Why was the Vietnam war viewed differently from previous wars the United states had fought?

Answer 1

As President Johnsson escalated the war effort, and became a hawk himself, his chief critics became known as “doves” and included antiwar protesters, college students and faculty, liberal Democrats, and many other people in various walks of life who felt that the war was immoral, dragging on to no benefit for the US, and was causing increased casualty lists to mount. Many believed the US was fighting a war against the wishes of the majority of the Vietnamese people. These critics felt the war was a civil war in Vietnam between north and south and we had no business interfering. Some supported the communist effort in Vietnam and hoped for a defeat of the “imperialist capitalist” United States. Many Americans felt we were fighting a small, unimportant county, while the real enemy was China and the Soviet Union. The Vietnam War was not a popular war at home. Troops were rotated in and out of the fighting, rather than "in for the duration." That meant that new recruits to Vietnam would have to "learn" how to fight in the jungles of Vietnam every two/three years. It was the first "televised" war. People saw the death toll of American soldiers climb every night on the national news. Because of civilian deaths in South Vietnam, and the difficulty soldiers had in telling a Viet Cong or North Vietnam Regular from the South Vietnam, many innocent civilians, including children, were killed by mistake. Many Americans thought all US soldiers were "baby killers." Americans did not come home in groups. They usually returned to the US a few at a time. There were no parades or news coverage honoring the soldiers returning home.