Vietnam Combat Clothing and Gear Stores in Reading Pa

The Vietnam War was a long, costly and divisive disharmonize that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the U.s.. The conflict was intensified past the ongoing Cold War betwixt the United States and the Soviet Wedlock. More than 3 million people (including over 58,000 Americans) were killed in the Vietnam War, and more than than half of the dead were Vietnamese civilians.

Opposition to the war in the United States bitterly divided Americans, even after President Richard Nixon signed the Paris Peace Accords and ordered the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1973. Communist forces ended the war by seizing command of S Vietnam in 1975, and the country was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the following year.

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Roots of the Vietnam War

Vietnam, a nation in Southeast Asia on the eastern edge of the Indochinese peninsula, had been nether French colonial rule since the 19th century.

During Globe War II, Japanese forces invaded Vietnam. To fight off both Japanese occupiers and the French colonial administration, political leader Ho Chi Minh—inspired by Chinese and Soviet communism—formed the Viet Minh, or the League for the Independence of Vietnam.

Following its 1945 defeat in World War II, Japan withdrew its forces from Vietnam, leaving the French-educated Emperor Bao Dai in control. Seeing an opportunity to seize command, Ho'due south Viet Minh forces immediately rose upward, taking over the northern urban center of Hanoi and declaring a Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) with Ho equally president.

Seeking to regain control of the region, France backed Emperor Bao and ready upwards the state of Vietnam in July 1949, with the city of Saigon as its capital.

Both sides wanted the same matter: a unified Vietnam. But while Ho and his supporters wanted a nation modeled after other communist countries, Bao and many others wanted a Vietnam with close economic and cultural ties to the West.

When Did the Vietnam War Outset?

The Vietnam War and active U.S. involvement in the war began in 1954, though ongoing conflict in the region had stretched dorsum several decades.

After Ho'due south communist forces took power in the northward, armed disharmonize between northern and southern armies continued until the northern Viet Minh's decisive victory in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954. The French loss at the battle ended almost a century of French colonial rule in Indochina.

The subsequent treaty signed in July 1954 at a Geneva conference split Vietnam along the latitude known as the 17th Parallel (17 degrees northward latitude), with Ho in control in the North and Bao in the Due south. The treaty also chosen for nationwide elections for reunification to exist held in 1956.

In 1955, nonetheless, the strongly anti-communist politician Ngo Dinh Diem pushed Emperor Bao aside to become president of the Government of the Commonwealth of Vietnam (GVN), oftentimes referred to during that era as South Vietnam.

READ More than: Vietnam War Timeline

The Viet Cong

With the Cold War intensifying worldwide, the United states hardened its policies against whatever allies of the Soviet Union, and past 1955 President Dwight D. Eisenhower had pledged his house support to Diem and South Vietnam.

With preparation and equipment from American military and the CIA, Diem's security forces croaky downward on Viet Minh sympathizers in the south, whom he derisively called Viet Cong (or Vietnamese Communist), arresting some 100,000 people, many of whom were brutally tortured and executed.

By 1957, the Viet Cong and other opponents of Diem'southward repressive regime began fighting back with attacks on government officials and other targets, and past 1959 they had begun engaging the South Vietnamese ground forces in firefights.

In Dec 1960, Diem's many opponents inside South Vietnam—both communist and non-communist—formed the National Liberation Front end (NLF) to organize resistance to the regime. Though the NLF claimed to be autonomous and that most of its members were not communists, many in Washington causeless it was a puppet of Hanoi.

Domino Theory

A squad sent by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to report on weather condition in South Vietnam advised a build-up of American military, economic and technical aid in order to assistance Diem face up the Viet Cong threat.

Working under the "domino theory," which held that if one Southeast Asian country fell to communism, many other countries would follow, Kennedy increased U.S. assist, though he stopped short of committing to a large-calibration military intervention.

Past 1962, the U.S. military presence in Due south Vietnam had reached some 9,000 troops, compared with fewer than 800 during the 1950s.

Gulf of Tonkin

A coup past some of his ain generals succeeded in toppling and killing Diem and his blood brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, in November 1963, three weeks before Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

The ensuing political instability in South Vietnam persuaded Kennedy'south successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Secretary of Defence force Robert McNamara to further increase U.South. military and economical support.

In August of 1964, later on DRV torpedo boats attacked two U.South. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, Johnson ordered the retaliatory bombing of military targets in North Vietnam. Congress before long passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave Johnson broad state of war-making powers, and U.S. planes began regular bombing raids, codenamed Operation Rolling Thunder, the post-obit yr.

