The Vietnam War was set in a very bad time for the United States. Its citizens were under the control of the Red Scare, a generalized fear of communism and possible communist spies. Combining this with the essential loss of the Vietnam proxy war with the Soviet Union, the United States came to a harsh realization that not all its battles would be victories. To be clear, the United States never actively engaged the USSR in Vietnam; it combated the communist ideals nurtured in Vietnam by the Soviets.
