![]() In fact, by the end of the war there were an estimated 21 million bomb craters in South Vietnam. It also created huge craters in the rice paddies and hillsides. It destroyed many of the dams and canals that the peasants had installed to irrigate their farmland. The bombing did terrible damage to the land. But most of the bombing was concentrated in South Vietnam, particularly the northern provincesĪnd the area around the capital city of Saigon. military bombed the South Vietnamese countryside using airplanes and heavy artillery for many years.Īcross all of Indochina (the region of Southeast Asia that includes Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos), the United States used an average of 142 pounds of explosives per acre of land. To eliminate these sources of support for the enemy, the U.S. They also realized that the rice paddies and rural villages were good sources of food and supplies for the Viet Cong. troops arrived in 1965, they learned that the jungles provided ideal hiding places for the Communist guerilla fighters known as the Viet Cong (guerrillas are small groups of fighters who launch surprise attacks). The surrounding hillsides were covered with jungles of trees and plants. Farmers tended rice paddies (wet fields where rice is grown) in fertile river valleys. bombing destroys farms and forestsīefore the Vietnam War, the South Vietnamese countryside was lush and green. "The United States, motivated by the loftiest intentions, did indeed rip South Vietnam's social fabric to shreds," Stanley Karnow comments in Vietnam: A History. The poverty and desperation of the war years-along with the influence of Americans-resulted in major changes to Vietnamese families, culture, and society. Many of these people fled to the cities, where they made a living any way they could-including through illegal activities. The widespread destruction of the farms and villages in the South Vietnamese countryside turned huge numbers of military also sprayed millions of gallons of defoliants (chemical agents that killed or burned crops, forests, and other vegetation) on the South Vietnamese land during the war. forces had used during World War II (1939–45)-all on an area about the size of California. This meant that American planes dropped more than twice as many bombs as U.S. military used more than 14 million tons of explosives during the Vietnam War, mostly on the South Vietnamese countryside. Much of the death and destruction resulted from bombing. An estimated 4 million Vietnamese were killed or wounded on both sides of the conflict, including as many as 1.3 million civilians (people not involved in the military, including women and children) in South Vietnam. ![]() But since most of the fighting took place in Vietnam, the Vietnamese land and people paid a much heavier price for the war. ![]() Without a doubt, the war took a terrible toll on the United States. The War's Effect on the Vietnamese Land and PeopleĪbout 58,000 American soldiers were killed during the Vietnam War, and another 304,000 were wounded.
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