What Was The Original Purpose Of The Vietnam War?

The Vietnam war started because the US feared what was called the 'domino effect'.  This was a scenario where the influence of the USSR would inexorably spread across south east Asia and the regimes of the countries would be 'toppled' like dominoes one by one being replaced by communist regimes friendly to Russia.  You must remember that this was at the height of the cold war and the threat of global nuclear conflict was a real one, tensions were very high.  Vietnam had been partitioned into North and South Vietnam after the colonial power, the French, were forced to leave.  As far as the communist north were concerned they merely wished to re-unite their country into one state.  The situation was similar to that pertaining on the Korean peninsula today.

Probably the same purpose as any war, to wipe out the enemy, in this case the Viet Cong. Most wars are justified in terms of a failure by the enemy to perform to a set of guidelines determined by a powerful world power, in this case, America.

The Vietnam war which stretched out indefinitely, resulted in enormous casualty on both sides, and, which did not end with the war, but is still being felt today.

A whole generation of young American men, were lost to America, felt left out  and betrayed, became victims in terms of what it means to fight, and die for your country, and some of whom, became anti American.
America failed to learn a valuable lesson from this, which it is still paying the price for today, that, you cannot fight an enemy in his own land, he will win, cut to the Middle East 2007.