The Vietnam War
The Vietnam war started in 1959 to 1975. Vietnam
is a country in south Asia . Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam formed a colony which
was called
French Indochina.
The French colonized Vietnam for it's rubber and rice, while the French grew
were there the locals were growing poor while the French grew rich. After
world war 2, a Vietnamese man named Ho Chi Minh gathered their Vietnamese
army to rebel against the French rule. To win Ho Chi Minh said to revert
to communism in order to beat the French.
America was worried that if the French lost the war Vietnam would a communist
country the rest of south Asia would be communist countries, that theory
was made by American politicians which was called the domino theory.
So America
gave money to the French so they could win. But that didn't matter the Viet
men won.
The French signed the Geneva accords which divided Vietnam into Communist
north Vietnam and Anti-communist south Vietnam. For north Vietnam to get
supplies
they took a road called the Ho Chi Minh trail. America was still helping
out South Vietnam with money and advisors. When America decided to help France
they were at war with China and the Soviet Union, that war was called the
cold war.
Then on August 2, 1965 Vietnamese boats fired torpedoes at a American boat
patrolling the gulf of Tonkin. Then President Lincoln Johnson got congress
to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, That said that the U.S. could use
military force in Vietnam. The military force was only limited to bombing
but by the
end of 1965 there was 189,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam. And by the end of
1968 there was 500,000 U.S. in Vietnam. Everyone thought it was an easy
war for
America to win, because there machines were more advance
had a good navy and air force .Vietcong fought
guerrilla warfare. They hid in deep tunnels, ambushed them from there
hiding spots in the jungle, and American troops were never trained to
fight in dense
jungles. People were confused on how many troops died in a small country.
So President
Johnson stop sending troops to Vietnam he also refused to run for another
term. Then Richard Nixon became president in 1969, he promised to end the
war with
honor, but he didn't and the U.S. bailed out of Vietnam. Then Vietnam took
over South Vietnam in 1975 and became a communist country. All in all 1.2
million
Vietnamese and U.S. troops died.