Essay on The Vietnam War

Submitted By Diane27
Words: 699
Pages: 3

The Vietnam War was from 1959 to 1975. Vietnam was fighting even before the war began. It was said to be the greatest generation of fighters. The French ruled Vietnam, it has five colonies that were smaller, Tonkin (North Vietnam), Cochin-China (South Vietnam), Annam (mainly in the mountains) and Loas and Cambodia. In December 1941, Japanese attacked the colonies of Singapore and Malaya. President Roosevelt didn’t like the Indochina government because they were with Japan during the war. They (US office of Strategic Service) went along with Ho Chi Minh, He declared the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945. That was the days of surrender of Japan. Then during June of 1950, North Korea went into western South Korea. The US went in to force out North Korea; there was the run out to the border of China. That is how China came into Korea War. This changed the Vietnam War. The US started to pay for the costs of the French’s attempt on Viet Minh. The US sent aid and pilots to support the French after the Korean War had ended. Some of the US military equipment was used to defeat the French in 1945 at Dienbiephu. After that, French didn’t want anything to do with the Vietnam disaster. President Dwight Eisenhower was the first to send a military to help the South Vietnamese. In 1961 John Kennedy promised to pay any price to defend against communism. The military was about 16,000 men and women sent into South Vietnam. They were mainly just advisers. Then in 1963 Kennedy was murdered and so was someone by the South Vietnamese generals. These two deaths was a bad deal for the US and South Vietnam. With President Johnson, America was hoping to finish what the South Vietnamese could not. The Gulf of Tonkin in August 1964, Johnson strikes against the patrol boats, this was the first action against North Vietnam. It was not the goal of the President to win the war but to help South Vietnam until they could take over. There was bombing by the North, but President Johnson only wanted to limit it to the South Vietnam. The U.S. did not want to go into a ground attack the communists because they wouldn’t be a strong effort to disturb the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The U.S. did fight a jungle war, it was against Viet Cong. They would only attack in ambushes, use booby traps and have underground tunnels. This is when they were using Agent Orange so the leaves would fall off the trees and they could get a better view. In all the villages, everyone was the enemy,