You Will Be Graded on the Following Items

US History B Essay Writing

Essay - Vietnam War

Prompt- To what extent should the United States have been involved in the Vietnam War?

You will be graded on the following items

Thesis Statement- did you answer the question fully by making a clear statement that could be proven by the evidence. (5 points)

Evidence- did you use the evidence provided in the correct way. (5 points)

Analysis- Did you analyze the evidence in a way that supports your thesis statement. (5 points)

Format- Does your essay include an introduction, body, and conclusion paragraph and is relatively grammar free. (5 points)

Total points for essay- 20 points Evidence 1 Evidence 2

"You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours, but even at those odds, you will lose and I will win."

~ Ho Chi Minh to the French, late 1940's

Evidence 3

"We seem bent upon saving the Vietnamese from Ho Chi Minh, even if we have to kill them and demolish their country to do it....I do not intend to remain silent in the face of what I regard as a policy of madness which, sooner or later, will envelop my son and American youth by the millions for years to come."

~ George McGovern, speech to U.S. Senate, April 25, 1967 Evidence 4

“No commander-in-chief could meet face to face with these soldiers without asking himself: What is it they are doing there? . . . They are there to keep aggression from succeeding. They are there to stop one nation from taking over another nation by force. They are there to help people who do not want to have an ideology pushed down their throats and imposed upon them. They are there because somewhere, and at some place, the free nations of the world must say again to the militant disciples of Asian communism: This far and no further. The time is now, and the place is Vietnam.”

~ President Lyndon B. Johnson, in a broadcast to American people, 1966

Evidence 5

“I think in both Vietnam and Korea we committed military forces without an intention to win, and indeed with a feeling that we could achieve some of our objectives simply by having some men there who would participate in limited kinds of activity, but in the case of Korea told not to win, and in the case of Vietnam clearly without the intention of applying the degree of force necessary to win. That’s a very terrible thing to do to military people – to ask them to go into extreme danger, but in effect to have a decision made that it’s not important enough for us to win.”

~Casper Weinberger, Secretary of Defense in Reagan Administration Evidence 6