Why Were We There
ETS 192 is a class on gender studies. More specifically, It is a class on gender in the Vietnam war. Through various articles, essays, and films the class has come to a good understanding of how gender influenced the soldiers fighting this gruesome war. As I continue to view films and read about the Vietnam War, I have still yet to come across concrete information pertaining to how and why the United States entered the war. In a class that dives into the effects of the war, I feel that we would benefit from a brief history of why the United States went to Vietnam.
The United States involvement in Vietnam did not officially start until 1965. Yet, in order to achieve a general understanding of why the United States did in fact enter the war we must look back twenty years. In 1945, Vietnam, which was a colony under French rule for the previous hundred years, was overrun by the Viet Mihn. This was a communist party controlled by Ho Chi Mihn. A year later the French counterattacked in order to regain possession of the country. In 1950, Vietnam was recognized by the communist USSR and China as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). France and Vietnam came together in Geneva, Switzerland in 1954 where they both signed the Geneva Peace Accords. This document stated that the country would be divided at the seventeenth parallel. The communist party received the north half and the southern half became the Republic of Vietnam. The United States president Eisenhower did not like this agreement because it granted too much power to the communist party.
The United States involvement began in 1955 with the installment of military advisors. A massive amount of American military, political, and economic aid was sent to South Vietnam. The government of the Republic of Vietnam claimed that in 1957 the communists from the north were invading the south. The south counterattacked with the aid of the United States. The U.S. was not yet officially involved in the war but south Vietnam received an increase of aid in 1960, and by 1962 twelve thousand American "advisors" were stationed in the south. The introduction of the Viet Cong came as a surprise to the U.S.. It wasn’t until 1963 when they discovered that communist guerrillas were operating in south Vietnam. In a massive attack the V.C. defeated the south Vietnamese army and overthrew their president.
It is not until 1964 that the U.S. involvement gets confusing. One year after the south was overrun by the communists the United States clamed that two of their ships, in the Golf of Tonkin, were bombed by North Vietnamese patrol boats. Now, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamera states that the second attack never took place. I personally believe that the North Vietnamese figured out that the U.S. was assisting South Vietnam in their attacks and bombed one of our ships in return. The United States was itching to fight the communists, especially so soon after the Cuban Missal Crisis. When the opportunity to flex some patriot muscle arose they exaggerated the circumstances in order to justify their pre-planed bombing raids. But that is just my theory.
United States commitment to the war was confirmed in 1965 with the installation of two hundred thousand American troops. By 1967 U.S. involvement rose to half a million. The war was not going well for these troops. They were fighting a war with no clear objective in a terrain they had never seen before. In the next year things went from bad to worse.
The Tet Offensive was a combined attack by the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army against the United States. This attack took a great toll on the U.S. After this brutal assault President Nixon started pulling out ground troops and started sending in the air strikes. The war expanded into the neighboring countries of Laos and Cambodia.
For almost the next four years the United States sent a series of major bomb raids over North Vietnam. These hostile attacks forced them to sign the Paris Peace Agreement. This stated the end of open hostilities between the U.S. and the DRV, but this did not end the war. The war officially ended on April 30, 1975 when DRV tanks rolled south down National Highway One and captured the presidential palace of Saigon. With 58,169 dead American soldiers and a total of 1,324,342 documented casualties the United States left Vietnam. The country was under more communist control than it had in 1954 when the U.S. first appeared.
For more information on this subject go to:
www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/amex/vietnam/intro.html
www.members.aol.com/warlibrary/vwch1.html
www.war-stories.com/BodyCount.html
www.war-stories.com/DayIn May.html