The Korean War was fought for about three years in the early 1950's and is sometimes referred to as the Forgotten War. It is often viewed as a struggle of Communism vs. Democracy. This war was fought in the shadow of the Cold War and the fear of the spread of Communism was a major factor for the U.S. joining in. Vietnam was also a struggle over the spread of Communism in which the North Vietnamese communist forces attempted to take over the entire country and the U.S. and South Vietnamese tried to stop them. With the Fall of Saigon in 1975, a southern stronghold, the North Vietnamese took over the country and formed the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Here are your prompts:
Why did we fight these wars and did we win?
Please connect any wars in your lifetime to either Korea or Vietnam? How are they related?
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30 comments:
We fought in these police actions to stop a form of government that we as a nation saw as a huge threat to our global power base. But what we as a nation didn't realize is that true communism can't be maintained because leaders are human and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
As for did we win the above mentioned police actions, that depends on what your definition of "winning" is.
As for the relivence to our modern history, the War in Iraq is another example of a percieved threat to our global power base. The difference is, it was our government that put Sadahm Hussein in power in the first place. Sort of a lesser of two evils so to speak and just like Castro it came back to bite us in the butt.
The underlying reason that the Korean War broke out was because it was just another episode in the ongoing Cold War between the USA and the USSR. On the surface, the Korean War seemed to be a war between South Korea and North Korea, but really the superpowers were just using it as a front to combat each other without actually going into a ‘hot war’ which – as both had the atomic bomb – would have been MAD (mutually assured destruction).
In the end no-one won, it never really ended. It was something that could have been stopped and should have been. Having no-one won it was a needless un-sucssesful war.
- Samanatha Campanella
The reason we fought these wars was the stop communism from spreading around the world and no, we didn’t win the wars.
The war that comes to mind is the Operation Iraqi freedom, and the way they have a relation is there isn’t any way to win. When you cant tell is the enemy and who is friendly until they start firing at you
We fight these wars so we can stop communism from spreading around the world, cbroerick was right, and we didnt win any of the wars.
This isnt in my life time but it was in my grandpas he was in the Vietnam War and The Korea war twice in his life time.
-Jessica Russell
@cbroderick @jessica If we didnt win the wars, who did? How do you determine how a war is won?
We fought because we got scared that the communist party could possible equal or go beyond the power of the U.S.
And i don't think anyone could ever win a war, because both sides have their downsides. I mean your losing solders, people, buildings.
We fought in the Korean war to stop the spread of communism.I do believe that on our side we did win because we weren't over taken by communists, and that was our main goal.
Now I have to bring up that by the end of the war over 50% of the US population opposed the war.
Well I have to say about 50% of the population now oppose the war in Iraq.
To be honest about vietnam, i dont think we won by any stretch. We were in on their turf at the wrong place and at the wrong time. I wouldn't say that they won either, because casualties were massive on both sides, but we didn't win. Then again, a whole generation of people and culture spawned out of these wars.
My Uncle Ben is a decorated war veteran, holding two purple hearts, and a miriade of others. He did 4 tours throughout the war, spanning just over 3 years.
We fought these wars to make allays. We didn’t win them; we help win them for other countries.
Japanese, who had occupied Korea since the early 1900's, was driven out of Korea. Soviet forces occupied the Northern half of Korea and the United States occupied the southern half. After WWII the U.S. pulled the majority of its troops out of Korea. The Soviet Union saw this as a sign that they could back North Korea in an invasion of South Korea and the U.S. would not fight back. On June 25, 1950 the North Koreans invaded deep into South Korea. On June 27, President Truman sent in American soldiers stationed in Japan along with an American fleet. This is like the war on Iraq, we send our people in, we take them out, but in the end, nothing gets accomplished.
I think that we won both the Korean and Vietnam wars. Our goal in going into both wars was to prevent the spread of a threat which was comunism and we accomplished that.
Those wars are similar to the war in Iraq in that we are trying to prevent the spread of a threat, this time it's terrorism.
The Korean War was essentially a civil war fought between two rival regimes in Korea. The U.S. got in involved, but called it a police action in order to avoid Congress approval of a war. The war ended with a stalemate, so techincally nobody won
The Vietnam war was fought between the U.S. and North Vietnam. In was fought very basically because the U.S. wished to contain communism, which they believed to be a huge threat(it wasn't, ever). The war was concluded by the defeat of the U.S. and the failure to implement their foriegn policy into Vietnam. The fatalities are about 3.4 million, with 2 million being civilians. Ridiculous.
