rise of the counterculture in the United States. This, in turn, led to a reactionary movement that felt that traditional American values were under threat. Richard Nixon was able to capitalize on this in 1968 by appealing to those who sought a return to normalcy.

Throughout the war, divisions increased over trust in the government. President Johnson (and later Nixon) often tried to downplay American failures in Vietnam. This became more difficult as the media showed images of caskets returning home and issued daily reports of US casualties. This made it harder for many Americans to have confidence that the government was being candid with them. Some Americans continued to support the war as a necessary sacrifice to combat the spread of communism. Meanwhile, other Americans came to view the war as a quagmire resulting in the needless loss of life.

The Vietnam War was unpopular in the United States. Those against it cited a lack of clear objectives, suggesting the war was unwarranted. Although American soldiers who went to war believed they were fighting for the freedom and independence of South Vietnam, the drawn-out conflict stirred dissatisfaction back home. The war required extensive resources both in military equipment and money. The war had serious ramifications for the United States economy; as it drained the country's coffers, the general public began to disapprove of continued support. Divisions emerged between those who believed it was unpatriotic to abandon the war effort and those who could not bear further discomfort and losses for what seemed a pointless conflict. Arguments by civil leaders coupled with student protests sparked outrage.

The Vietnam War did a tremendous amount to create and heighten social (and political) tensions in the US.  It created and emphasized a gap between people who believed in traditional values and those who did not.  This gap translated into politics, becoming a partisan issue between Republicans and Democrats.

Traditionally, American patriotism was taken to mean that people should support what the country did militarily, no matter what.  The military was seen as an extension of the country, not as something to be argued over and criticized on partisan terms.  This belief was not held by the anti-war protestors and other liberals during the Vietnam Era.  They felt that the war was wrong and they criticized the government and (less justifiably, at least in my mind) the military that carried out the government's orders.

This helped to create and exacerbate a gap between traditionalists and liberals.  It helped to create a sense that the traditionalists (to the liberals) were blind followers, not much better than Germans who went along with the Nazis.  On the other side, it helped to create a sense that liberals were people who hated the country that had given them so much in the way of material wealth and rights.  This was a huge split and it continues to some extent to this day.

As the previous educators have mentioned, the Vietnam War sharply polarized Americans. There were especially sharp differences between young people—those in their teens and twenties—and their parents regarding opinions about government, authority, and patriotism.

In hindsight, the Vietnam War is generally regarded as a mistake, but during the 1960s, the war was popular. Those who opposed the war, such as hippies, were loathed by mainstream society as Communist sympathizers. This resentment was so strong that when four college students were killed by the National Guard at Kent State University in 1970, fifty-six percent of Americans believed that the killings were justified.

I would disagree with the educator who argues that American society was relatively "homogeneous" before the war. American society has always been diverse and has always harbored people with divergent views and lifestyles. The difference is that, until the mid-1960s, white, middle-class Protestants were (and, in some ways, still are) the standard-bearers for American normalcy. That changed after the war, which also made our social inequities more visible. Most of the soldiers who were drafted were culled from the white working-class and minority groups, particularly Blacks and Latinos.

The counterculture was also more vocal and visible than they had been previously. Moreover, that counterculture was on the right side of history on many issues (e.g., civil rights, free speech, opposition to the war in Vietnam, and women's rights), while mainstream America was still beholden to outdated views, such as American opposition to Communism and an idealized view of American government.

The main impact of the Vietnam War was to help drive American society apart.  American society had been relatively homogeneous and united in the 1950s and early 1960s.  The war helped to break this homogeneity and bring on the "culture wars" that we now have.

The Vietnam War helped to split American attitudes towards things like patriotism and authority.  The traditionalists wanted to keep hold of ideas like respect for authority and support for US foreign policy.  People who were radicalized by the war, on the other hand, started to feel that patriotism and authority in general was corrupt and should be resisted.

The Vietnam War helped to force this change in American attitudes, creating a split that had not previously existed.

The Vietnam War was one of many controversial events during a period of general social upheaval in the United States. The baby boom was a period of great prosperity. More students were attending college and people moved up into the middle classes. The rising middle class and baby boom generation rethought many social values in this time period.

Perhaps the most important movement of this period was the civil rights movement, which saw many groups rise up against various forms of discrimination. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 marked a major step forward in combating racism and discrimination and giving equal rights to ethnic minorities. There was a major backlash against this piece of legislation from racists uncomfortable with equality and desegregation. At the same time, people began rethinking issues of gender. Women and LBGTQ people also pushed for equal rights.

The Vietnam war was a flashpoint for social tensions, pitting liberals of all stripes against older, more conservative values. Many people felt the war was a waste of American lives and money. During the 1950s the fight against communism almost seemed a continuation of the great patriotic effort of World War II. By the 1960s, though, many people felt that the United States should not be wasting soldiers's lives to interfere in the domestic political choices of foreign countries.

Many of the young protesters of this generation were involved in multiple issues, linking together the Vietnam war and racial oppression in the United States. They protested what seemed to be an entire military-industrial complex and political system that was oppressive and unfair.

There were sharp increases in the political and social tensions of the United States during the Vietnam War. Many Americans were unclear as to why the United States was fighting the North Vietnamese. This was also the first war shown on people's televisions; the graphic nature of war turned many people against the conflict. Some people questioned the practice of college graduates receiving draft deferments while those not in college were drafted. Other war protesters pointed to the profits made by companies with war contracts such as Dow Chemical.

