I was in my late teens when the Vietnam War started making headline news. I remember well when the anti-war protests started in 1963, and with each passing year they became more numerous and more unruly, and were extensively covered in the newspapers and on the TV news.
There were so many things happening in the sixties, it was a very turbulent decade in many ways. The war coincided with the 'hippie' generation
Civil Rights Demonstrations,
And the sixties was the beginning of widespread drug use by America's young people.
John F. Kennedy was elected president in 1960, and shortly after taking office he sent 400 military advisors (Green Berets) to South Vietnam to train the South Vietnamese army in guerilla warfare, so as to be better able to defend themselves and their country against the invading armies of the North.
Over the course of the next three years Kennedy continued to send more 'military advisers' to Vietnam, the number of advisers under President Kennedy ultimately peaked at slightly over 16,000.
At the time most Americans supported Kennedy's decision to send advisers, but even at that early stage there were those who voiced opposition to our involvement there, predicting it would ultimately lead to a long term, full scale United States military involvement, sad to say their predictions came true.
President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas Texas, and Lyndon Baines Johnson became President. Most American are not aware that President Kennedy, by 1963, had come to realize the futility of the war , and had made plans to begin withdrawing troops from Vietnam, the first 1,000 he planned to have back in the States by Christmas, and his intention was to have all U.S. troops withdrawn by 1965. If you want to read more about these little known facts click on the links below.
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On August 2, 1964, an American destroyer, the USS Maddox, was fired upon by three North Vietnam torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. The Maddox managed to dodge the torpedoes and the only damage to the ship was a single bullet hole from a machine-gun round, there were no casualties.
American Destroyer THE TURNER JOY
Johnson sent in a squadron of Carrier based fighter bombers to bomb the North Vietnam torpedo base, destroying 25 of their boats. He also ordering the bombing of the oil storage depot at Vinh, therefore making it impossible for the North Vietames to launch a retalitory attack..
President Johnson signs Gulf Of Tonkin Resolution
Shortly thereafter, at the request of President Johnson, Congress passed the Gulf Of Tonkin resolution, giving Johnson authority to use all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States. . .to prevent further aggression. . . (and) assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asian Collective Defense Treaty (SEATO) requesting assistance...
Vietcong attack on U.S. military barracks at Pleiku
In the early hours of February 7th, 1965, the Vietcong launched a guerilla assault against a military barracks at Pleiku where US military advisors were housed, the attack left 8 Americans dead and several helicopters destroyed.
President Johnson reacted quickly and ordered a retaliatory air strike against the North Vietnamese the next day. Operation "Rolling Thunder" began in mid-February, it was expected to last only a short time, but wound up lasting for three years
On March 8, 1965, two combat ready US Marine battalions arrived on the beach at DaNang in full battle gear. . . they were the first ground combat troops to enter the Vietnam war.They were met not by enemy fire, but by curious onlookers. . . One soldier said, "The war was nowhere in sight."
The heart wrenching photo above was taken in June , 1972, after an Army of the Republic of Vietnam dropped Napalm on a Vietnam village. While U. S troops also used Napalm they made every effort to use it on suspected enemy targets, and not on the civilian population. Napalm was used for the first time in Vietnam in 1965, it was used on South Vietnam villages to rout out enemy insurgents , but unfortunately it also killed many innocent civilians, and forced them to flee their villages to escape the deadly chemical. Napalm was a syrupy kind of jellied gasoline, it burned through everything, at more than 5,000 degrees, and it stuck to people and then burned some more, sometimes down to the bone. Pictures, such as the one above, were flashed on TV screens across America and the scenes so horrified people it caused them to turn against the war more than ever
On March 16, 1965, Alice Herz, an 82-year-old survivor of Nazi terror, set herself on fire in Detroit shortly after President Johnson announced major troop increases and the bombing of North Vietnam. On May 20, 1965, Hanoi restates the peace proposal it had proposed earlier, again it was rejected. On Nov. 2, 1965, Quaker Norman Morrison set himself on fire and died outside Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's Pentagon office, McNamara witnessed the scene.
On November 14, 1965, the first major battle of the war took place. At the time the NLF forces were not only in nominal control of most of the countryside, but had set up a major military infrastructure in the la Drang Valley in the Central Highlands northeast of Saigon. During the year they fortified the area and turned it into what the US referred to as the Iron Triangle. During 1965 large groups of North Vietnamese regulars of the PAVN (people's army of Vietnam) moved into the area in order to conduct major offensive operations. Attacks to the southwest from these bases threatened to cut South Vietnam in two.
On November 14,1965, some 450 men of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, under the command of Lt. Col. Hal Moore, were dropped by helicopter into a small clearing in the Ia Drang Valley. They were immediately surrounded by 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers. The battle raged on fiercely for three days, there were 234 Americans killed and 242 wounded. While it was an American victory in a mathematical sense, with a nearly 4-to-1 casualty ratio in their favor, Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore considers the battle to have been a draw since the US Army left the field after the battle, allowing the North Vietnamese army to re-assert control over the area that it had held prior to the battle.
By years end,1965, it had begun to appear obvious to Washington that this was a war that would not be easily won. The regular North Vietnam Army and the Viet Cong were proving to be very formidable enemies and had vowed to fight for as long as it took to win the war and reunite Vietnam into one country again under communist control. For the first time in history the war was being brought into the living rooms of America in all its ugliness. Day after day the American people watched the war unfold, all the terrible carnage that enevitably goes with war weighed heavily on their hearts and minds.
Support for the war among the American people began to erode, most noticeably among young college age people. Protest demonstrations began to take place in cities all over America and on many college campuses as thousands gathered to protest America's involvement in Vietnam, and calling for the withdrawal of American troops. As 1965 drew to an end there were 184,300 American troops in Vietnam and it is estimated that over 90,000 South Vietnamese troops had deserted that year. Our soldiers and marines were fighting a kind of war they were ill prepared to fight-- jungle warfare.
There were no "front lines" as in previous wars, danger lurked everywhere. Attacks came with no warning: a deadly ambush could come at any moment.
By 1966 millions of Americans had turned against the war and anti-war demonstrations were held all across the country and were receiving extensive coverage by the major television networks. No longer did they consist mostly of hippies and college students, there were many middle aged men and women joining in the protests.
Helicopters played a vital role in the Vietnam War for many reasons. They were used to evacuate the dead and wounded from the battlefields, and to insert troops in the midst of enemy forces in areas that were inaccessible any other way, They also carried weapons and supplies to troops in the field, and supported the ground forces with rockets and machine-gun fire from the air. They were also used for spraying chemical defoliants, including Agent Orange, to clear out dense jungle areas that provided excellent hiding places for the North Vietnamese, making it easy for them to make surprise ambush attacks on American and South Vietnamese troops.
Nguyen Van Thieu
There was a series of civilian and military coups after the assassination of President Diem. The country was in chaos and the continued existence of South Vietnam became dependent on the United States. Nguyen Van Thieu led the coup that finally succeeded in Diem's assassination, and in 1967 he was elected President of South Vietnam.
The war continued to escalate in 1968 as more and more American troops were sent to Vietnam. American casualties rose steadily and support for the war further eroded. The TV news broadcasts continued to bring the war into the living rooms of America, giving rise to an ever increasing number of anti-war protests.
UCLA campus, scene of many anti-war protest demonstrations
April---2007
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