The bombing was not limited to Vietnam; from 1964-1973, the U.s. covertly dropped ii million tons of bombs on neighboring, neutral Laos during the CIA-led "Hugger-mugger State of war" in Lao people's democratic republic. The bombing campaign was meant to disrupt the menstruation of supplies beyond the Ho Chi Minh trail into Vietnam and to prevent the rise of the Pathet Lao, or Lao communist forces. The U.Due south. bombings made Lao people's democratic republic the most heavily bombed country per capita in the world.

In March 1965, Johnson made the decision—with solid support from the American public—to send U.S. combat forces into battle in Vietnam. By June, 82,000 combat troops were stationed in Vietnam, and military leaders were calling for 175,000 more past the end of 1965 to shore up the struggling Southward Vietnamese army.

Despite the concerns of some of his directorate well-nigh this escalation, and about the entire war effort amidst a growing anti-war motion, Johnson authorized the immediate dispatch of 100,000 troops at the end of July 1965 and another 100,000 in 1966. In addition to the United States, South Korea, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand also committed troops to fight in South Vietnam (albeit on a much smaller scale).

William Westmoreland

In contrast to the air attacks on North Vietnam, the U.Due south.-S Vietnamese war try in the south was fought primarily on the footing, largely nether the control of General William Westmoreland, in coordination with the government of General Nguyen Van Thieu in Saigon.

Westmoreland pursued a policy of attrition, aiming to kill as many enemy troops equally possible rather than trying to secure territory. By 1966, big areas of South Vietnam had been designated equally "complimentary-burn zones," from which all innocent civilians were supposed to have evacuated and only enemy remained. Heavy bombing by B-52 shipping or shelling fabricated these zones uninhabitable, every bit refugees poured into camps in designated prophylactic areas near Saigon and other cities.

Even as the enemy body count (at times exaggerated by U.South. and South Vietnamese authorities) mounted steadily, DRV and Viet Cong troops refused to stop fighting, encouraged by the fact that they could easily reoccupy lost territory with manpower and supplies delivered via the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Cambodia and Laos. Additionally, supported by aid from China and the Soviet Union, Northward Vietnam strengthened its air defenses.

Vietnam War Protests

By Nov 1967, the number of American troops in Vietnam was budgeted 500,000, and U.Due south. casualties had reached 15,058 killed and 109,527 wounded. Every bit the war stretched on, some soldiers came to mistrust the government's reasons for keeping them at that place, besides as Washington'due south repeated claims that the war was being won.

The subsequently years of the war saw increased physical and psychological deterioration amongst American soldiers—both volunteers and draftees—including drug utilise, mail-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), mutinies and attacks past soldiers confronting officers and noncommissioned officers.

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Between July 1966 and Dec 1973, more than 503,000 U.S. military personnel deserted, and a robust anti-war motility among American forces spawned violent protests, killings and mass incarcerations of personnel stationed in Vietnam as well as within the Us.

Bombarded by horrific images of the war on their televisions, Americans on the domicile front turned against the war likewise: In Oct 1967, some 35,000 demonstrators staged a massive Vietnam War protest outside the Pentagon. Opponents of the war argued that civilians, non enemy combatants, were the primary victims and that the United States was supporting a corrupt dictatorship in Saigon.

Tet Offensive

By the finish of 1967, Hanoi'south communist leadership was growing impatient as well, and sought to strike a decisive blow aimed at forcing the better-supplied United States to requite up hopes of success.

On January 31, 1968, some seventy,000 DRV forces under General Vo Nguyen Giap launched the Tet Offensive (named for the lunar new year), a coordinated series of violent attacks on more than than 100 cities and towns in South Vietnam.

Taken by surprise, U.Southward. and South Vietnamese forces yet managed to strike back quickly, and the communists were unable to agree any of the targets for more than a day or 2.

Reports of the Tet Offensive stunned the U.Southward. public, however, particularly after news broke that Westmoreland had requested an additional 200,000 troops, despite repeated assurances that victory in the Vietnam War was imminent. With his approval ratings dropping in an election year, Johnson called a halt to bombing in much of North Vietnam (though bombings continued in the south) and promised to dedicate the balance of his term to seeking peace rather than reelection.

Johnson's new tack, laid out in a March 1968 spoken communication, met with a positive response from Hanoi, and peace talks betwixt the U.S. and North Vietnam opened in Paris that May. Despite the afterwards inclusion of the South Vietnamese and the NLF, the dialogue soon reached an impasse, and afterwards a bitter 1968 election flavor marred by violence, Republican Richard M. Nixon won the presidency.

Vietnamization

Nixon sought to deflate the anti-war movement by appealing to a "silent bulk" of Americans who he believed supported the war effort. In an effort to limit the volume of American casualties, he announced a program chosen Vietnamization: withdrawing U.S. troops, increasing aerial and artillery bombardment and giving the South Vietnamese the grooming and weapons needed to effectively control the basis state of war.

