Started on Vietnam
Notes:
- We helped fight off the Vichy French and Japanese during WWII in Vietnam
- Vietnam was split after WWII but not at first; North (communists) vs. the South (USA) at the 17th Parallel
- Goal of the US was to stop communism from spreading
- French decide not to give independence to the Vietnamese and so the fighting begins
- Ho Chi Minh was our ally in WWII
- Dien Bien Phu was where the French lost to the Vietnamese and many thought that they would gain independence from the Vietnamese gov’t after this but that didn’t happen
- The Geneva Conference (1954) set up elections to unify the country by July 1956; such elections were never held because neither side wanted to lose and both thought the would
Who Fought?
- The United States Armed Forces and the Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN—the South Vietnamese Army)
- Vs.
- The NLF, a group of South Vietnamese guerilla fighters (Vietcong) and the People’s Army of Viet Nam (PAVN—the North Vietnamese Army, pronounced Pahvin)
Escalation-Truman through Johnson
- President Truman began US involvement by sending money to help the French
- President Eisenhower continued US support by sending military advisors to give temporary support to Diem’s gov’t in the South
- President Kennedy continued sending advisors as well as special operation forces (green berets- special operation groups that go in and do small but very important tasks; very targeted)
- President Johnson sent more and more combat forces (1964 was really the tipping point)
Diem vs. the Buddhists: Diem was the one we worked with and to protest, so Buddhist lit himself on fire to show that Diem was terrible and we shouldn’t be supporting him
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
- Several US ships were supposedly attacked by North Vietnamese torpedoes in the Gulf of Tonkin
- Some believed that Johnson just needed a reason to get in on the war and the gov’t made this up to gain the support of the US people to go to war; Congress then gave Johnson the power to send troops over to Vietnam and do what he needed to do (even if it meant waging war); didn’t actually declare war for a while but did send troops over
Johnson wanted to be the anti-war candidate during the election and with that easily defeated Barry Goldwater in the 1964 election; he actually wanted to get in the war and did after the election but said that the “Asian boys should be fighting their own battle, not our boys”
- President Johnson and General William Westmoreland kept saying that with more troops we would win the war
- Most Americans tended to believe this at first
- The American public’s faith was shattered on January 30, 1968, when the enemy, supposedly on the verge of collapse, mounted the Tet Offensive in which nearly every major city in South Vietnam was attacked; the war was supposed to be drawing to a close but people started to doubt this after this because how else could the enemy do this if they weren’t strong?; people started to question why we were over there and if the gov’t was telling the truth
- Named after the lunar new year festival which is the most important Vietnamese holiday in South Vietnam
- Although we crushed the enemy militarily, the surprising huge offensive attack from an enemy that was supposedly almost defeated convinced
- They kept saying they needed more troops but the people just wanted to get out of there
- It was very hard for us to leave because then it would fall to communism
- Another problem was we were never given the OK to invade the north (we just tried to bomb them into submission, which didn’t work) because of the neighboring Northern countries that could potentially get involved
Anti-War
- Why were so many against the war?
- Tet Offensive
- Pentagon Papers
- Injuring/Killing innocent people (My Lai Massacre), even American soldiers do this
- Supporting a bad gov’t in South
- 5. The power of the press
Napalm Attack (we’d throw this sticky, jelly stuff that burned people’s skin; not just soldiers but women and children)
Kent St. University Shooting: a weekend when a bunch of students were protesting the war and it turned into a riot; the students started a building on fire and the national guard was called in; the guard got caught in the football field (a big indentation) and the students were throwing things at them and the guards thought they heard the order to fire so they shot and killed a few students
My Lai Massacre March 1968: US soldiers killed 504 Vietnamese civilians; the dead civilians included fifty ages 3 or younger, 69 between 4 and 7 and 27 in their 70s and 80s
How did people get out of serving?
- Went to Canada or Sweden
- Went to college (student deferment)
- Got married
- Medically unfit for service
- Joined the National Guard or Peace Corps
- Claimed to by homosexual
- Being rich
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