The Effects Vietnam Had On Native Americans

Introduction

When a reader hears the title, "The Red Convertible", he/she thinks; summer, road trips, and driving fast on the open roads. However, this is the story about a man that is mentally damaged by the events of the war, and also how it effects his whole family. Henry was a happy, loving, and sane man before being drafted, but when he came back he was a completely different person. The war affected Henry in a way that many of our soldiers were effected and it went a lot deeper then medicine can go. The red in "The Red Convertible" is directly related to the blood, violence, and despair that caused Henry to take his own life.

Commencement of the War

In 1961 the worst war ever fought by America had just started. The Vietnamese of the north also known as the Viet Cong had invaded the south to take control of the entire country. America and other democratic countries felt the spread of communism to this country would be a stepping-stone for other communistic countries around the world, also known as the Domino Effect. America, as cocky as they were, invaded Vietnam to help the southern Vietnamese. Although America is one of the most powerful countries in the world, it extremely underestimated the dedication of their enemy. Backed by China and the USSR, the Viet Cong were a determined and very tough enemy. The Vietnam War as a whole was a terrible act by the US government. Vietnam was going through their own civil war and we should not have participated in it. Just as America shouldn't have tried to help Iraq when they were having social problems. The American army that was sent to Vietnam in the sixties was composed of five hundred thousand infantry including one of those soldiers being my father who was drafted into the war. The Vietnam War had a negative impact on the soldiers due to the mental, social, and physical problems they had encountered during and after the war.

Social Affects

Social Anxiety is the fear of social situations and the interaction with other people that can automatically bring on feelings of self-consciousness, judgment of one self in public, and inferiority to others. The problems with coming home and the self-hate that the soldiers had developed were significant to the contraction of social anxiety and or social phobia (Orsillo 242). Veterans had many complications trying to adjust back to their original lifestyles. Many Veterans who tested with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) showed signs of social phobia, which is a fear to be in public (Orsillo 242). This act of war made many problems for the soldiers whether it was developing PTSD, social anxiety, being killed, or experiencing marital problems when they arrived home from serving their tours of duty. Studies have shown that “participating in a combat situation like the Vietnam War has led to marital dissolution of 60%” (Ruger 89), which is very high. An example of this would be ...