Another aspect of political tension was the narrative of the war itself. General Westmoreland and Secretary of State McNamara claimed that the war was being won relatively easily, and then the North Vietnamese launched the Tet Offensive (1968). Though they lost, this was a major propaganda coup, as it demonstrated to the American people that North Vietnam was capable of fierce fighting. There was also Nixon's pledge to leave Vietnam's defense to the South Vietnamese; Nixon also clandestinely invaded Laos and Cambodia in order to disrupt Viet Cong supply lines. All of this led to a distrust of the American government that persists to this day.

There were also racial tensions during this war. African Americans were disproportionately listed on casualty lists despite being a minority in the United States. African Americans were also less likely to go to college, and due to the policy of drafting those not enrolled in college first, many African Americans were the first men called for dangerous service in Vietnam. Many African American leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Muhammad Ali spoke out against the war. The war was also going on during the height of the civil rights movement. Vietnam was one of the most divisive wars in American history, and to this day the history of the war remains controversial.

Social and political tensions increased during the Vietnam War. Many people were opposed to the war and were against the drafting of soldiers. Many students began to protest about our involvement in the war and the drafting of young people to serve in Vietnam. Some people felt the draft discriminated against minorities and against poor people. These groups were less likely to be in college, and therefore, they couldn’t postpone serving in the military. Other people just believed our involvement in the war was wrong, and they organized many protests to show their displeasure.

Political tensions also increased during the Vietnam War. As the war dragged on, many people believed we would not emerge victorious in this conflict. They believed the government was not being honest with them regarding how the war was really going. What the government was saying and what people were seeing on television were two very different stories. People also were convinced that we would need to dramatically increase our military commitment in order to be successful in Vietnam, and there was no political support for that to occur. Distrust of the government increased during the Vietnam War.

Other social consequences we might consider is the appalling treatment of those men and women returning from the war. Massive numbers of these veterans were treated as social pariahs once it was learned that they had served. These men and women also struggled with the issues of mental, emotional, and physical illnesses. Many of these veterans were additionally socially ostracized as a result of these issues. Veterans also struggled to receive medical and psychological treatment they deserved.

One of the most vivid images I remember from the Vietnam War was the nightly images that appeared on the national news. It was the first time that the media had the ability to actually broadcast the war live right into our living rooms. I feel that the medias twist on some of the stories and those images had a lot to do with the growing distrust of the government.

The Vietnam War and the turbulence that surrounded it had a number of social consequences for America.  Two of the most important ones include:

• It decreased people's trust in authority figures.  The Vietnam War helped to turn Americans against their government.  They felt that the government had lied to them about how the war was going.  Others felt that the government was too quick to send Americans off to die for no good reason.  In both cases, the war helped to make Americans more suspicious of their government (and then Watergate happened and that didn't help).
• It helped lead to the split we now have between traditionalists and progressives in the United States.  Because of the upheavals of the '60s, there came to be a split in the US between people who held relatively liberal ideas and those who were more conservative.  The war helped to deepen these differences as the conservatives saw the liberals as weak-kneed and unpatriotic and the liberals came to see the conservatives as blindly patriotic militarists and conformists.   This helped to set up some of the animosity that now surrounds the "culture wars" that are so important in our political and social debates today.

The Vietnam War was a very unpopular foreign venture that dramatically changed the political and social landscape of the United States. Some basic political changes that resulted as a result of the war was the introduction of an all-volunteer military and the lowering of the voting age to 18. The government abolished the draft for the practical reason that it would be easier to commit troops to foreign lands if they had volunteered for service versus making citizens serve. The draft was never really popular in the history of the United States, and this disdain reached new heights during the war in Indochina. Lowering the draft age from 21 to 18 was done through a Constitutional amendment (26th) because many believed if 20-year-olds could die for their country, they should have some say in who its leaders would be.

The war also brought a great distrust of the government and its leaders. This is especially true of the Democratic Party that escalated the war. The party lost the White House in 1968 and would only hold the presidency for four years in the next quarter of a century. This war undermined promising social programs instituted by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and dramatically hurt the U.S. economy. It can also be stated that the Vietnam War slowed the momentum of the Civil Rights and Women's Rights movements.

The Vietnam War also brought a wave of counter-culture activity amongst the youth. Hippies, as they were called, resisted government, political, and parental influences and sometimes lived in communes together. Many turned to illicit drug usage. College campuses were disrupted by organized protests and sit-ins and started to lean even further to the left politically. Also, the War brought over 125,000 new immigrants to the United States in the form of Vietnamese political refugees. Finally, the war was the first "televised" conflict in the history of the United States, if not the entire world. The public was updated with video images from the front line, on an almost nightly basis. In this way, many people were disillusioned about warfare and could better understand its brutal consequences.

The Vietnam War had a devastating effect on the people of Vietnam.  It has been estimated that during the war more than 4 million Vietnamese were killed or wounded.  The United States dropped more bombs on the Vietnamese countryside than they dropped in all of World War II, about 14 million tons of explosives. The herbicide agent orange was used extensively to defoliate the Vietnamese countryside.  The health effects of this herbicide have been shown to be quite devastating.  The bombing and the spraying of agent orange destroyed much of the crops grown in Vietnam, creating hunger and starvation in rural areas.  The war also created a terrible refugee problem.