Speaking of ridiculous wars, hey, there's the Iraq War over there! Not only was the invasion of Iraq illegal according to the UN Charter, there were insuffiecient plans, and a negative effect in our "War on Terror".
The reason the Korean War broke out was another bust form the ongoing cold war. No one was ever claimed to have won but if you go by how many kills, then the United States of America would have won this war, flat out.
I feel that the main reason that the korean war broke out was to stop communism from spreading around the entire world. At this time it was an extremely difficult situation and subject. At the end no body won, this never ended.
My great grandfather faught in this war and i will nerver forget his stories of his adventures and memeories of this war, during this war he received a purple heart and a couple other things, after his passing we have his aawards and acknowledgements in a shadow box in our house.
We fought these wars in fear of the spread of Communism and what they could lead to afterwards. We feared that once these nations were under the Communist flag, that our country might be next in a joint country war. We did not win these wars though; in the Forgotten War, the battle pretty much ended in a stalemate, but in Vietnam, the Communist party won and took complete control of Korea. This resulted in a double loss for us, since South Korea was taken over by North Korea and we buried ourselves in debt and lost hundreds of thousands of lives.
Well, the only really noticable war in my lifetime would be Desert Storm or the War in Iraq. The War in Iraq is causing/caused our country a large debt, and didn't really accomplish much, since there are still extremists in that country that are very hostile towards our nation.
@Ryan - Excellent comments that show a true understanding of BOTH the wars as well as how our current wars our impacting the country.
I believe we fought in these wars because. When North and South Korea were separated the northern part wanted to have the southern part of Korea back. In the video it seemed like the Northern side was dominating the south side. Despite this I really don’t think we won any wars. I think that this all occurred when Korea was divided into separated states. Also I believe that our troops were battling so they could help stop the spread of Communism. While trying to stop China from falling into this war. However, in the Vietnam War. A lot of people opposed this war and demanded it stop. People were beat up for opposing to the war. Despite all of this when Richard Nixon became president. People demanded they withdraw troops it took a while but he finally caved in and signed a document. Which stated that there would finally be peace. However, because it took so long thousands of troops died and others were severely wounded. It also caused a massive dept which would affect people in the years ahead.
A war in my life time would have to the war in Iraq. This war is related to the Vietnam War because. After the war a massive dept emerged which affected all the people in the years ahead. Which is what happened here as well. There are a lot of troops in Iraq and more keep getting deployed there. But much is not happening. They are spending so much money there. It’s affecting our already bad economy. We aren’t really accomplishing anything. Yet we keep sending out more and more troops who end up wounded or killed. I think all the money that is going there. Should be sent here to help out with our huge dept. I think that when George Bush was president. He should have with drawled some of the troops. But instead tripled our dept and kept on going with the war.
1. We fought wars to show that we were a powerful country, and weren't afraid of any other countries. However, not all wars we've won, but have won most.
2. 9/11 and Vietnam wars were different considering the Vietnam war was started by another country, and we got involved to help them. However, with 9/11, terrorist flew a plane into our buildings, and killed thousands of innocent people who were just working.
We fought in those wars to stop the spread of communism from reaching far around the globe. There was no true victory, as North and South Korea still have an uneasy peace, and South Vietnam became communist after the army left.
A war that occured in my lifetime was the Iraq War, also known as the "War on Terror." It is still going on, but an incredible debt has appeared because of it. This is similar to the Vetnam War because it had this after effect as well, only the current one is much more menacing.
The Korean and Vietnam wars were fought to stop communism. If the war had not taken place at all, people then and today would probably not be to fond over the United States or even other countries. There were other problems involved in these wars similar to World War 1 and World War 2. No one ended up winning the war persay. But problems were resolved. But communism against the same places and others still exist. But over a course of time since the early 50's when this took place people have grown out of the hate they may have.
I would relate the Iraq war to the Korean and Vietnam wars. Because the war we are fighting in the Middle East has to do with communism. Terrorist attacks have been made on this country and only just years ago since the last major one. It is very hard to say when this war may come to a end as well. Because we are not there fighting a war that absolutely needs to be fought but we have plenty reasons to be there.
Fighting the Korean and Vietnam War was to stop the spread of Communism. Sucessfully, it did not spread to America. In the long run, the war was kind of pointless, because America did not win, and lost thousands of drafted young soldiers.
Now in todays world, America is in another War, this time with the middle-east. It is very simialr to the Korean/Vietnam Wars, because it is a pointless war and so far, thousands of young soilders have died already. But instead of Communism, its Terrisots.
