Vietnam War

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was an unsuccessful effort by the United States and South Vietnam to prevent the communist of North Vietnam from taking over South Vietnam with its communist ways. The war waged on from about 1955 to 1975. In 1941 a group known as the Viet Minh was organized as a nationalistic party seeking independence for Vietnamese from France. This party didn’t become open about being communist until mid 1950’s. On September 2nd, 1945 Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Viet Minh party, formally declared independence for Vietnam. The Viet Minh had a powerful base with a good population of North Vietnamese. The French wanted to stabilize control in Indochina and only gave Vietnam recognition of being a free state within the French Union. So in 1946, a war between the Viet Minh and French broke out. It waged on until 1954 when the French were severely beaten in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.
At an international conference in Geneva on 1954, it was decided that the French would move south of the 17th parallel and the Viet Minh would move North of it. People moved out of their homes, which way they went depending on which side they were. Finally the Viet Minh were independent from the French and possessed the northern half of Vietnam. The southern non-communist half of Vietnam later became South Vietnam. Ngo Dinh Diem became Prime Minister of South Vietnam. The Geneva Accords stipulated that there would be elections in Vietnam to unite the two sides. The North expected to win, but Ngo Dinh Diem refused to hold the elections. The United States supported his decision. Since Diem wouldn’t cooperate, the North decided to unify the two sides by military action. Viet Minh solders were trained to use guerilla warfare, which they did.

(Image from http: www.angelfire.com/mn/nathanlee/Vietnam.html)
Here is a picture of American soldiers crawling through the mud.

The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) was becoming bigger, but it couldn’t slow down the presence of the communist in South Vietnam. In 1962, 11,000 military advisers from the U.S. were authorized to fight if fired upon, while in South Vietnam. By 1965 the U.S. was fully involved in the war due to the strength of the Viet Cong. In end of the year, 1965, The U.S. had 180,000 Americans involved in the war under the command of General William C. Westmoreland. By 1967 the U.S. had 389,000 men in South Vietnam. But the North Vietnamese soldiers were stealthy and hard to find. That’s why the U.S. relied on helicopters for rapid deployment. This is where the Hmong become involved with the war. With so much U.S. air force needed, of course the North was going to try and shoot them down. How was the U.S. to save all of the downed pilots? The Hmong were mostly part of the south, so they were basically allied with the U.S. The Hmong were a great help in the war, for they underwent many rescue missions in order to save these pilots.

(Image from http: www.angelfire.com/mn/nathanlee/Vietnam.html)
Here is a picture of an American soldier ducking.