This time is the fiftieth-year anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War after the Fall of Saigon. 50 years is a long time. This war has stirred up discussions, debates, and painful memories to this very day in 2025. The Vietnam War was one of the most emotional wars in human history, lasting for about thirty years from 1945 to 1975. Back centuries ago, the Vietnamese people desired complete, unadulterated independence against Chinese rule. During the end of World War I, Ho Chi Minh desperately wanted American support to endorse the independence of Vietnam (during the meeting at Versailles). America refused to do so because of racist and xenophobic reasons. While Ho Chi Minh has been vilified as an anti-American communist by numerous personages, Ho Chi Minh legitimately opposed the lynching of black people in America, and he visited Harlem, NYC, before, to condemn anti-black racism. Ho Chi Minh wasn't perfect, but he publicly disagreed with racism and oppression. He had a nationalistic motivation to see Vietnam as an independent nation and only became a Stalinist Communist after WWI by ca. 1920. During WWII, the Japanese imperialists dominated and oppressed Vietnam and other places in Asia and Oceania. The Japanese military committed war crimes including rape, economic theft, and blatant terror against people of Asia and Oceania for years. American forces and other Allied forces worked with the Vietnamese people to liberate Vietnam from Japanese imperial rule. Once again, Ho Chi Minh cited the American Declaration of Independence to urge America to support Vietnamese independence by the end of WWII. America refused to support Ho Chi Minh. Even when the French imperialists dominated Vietnam, America refused to oppose the French imperialists.
The Vietnamese people defeated the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, and the Geneva Accords came about to decide the fate of the Vietnam peninsula. Eisenhower knew that Ho Chi Minh had a great chance to win elections, so the USA government disregarded the elections in Vietnam. The 1954 Geneva Convention divided Vietnam into North and South. Eisenhower (not Kennedy) was the first U.S. President to send military advisors to Vietnam to fight North Vietnam. After that pressure, Ho Chi Minh later attacked South Vietnam after giving up on U.S. support. The Vietnam War existed in stages with complexity. President Kennedy expanded military advisors in Vietnam and promoted herbicides in Vietnam (which I don't agree with), but he had a plan to withdraw all U.S. military troops from Vietnam by 1965, as confirmed by Robert McNamara in the Fog of War documentary. Diem was the leader of South Vietnam for a time. Diem was supported by America, but his problem was that Diem suppressed dissent, persecuted the Buddhist population, and was a far-right extremist. He was assassinated by the end of 1963. Both sides committed war crimes with the Hanoi Hilton, where American soldiers were tortured with brutal evil by North Vietnamese military forces, and Operation Phoenix, when the U.S. government assassinated Vietnamese forces, including civilians, in cold blood.
Napalm was used in Vietnam, harming Vietnamese men, women, and children. The usage of napalm was vehemently opposed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (he saw Vietnamese people being victims of napalm running for their lives in the Ramparts Magazine). Many U.S. soldiers had Agent Orange after going home from Vietnam. Protests were in the streets in America (led by doctors like Dr. Spock, the SDS, the Black Panthers, other political leaders, clergy people, etc.) in trying to end the Vietnam War. Political polarization grew. All this would have been solved by a negotiated settlement that LBJ refused to do so. After the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, LBJ expanded the military presence in the Vietnam War. There were as many as 536,000 American troops in Vietnam by 1968. Nixon supported a peace plan under certain conditions. Dr. King opposed the Vietnam War because he wanted U.S. troops to go home, he felt the war took money and resources that could be used to fight poverty in America, he viewed it as an unjust, imperialistic war, and Dr. King wanted a solution where there is peace and improvement in the Vietnamese peninsula (where non-Communists and Communists are represented in a possible coalition government with reparations to rebuild Vietnam). Muhammad Ali opposed the Vietnam War courageously as he viewed it as an unjust war. The Vietnam War was an unjust war as Vietnam was no direct threat to America, imperialism played a role in the war (we know imperialism is immoral as no nation has the right to forcibly extract the resources from another nation unjustly for economic exploitation purposes), it was a war that stripped resources that could have been used to rebuild America's urban and rural centers, the involvement of America into Vietnam War was based on a lie, and alternatives could have been made to end the war fairly plus peacefully among all sides. The USA government (and some in the mainstream media), in many cases, called Dr. King falsely a traitor and other names (even the so-called liberal New York Times plus TIME magazine condemned Dr. King's stance, including moderate members of the NAACP). Many in the NAACP would later oppose the Vietnam War when Nixon was President, but Dr. King never backed down in his commitment to peace. The Tet Offensive, the destruction of the city of Hue, the anti-war protests, the 1968 Presidential election, the illegal bombing of Cambodia, the Kent State Massacre, and other events are all connected to the Vietnam War. Nixon promoted Vietnamization (i.e. the U.S. soldiers trained South Vietnamese military forces to defend South Vietnam after American troops completely left Vietnam), but North Vietnamese forces were too strong after American troops left Vietnam. Many U.S. troops coming home from Vietnam suffered and continued to suffer homelessness, being spat upon (which was wrong), and mental health anguish. The Vietnam War was the first modern war when the world public saw the reality of war on live television. War is not for the faint of heart. It's real. Today, ironically, the nation of Vietnam is a large trading partner with America. Both Americans and Vietnamese people created documentaries, reconciliation tours, and other programs to deal with the multifaceted nature of the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War Memorial honors the passing away of American soldiers who passed away from the war. It is found in Washington, D.C. and was constructed by expert Asian American architect and artist Maya Lin (along with David Osler). The memorial was dedicated on November 13, 1982, as part of the five-day ceremony that started on November 10, 1982, called the "National Salute to Vietnam Veterans." Therefore, we have to remember these events to realize the past, make a better present, and fruitfully see an even greater future.
By Timothy
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