Tet Offensive & Protests​
Tet offensiveJanuary 1968, on their Buddhist holiday, the Viet Cong launched a surprise attack on all of the American Positions. This showed that the Viet Cong and Hanoi were vital and nowhere near surrender. The Americans couldn't keep up with their warfare tactics. This also changed how people and soldiers saw the war. This was the turning point where we were losing Vietnam and the public knew. They had guerrilla warfare and we just couldn’t hit the target like they could.
|
protestsThe hippie movement really kicked in at this point. They were protesting Vietnam and they were promoting love not war. There were protest posters that were made as movie posters that were meant to be very sarcastic. At Columbia University there were students that protested against the college’s connection to the war and the racist actions of the college in destroying a park in Harlem and making a new building. There were a lot of anti-war protesters that were being attacked by the police. There were 9 people that burnt draft records and the american people loved them for that. |
bombingsThere was a bombing campaign called "Rolling Thunder". This was the longest US bombing campaign which ran from 1965-1968. These campaigns achieved little strategic result because missions were designed to demoralize and not destroy. Later on the US started to drop a lot of bombs in Vietnam all over. Though the enemy often had enough time to recover and infiltrate the south again so it didn't do as much damage.
|