Trouble in America during the Vietnam War. The war in Vietnam lasted from 1956 to 1975, during these years many unconventional methods of warfare were used, such as "Agent Orange", guerrilla warfare and even events such as when the “My Lai massacre” occurred. The Vietnam War was a proxy war in which the United States fought the USSR-backed North Vietnamese. We did not win the Vietnam War due to the lack of clear objectives and the inability to fight the North Vietnamese soldiers who during the day Were regular civilians but at night used guerrilla attacks against American soldiers. During the Vietnam War our troops and bombs caused extensive damage to the territory of North and South Vietnam, but the greatest damage occurred at home. During the United States' involvement in Vietnam there were many negative effects on our lives, including sharp increases in political, social, and economic tension. The Vietnam War heightened social, political, and economic tensions by causing inflation and a growing U.S. budget deficit. As for social tensions, this caused people to protest against a war for the first time and distrust the government due to lies. And as for political tensions, the first lottery in history stressed many politicians due to the outraged population. There have been many social issues in America's history, but Vietnam caused a lot of controversy. During the Vietnam War the major social question was whether or not we should get involved due to the large amount of American loss of life. When President Johnson began his presidency there were only 16,000 American troops in Vietnam, but by 1968 there were 536,000 troops overseas and at the end of... middle of paper... speech on the Vietnam War, stating that we cannot be defeated by the North Vietnamese army, but only by our own audience, which determines the popularity of our battles. (Document G) These are the reasons why social, economic and political issues were emphasized during the Vietnam War, some of them emphasize racial inequality, budget deficits, the fight against the unbeatable Vietcong and many others. Once Vietnam ended, the budget deficit was set at $53.2 billion; whereas just 6 years earlier we had a surplus of $3.2 billion, demonstrating that the need to constantly build weapons further put the United States in debt, demonstrating how economic tensions were dramatically increased by involvement in Vietnam. The evidence used in this essay shows how all of these tensions increased directly in relation to the Vietnam War.