f I would have waited for the killer to reach the front door or if I would meet him at the gate? He then continued:
             I decided I needed to meet the killer at the gate, before he got close enough to harm my family. That is why I volunteered to fight in Vietnam, to help stop the spread of communism before it reached home (America).
             The main focus of going to war against the North Vietnamese, it seems, was to halt the spread of communism. The United States wanted to free the South Vietnamese from communism.(Fall, 1963) The U.S. government along with other countries felt they should help the South Vietnamese because they were not capable of helping themselves.(Manning & Janeway, 1969)
             John F. Kennedy, in his inaugural speech, spoke of making the United States a world leader again by asking the American people to live up to the idea's of their country and making the United States a leader again in order to meet the challenges of the world head on. Near the end of his address he emphasized his goal with this quote; "My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you - but rather what together we can do for the freedom of man." President Kennedy's speech inspired the nation.(www.vietpres.org 2002) Many Americans felt as Kennedy did. In 1961 the people felt that the United States should not wait too long to get involved. John Foster Dulles said, "these risks are far less than those that will face us a few years from now if we dare not be resolute." This is what prompted many men in the 1960's to volunteer for the war, they felt as if they were contributing to the freedom of mankind.(Harrison, 1982)
             A short time later America found itself in the middle of the Vietnam War, one America so gallantly supported but soon would hate. When the United States entered the war it soon found how terrible the conditions were in Vietnam. Our government saw the extremely weak South Vietnamese ...