@Jessie- Good job making a very clear connection between the two wars. Some may disagree with your viewpoint so it impressive that you shared it with the class.
We fought to stop the spread of communism in North korea and vietnam after three years the war in korea came to a hault by a cease fire. South korea today is governed by a non communist party. So basically we one the Korean war. In 1972 vietnam had a cease fire ,but tragically three years later Sagion fell to the north vietnam and the country today is ruled by comunists. We failed to keep south vietnam from a communists country.
The Iraq war is a big war in my life. We are doing our best to keep our country from being over taken by a dictator such as Sudan husane. The war is fought more efficiently than it was 30 years ago.
dalena blose
The reason we fought the Korean war was to stop communism from spreading around the world. We didn't win these wars though. Many life's were lost for no reason.
The only war would be the war in Iraq. Many life's have been lost and and also a lot of money and not much has changed.
We fought these wars because we feared if the opposing side won their government and power might have equaled ours. And that they would become great countries and try to start even more wars to become an even bigger country. No one really won these wars because most say they are still happening today.
I think the war on terrorism in Iraq kind of connects to this war. Because we fear that the terrorist powers are too great. And that they will attempt global domination.
@matthew - very interesting themes of global dominance running through your comment. Good catch.
Matthew Q. is absolutely correct. We did fight these wars because the US did fear that Koreans and Vietnam's government is greater then ours and if they win the war then there government might be equal or greater then our government.
The war in Iraq is like the War that happened in Korea and Vietnam. The war in Iraq is going on because of 911. We are fighting the war in Iraq because we don't want 911 happening again and if the war in Iraq contains any longer we will lose alot more soldiers then we need to.
well the reason we fought in the korean war was to help pot korea and help the non-commy side. so what happned north korea talked to their ally china and convinced them that the us was going to invade so china gave them a poo load of soliders and tanks, and fought us. then the us had a world meeting and got support. things started to get out of hand when china joined th fight, and to prevent it from becoming a WWIII they kinda stop, sort of. then later korea and us just kinda stoped fighting, SO the us and korea made a truse and kinda split korea in half. but even with the truse the fighting didnt stop for another two moe years.
Well when i hear people talk about the korea war or vitenam they always say that we should have never been their. SO technally we did not loose, but at heart i think we felt like we lost.
a war that is simmular it the first irac war, see we should have never been their to begin with, but because our alies were in trouble we hepled them out.
- Carlos Cardenas
The reason the US joined the Vietnam War was a general attempt to prevent Communism. We lost. The reason we joined the Korean War was the decision to intervene in Korea grew out of the tense atmosphere that characterized Cold War politics. They were trying to stop communism. Nobody won the Korean War actually. An Armistice was signed on July 27, 1953 saying that all fighting would stop.
The war on terrorism (its communism) is the only war I can think of it started on September 11, 2001. They are related because they are all about communism. The wars are us fighting for freedom. We don’t want the communists to take over so we fight to stop them.
caseyh
The korean war was fought after North korea invaded South korea in june of 1950. The U.S intervened on behalf of South korea. The U.S entered the Vietnam war to prevent communist North Vietnam from taking over South Vietnam. We did not "win" these wars because in korea we basically just pulled out. There was no exact finsh. Also North Korea is still under communist rule and a threat to the world. The vietnam war was somewhat the same conclusion. Except for the government actually said that the U.S military could not have anything to do with the war. IF you look at both war and the on terror the U.S entered all these wars for the same reason. To rescue a country from another country or a group of people.
Dominique R.
During this time period it was sad. There were so many things going on,so many wars. The Korean war and Vietnam war were wars we should have never really been involved with. I understand we fought to keep a form of goverment(communist)that at the time we saw as a threat from growing. However, something we failed to realize was the communist goverment can not be fully controlled.The leaders are humans and they want control and power so it corrupts them. As far as winning well we did not. North Korean and South Korea are still sperated to this day and ever since the was North Korea is not out allies and who knows if they ever will be. THey are not even part of the U.N. (United Nations). The Vietnam war we also did not win. The Vietnam war was considered one of our most worst, gruesome, more men killed war. We lost so much. Definetly a war we should have never ever been involved in. A war that is some what similar to these two wars is the war in Iraq. I think once we took down Iraq,found the "nuclear bomb" tht former presiden Bush said they had, captured Sadam Husan we should have left! I believe in some way Bush made up things to stay there so he could go and get the oil that they have. here. At the time and still today the oil is low for our contry so i think Bush went over there to oil and did not care about the men that were over there.
Jayde S.
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