The Vietnam War
By Stephanie Collins
Where in the world is Vietnam? Before the 1960s, most people in the United States could not answer that question.
Originally, Vietnam had been controlled by the Chinese. By the 1880s, however, France took over Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The new name for this territory became known as French Indochina. Many of the Vietnamese people longed to be independent and wished to no longer be ruled by foreign nations.
During World War II, Japan attacked Vietnam. Japan wanted to take Vietnam from the French. The Vietnamese people fought against the Japanese and even received aid from the United States.
Once the War had ended, many Vietnamese thought they would be granted independence. The Vietnamese had succesfully fought the Japanese and helped to bring an end to World War II. Sadly, France did not want to give up its hold on Vietnam. Many of the Vietnamese people were enraged and the stage was set for another war.
Ho Chi Minh became a leader in Vietnam and its fight against the French for independence. Ho Chi Minh was a communist, which alerted the United States. Already China and the Soviet Union had fallen to communism, the US did not want any other countries to fall.
After World War II, the French were ill prepared for another war and public opinion was against it. After being brutally beaten in Vietnam at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, the French decided to withdraw from Vietnam. The United States stepped in.
When the French withdrew from Vietnam an agreement was created. Vietnam would be split at the 17th parallel. North Vietnam would be under the power of Ho Chi Minh and South Vietnam would receive aid from the United States.
North Vietnam quickly became communist and the US helped to place a democratic leader in charge of South Vietnam.
Another part of the agreement was that an election would be held for all Vietnamese citizens, to unite the country under one government.
To be the leader of South Vietnam, the US picked Ngo Dinh Diem. Diem was more like an American than a Vietnamese. He hated communism but was also hated by the Vietnamese people. Many South Vietnamese protested Diem and his policies. Diem was quickly losing support by both the US and South Vietnam.
Diem passed laws that angered the Vietnamese people, specifically he made practicing Buddhism illegal. Many of the people in Vietnam are Buddhists and they were outraged by this new law. As a form of protest, Buddhist monks began to burn themselves in the streets. This caught the attention of the world and led to the downfall of Diem. He was later assasinated on November 2, 1963. Many believe that John F Kennedy allowed the assassination and find it ironinc that he was also assassinated 20 days later.
The United States was afraid that North Vietnam would try to take over all of Vietnam and become a communist country. The US had created a theory called the Domino Theory. The idea was that if one country falls to communism, the others around it will too.
By 1964, the US was no longer only sending money and supplies to the South Vietnamese, combat troops were being sent. Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution which allowed newly President Lyndon Johnson to do whatever is necessary to fight the spread of communism. The United States was now involved in another war.
The US expected to win the war quickly but this war was different than the other wars. Vietnam was not fought on the front lines war. The US used search-and-destroy missions- search for hidden enemy camps, then destroy them.
Other missions led by the US were:
Operation Rolling Thunder- air strikes on war industries in North Vietnam and also used to disrupt the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which was a supply route used by the North Vietnamese to bring supplies to the Vietcong is South Vietnam
Used chemicals- agent orange- to kill the dense forests on the trail
The North Vietnamese and Vietcong (South Vietnamese that wanted the North to win) used guerrilla tactics and set deadly traps and mines. North Vietname also received helped from Soviet Union and China.
Average age of an American soldier fighting in Vietnam was 18-21. More than 2 million American soldiers served in the War. 1/4 of the soldiers were drafted, many from minority groups and poor families.
By the end of the War, 58,000 Americans were killed and more than 300,000 wounded. Returning soldiers were not welcomed back as heroes even though the War was not their choice and they had been drafted. Many of the young men suffered and still suffer from PTSD.
By the election of 1968, President Johnson has lost support. The US is not winning the war in Vietnam, soldiers are dying, and the public is protesting. Johnson decides not to run again for President.
Richard Nixon wins the 1968 election and promises to bring home the troops. Nixon's withdrawal plan is called Vietnamization. This plan was to pull US troops from Vietnam and have the South Vietnamese army take over all the fighting.
During this time, Nixon also secretly approved bombing raids of Cambodia and Laos. When Americans found out of this secret plan, they were furious.
At Kent State in Ohio, students were protesting the bombings. The National Guard was sent it to end the protet. Someone had thrown a rock at the soliders and they then opened fire into the crowd, 4 students were killed. After Kent State, more antiwar feelings started to grow.
On January 27, 1973 the US signed a cease-fire called the Paris Peace Accords. The US agrees to withdraw all troops from Vietnam and to end the conflict. By 1975 North Vietnamese invade South Vietnam, killing many and uniting all of Vietnam as communist
The War officially ended when North Vietnamese forces capture Saigon in April 1975. Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City.
Even after the War ended, life remained difficult in Vietnam. Millions of people had died and much of the land was destroyed.
Not only had Vietnam fallen to communism but communist dictators took over Laos and Cambodia in 1975.
In the United States, Americans began to lose trust in the US government and the president. A new law was passed, the War Powers Act, in 1973. This new act stated that the president needed approval from Congress in order to send troops to another country.
By 1982 the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was opened in Washington, DC.
