VIETNAM

Many of us born in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s remember the Vietnam War as a long, costly and divisive conflict between the North Vietnam communist government and South Vietnam/United States. More than 2 million people, 58,000 Americans, were killed in the Vietnam War until we finally pulled out in 1973. There were over 3 million wounded and 12 million refugees. Communist forces ended the war by seizing control of South Vietnam in 1975. Over 3 million American troops served there beginning 1954 with more than half a million that came back with PTSD (not to mention all the drug problems).

Vietnam had been under French colonial rule since the 19th century until the Japanese invaded in WWII and then Ho Chi Minh decided to follow the Chinese/Soviet models and adopt communism in Hanoi (1945) as the French followed with supporting Bao Dai in a more Western culture in Saigon (1949) … splitting the country at the 17th parallel.

By 1955 American military and the CIA helped “capture“ 100,000 Viet Cong (Communists) in the South. Working under the domino theory that if one Southeast Asian country fell to communism, many other countries would follow, JFK increased U.S. aid in 1962 (about 9,000 troops). Instability in the area convinced LBJ to increase support and after US destroyers were attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964, the US attacked North Vietnam.

In addition to attacks throughout Vietnam, from 1964-1973, the United States dropped two million tons of bombs on Laos and Cambodia to prevent flow of supplies to North Vietnam. In 1965 we sent 250,000 troops to Vietnam, air attacks in the North and ground fighting in the South. The North Vietnamese did not let up with help from China and the Soviet Union. By 1967, the number of American troops in Vietnam was 500,000, and U.S. casualties had reached 15,058 killed and 109,527 wounded.

As the war went on there was no way to tell if anyone was winning and lots of mistrust in the government and between 1966-1973, more than 503,000 U.S. military personnel deserted, and a large anti-war movement started protests in the US. By 1968 there were many signs that showed our involvement was wrong from drugs, civilian killings and support for corrupt governments overseas. When Nixon became president, he announced a program to withdraw U.S. troops but increasing aerial bombardment and training the South Vietnamese. Unfortunately, nothing changed and in the next few years there was more deaths to Americans and innocent South Vietnamese (including the My Lai Massacre). Anti-war protest grew in the US in particular on college campuses (i.e, Kent State shooting) until finally troops were withdrawn and other deserted and many dodged the draft before it ended in 1973 with a peace agreement between the US and North Vietnam. Fighting still continued until 1975 when Saigon was lost to North Vietnam. Warfare had demolished the country’s infrastructure and economy, and reconstruction proceeded slowly.

In 1976, Vietnam was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, though sporadic violence continued over the next 15 years, including conflicts with neighboring China and Cambodia. Under a broad free market policy put in place in 1986, the economy began to improve, boosted by oil export revenues and an influx of foreign capital. Trade and diplomatic relations between Vietnam and the U.S. resumed in the 1990s. In the past 20 years, the growth here has been astonishing as business have opened, infrastructure built, and financial success came to many people.

Sadly, in the US, the effects of the Vietnam War continued. We spent more than $120 billion on the conflict from 1965-73 leading to inflation, oil crisis, a divided nation and continued physical and mental health issues for those that tried to get back to the lives they left behind. 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 as having lost the war), along with the effects of exposure to Agent Orange (originally used to thin out the dense forest of Vietnam).Read more