In addition to this Vietnamization policy, Nixon continued public peace talks in Paris, adding college-level secret talks conducted past Secretary of State Henry Kissinger beginning in the spring of 1968.

The N Vietnamese connected to insist on complete and unconditional U.S. withdrawal—plus the ouster of U.Southward.-backed Full general Nguyen Van Thieu—as atmospheric condition of peace, nevertheless, and as a result the peace talks stalled.

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My Lai Massacre

The side by side few years would bring even more carnage, including the horrifying revelation that U.S. soldiers had mercilessly slaughtered more than 400 unarmed civilians in the hamlet of My Lai in March 1968.

After the My Lai Massacre, anti-war protests connected to build every bit the conflict wore on. In 1968 and 1969, there were hundreds of protestation marches and gatherings throughout the country.

On November 15, 1969, the largest anti-war demonstration in American history took place in Washington, D.C., as over 250,000 Americans gathered peacefully, calling for withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam.

The anti-war movement, which was specially stiff on college campuses, divided Americans bitterly. For some young people, the state of war symbolized a form of unchecked dominance they had come to resent. For other Americans, opposing the government was considered unpatriotic and treasonous.

Every bit the first U.S. troops were withdrawn, those who remained became increasingly angry and frustrated, exacerbating problems with morale and leadership. Tens of thousands of soldiers received dishonorable discharges for desertion, and nearly 500,000 American men from 1965-73 became "draft dodgers," with many fleeing to Canada to evade conscription. Nixon ended draft calls in 1972, and instituted an all-volunteer army the following year.

Kent State Shooting

In 1970, a joint U.S-South Vietnamese operation invaded Cambodia, hoping to wipe out DRV supply bases there. The South Vietnamese then led their own invasion of Laos, which was pushed back past North Vietnam.

The invasion of these countries, in violation of international law, sparked a new wave of protests on college campuses across America. During 1, on May four, 1970, at Kent State University in Ohio, National Guardsmen shot and killed iv students. At another protest 10 days after, ii students at Jackson State University in Mississippi were killed past police force.

By the finish of June 1972, still, after a failed offensive into S Vietnam, Hanoi was finally willing to compromise. Kissinger and North Vietnamese representatives drafted a peace agreement by early autumn, but leaders in Saigon rejected it, and in Dec Nixon authorized a number of bombing raids against targets in Hanoi and Haiphong. Known as the Christmas Bombings, the raids drew international condemnation.

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The Pentagon Papers

A tiptop-cloak-and-dagger Department of Defense study of U.Due south. political and war machine involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967 was published in the New York Times in 1971—shedding light on how the Nixon administration ramped up conflict in Vietnam. The study, leaked to the Times past military annotator Daniel Ellsberg, farther eroded support for keeping U.S. forces in Vietnam.

When Did the Vietnam War End?

In January 1973, the U.s. and Due north Vietnam ended a final peace understanding, ending open hostilities between the two nations. State of war between North and South Vietnam continued, nonetheless, until April thirty, 1975, when DRV forces captured Saigon, renaming it Ho Chi Minh Metropolis (Ho himself died in 1969).

More than than two decades of violent disharmonize had inflicted a devastating cost on Vietnam's population: After years of warfare, an estimated 2 million Vietnamese were killed, while 3 one thousand thousand were wounded and another 12 1000000 became refugees. Warfare had demolished the country's infrastructure and economy, and reconstruction proceeded slowly.

In 1976, Vietnam was unified as the Socialist Democracy of Vietnam, though desultory violence continued over the next xv years, including conflicts with neighboring Red china and Kingdom of cambodia. Nether a broad free market policy put in place in 1986, the economy began to improve, additional past oil export revenues and an influx of foreign capital. Trade and diplomatic relations betwixt Vietnam and the U.Due south. resumed in the 1990s.

In the Us, the effects of the Vietnam War would linger long afterwards the last troops returned home in 1973. The nation spent more than $120 billion on the conflict in Vietnam from 1965-73; this massive spending led to widespread inflation, exacerbated past a worldwide oil crisis in 1973 and skyrocketing fuel prices.

Psychologically, the effects ran fifty-fifty deeper. The state of war had pierced the myth of American invincibility and had bitterly divided the nation. Many returning veterans faced negative reactions from both opponents of the war (who viewed them as having killed innocent civilians) and its supporters (who saw them equally having lost the war), along with concrete damage including the furnishings of exposure to the toxic herbicide Amanuensis Orange, millions of gallons of which had been dumped by U.S. planes on the dumbo forests of Vietnam.

In 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was unveiled in Washington, D.C. On it were inscribed the names of 57,939 American men and women killed or missing in the war; later additions brought that full to 58,200.