Effect on People
The war ended with a victory for North Vietnam, uniting North and South Vietnam as a communist state at the cost of 3-4 million Vietnamese lives, 58,000 Americans and many other lives including the death of 37 New Zealanders. America lost their first war, because they didn’t understand what the Vietnamese was fighting for. They were blinded by the fear of communism, only thinking that Ho Chi Minh and his army wanted to fight for commune ideology, where they were actually fighting for Vietnam's freedom from French colonization. Due to this misunderstanding and the Us government dishonestly changed the American’s relationship with the government. The government has now lost the trust they had with their people.
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U.S. accouncing the end of the war
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Childrens who suffers from the effect of Agent Orange
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The use of chemical defoliate affected soldiers that interacted with agent orange and many Vietnamese generations. About 2.6 million american veterans were exposed to agent orange and countless civilians. Veterans who were exposed to agent orange were disabled or have health issues. Fortunately U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs provide health care for veterans who was exposed to agent orange. However Vietnamese had it worse, many at the time were burnt and left scarred or disabled, many of their children's and future generations are now suffering. An article published in 2013, shown the effects agent orange on Vietnamese children today. The children's in the regions suffers from deformation, where some of their body parts are smaller than normal or disabled. Some suffers blindness, deafness, or lack the ability to speak. Vietnam red cross estimated 150,000 children suffers from born deflects due to Americans use of chemical defoliants.
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Soldiers suffering from PTSD
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Statue of Ho Chi Minh
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Today countries that took part in this war, built memorials to remember the fallen. In america there’s a 8000m long memorial in Washington, DC with the service members that lost their lives in Vietnam carved on it. While in Vietnam they named a city after ‘Ho Chi Minh’ in place of Saigon when in fall to his army and built states of him to remember what he has done for their country.
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Effect on Nz
New Zealand National War Memorial
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Auckland War Memorial Museum
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The war sparked a lot of controversy in New Zealand. When New Zealand soldiers came home, there homecoming parade wasn’t very welcoming. There were a group of protesters that held a banner saying “New Zealand Troops Murder” and threw red paint to indicate the blood of the Vietnamese. This had a huge impact on the soldiers making them feel guilty of what they thought was serving the country. Majority of the soldiers that returned suffered from PTSD due to what they saw and experience during their time in Vietnam. It was not until 2008 when the New Zealand government made an official apology to the veterans for treating them poorly when they returned home from the war. Many lives have been affected too, 35 lives were lost, families, friends, and communities lost a loved one. 187 veteran wounded, and many others exposed to agent orange was affected the same way as the U.S. soldiers. However this war has some benefits New Zealand was strengthen their bond with their old ally, Australia, and created a new one with America. Now New Zealand have memorials that remember service members who lost theirs lives in Vietnam, such as Auckland War memorial museum, and National War Memorial.