jungles under thick rain and around hidden mines and viscous booby traps eventually left over 153,000 wounded by the end of the war and over 211,000 dead. Not only was there an ethical concern regarding why and who the enemy was, but a vital factor to the struggle of this war was the it was actually almost impossible to define just who the enemy was under American circumstances. The Northern forces in the South naturally knew the land much better than U.S troops and would camouflage amongst the life surrounding and often attack effectively. Secret communist soldiers could have been any other person in the villages, and even woman and children were to not be trusted. The psychological results of such forced conscientiousness and relative paranoia affected many of these soldiers, some more intensely than others.
It is almost impossible to understand the extreme physical and mental circumstances these soldiers endured during their experiences in this war. Ones mind was prone to play tricks on him as emotional and sympathetic human relevance came to participate in a kind of tug of war (no pun intended) to the harsh situations and violence surrounding. It was hard to endure it all with a strong mind state, and U.S. soldiers would often behave in unstable or sometimes unethical ways as sorts of defense mechanisms to attempt to maybe better adapt to the extreme realities of such a war. Out of desperate measures, soldiers would often shoot themselves in the foot in order to be evacuated from battle grounds. Extreme events such as the My Lai massacre took place, and people quickly changed, leaving traces of the personalities they once were for their families to hold on to back at home.
Drugs were a huge factor among the socio-personal culture of American troops in the war who often fell under emotional distress often, and would use these drugs as comforters or distractors to numb the fear or the pain. A problem with this is that the soldiers were using drugs which would quickly lead them down a long and brutal road of addiction. The soldiers who did come home were not the same people who left home.
On their arrivals back to the states, those who survived were not treated with the overwhelming presumable honor and respect one might expect. These soldiers were degraded by a lot of society and were often spit on and called horrible things like baby killers. Even with all the burden they experienced in Vietnam, at home the war still stuck to these people, and veterans often found themselves struggling to fit back in to where they came from. Things had changed with time and circumstance, and what they experienced forever defined their beings and relevance to home as veterans found themselves in a vast struggle to relate to society again and to the normal life they left behind.
The true essences of the perspective into the realties of this violent era were held by the young American men out there in this foreign land who fought for a distant cause. It is hard for us to try to comprehend this battle under American circumstances from a second hand perspective, but the soldiers who took place in it witnessed a lot more inside of themselves and outside of themselves than we could probably understand about any old confusing war.