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Austin Boevers
Mr.Franzman
History M, W, F 8:00
3 December, 2014
Final Exam Part A
Vietnam
In the Vietnam War more than three million people died. Almost fifty eight
thousands of them were Americans. Vietnam was possibly one of the bloodiest
wars in history. The war lasted twenty years which is a ridiculously long time.
Vietnam is considered the longest war in us history. All wars are expensive but
Vietnam was an unbelievably expensive war. It is also considered to be the most
expensive war in that time era. United States spent an estimated one hundred forty
billion dollars on this war.
Therefore Vietnam was no pansy war. There was many reasons why America
pulled out of Vietnam, the biggest being the losses. The other important thing is to
remember that North Vietnam was very close to the China border where Americans
were touchy about. Americans did not want to go anywhere the Chinese, being the
war was not with them. Chinese army also being extremely larger than ours also.

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How does America win a war without actually going into the country? That is what
happened America danced around china which ultimately kept US from defeating
Vietnam. Without actually going into all of Vietnam and conquering every part, US
could not beat Vietnam.
In the Vietnam war Americans used carpet bombs. Which is massive bombs
that destroy everything in their path. These bombs scared the hell out of the
Vietnamese the problem being we didnt get to see this. Vietnamese had
underground shelters that they stayed in where we bombed. We may not have
killed them but we really put fear in them. We were really ready for the Vietnam
War, as our government fed us propaganda to promote the war in a positive view.
The propaganda was to make us have a hatred for the Vietnamese. But saying that
it was only North Vietnam that was evil.
There is a poster during the war saying US was the backbone of South
Vietnam. We support South Vietnam, only because we controlled it. We didnt
control North Vietnam because of China being right there. If we bombed, china
might attack. Nixon actually opened up relations with China which is another
reason we didnt invade North Vietnam. Nixon was afraid of losing relations. What
about Truman he was a loudmouth as the book portraits him. Did Vietnam see him
as the attacker? His loud statements may have provoked the war. Which is where
the book stands about this.

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Although the book scatters everything which causes some confusion, the
book shows how we portrayed the war. Government treated this war as a game
with a box score tallying up deaths. That was what classified who was winning in
their eyes. They were all excited saying we were winning! The deal is, Vietnam
was no powerful country. Like the United States was going to lose to Vietnam! We
dwarfed them so to speak. Vietnam had no chance in winning, we only had to get
involved.
We lost a ton of trust in the Vietnam war we abandoned south Vietnamese to
fight on their own. We left them to be slaughtered. When the north attacked south
Vietnam south had only 4 bullets. America turned its back on south Vietnam. This
gave many other countries the idea that we would do the same to them also.

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Austin Boevers
Mr.Franzman
History M, W, F 8:00
4 December, 2014
Final Exam Part B
Coercive Air Power in the Vietnam War
Coercion means efforts to change the behavior of a state by
manipulating cost and benefits. This means more to force the
enemy out without option. This article says we want to force them
out by bombing and no remorse. Coercive movements are
directed beyond the enemy lines more too where it hurts more.
We could take out multiple important members to society with
this strategy. This way of war is considered coercive.
The enemy is not as morally correct as we are they dont
care. Enemy attacks the most vital first. So why should we do
anything different? Coercive strategy states we should take out
rear first in the battle where this leaves no strongholds. If the tank
is in the rear, where it normally is, it will be destroyed first. This

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strategy maximizes chances of winning. What is strong left when
the main forces are taken out early on in battle? This also
dramatically drops soldiers moral also. The soldiers then will not
fight as whole-heartedly.