Progression Of Vietnam

In 1950 the United States sent advisors to aid French control in Vietnam. Over the next decade and a half, the United States would send an entire Army and Navy to aid the French in maintaining control in South Vietnam, which had separated from the Communist North Vietnam in 1954. In August of 1964 a small Vietcong patrol boat crossed paths with a United States ship in the Gulf of Tonkin. The boats fired at each other after this President Johnson agreed to allow "aggressive retaliation." On February 6, 1965, the United States started bombing North Vietnamese cities, which is the start of the Vietnam War. The media played a big role in the war. Journalists would be with soldiers on missions and relay the stories to America. Every night the news reported the progress in Vietnam and death tolls for the day. Exaggerated enemy casualty numbers were reported. It gave the public a false view of things in the war.

January 1966 asked for 600,000 troops to escalate US involvement in Vietnam. Johnson felt confidant in the ability of an advanced US military to defeat a much untrained army of North Vietnam. He ignored many advisors who claimed the war could not be won.

On January 30, 1968 a Vietcong uprising known as the Tet Offensive took place. Tet is the Vietnamese New Year and is usually a cease-fire. Because of that most major city defensives had fewer soldiers. More than one hundred South Vietnamese cities were attacked by the Vietcong. At first the Tet Offensive appeared to be a failure for North Vietnam. A large amount of Vietcong troops were killed. Most of the overtaken cities, including Saigon, had been regained. But for the United States the timing of the Tet Offensive was bad. For the past three years the Americans at home had been promised a swift defeat of the "nearly destroyed" Communists. Worst of all it was an election year for Richard Nixon. He promised a quick plan of "Vietmenization" in which the war was supposed to be placed in the hands of the South Vietnamese and allow for the retreat of American soldiers. Johnson was so unconfident he didn't run for reelection. He believed the US had a responsibility to stand up to the spread of communism.

Apparently many young Americans did not share his convictions. From 1966-1973 503,000 Americans desert from the armed forces. 1968 may be the most defining year of the war. Massacres are reported both in Vietnam and America, Johnson does not run for a second term, and Nixon is elected promising an "Honorable withdrawal from Vietnam." Americans had clearly had enough of the war.

In 1972 the last United States foot soldiers were removed from Vietnam, and in 1975 the North Vietnamese over took Saigon, renaming it Ho Chi Mien City after their military leader. The United States Embassy was surrendered; it was the end of the war. As the soldiers returned home they had to adapt from a war in