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"Buffalo
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War
dominated 30 years of Vietnam's history last century. The struggle
that began with communists fighting French colonial power in the 1940s
did not end until they seized Saigon and control of the whole country in
1975. The period that Americans refer to as the "Vietnam War"
- and the Vietnamese call the "American War" - was the US
military intervention from 1965 to 1973. The
Vietnam War was a long, costly armed conflict that pitted the communist
regime of North Vietnam and its southern allies, known as the Viet Cong,
against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. The
divisive war, increasingly unpopular at home, ended with the withdrawal
of U.S. forces in 1973 and the unification of Vietnam under Communist
control two years later. More than 3 million people, including 58,000
Americans, were killed in the conflict. The
US was driven by Cold War concerns about the spread of communism,
particularly "domino theory" - the idea that if one Asian nation
fell to the leftist ideology, others would quickly follow. The
Vietnam War was protracted and bloody. The Hanoi government estimates
that in 21 years of fighting, four million civilians were killed across
North and South Vietnam, and 1.1 million communist fighters died.
A med
evac off Mutters Ridge, 2nd Bn 3rd Marines.
A Navy
lieutenant aims his flaming arrow at a hut across the river that
conceals a Viet Cong bunker.
Marines
of Delta 1/5 caring for their wounded at HUE1968
Rare
picture of an HH-43 Pedro evacuating casualties during operation
Abilene.
Khe
Sanh, South Vietnam - April 12, 1971
B-52
Vietnam War
Helicopter
Incursion
Tunnel rat Melvin Sherrell, KIA December 13,
1966.
A med evac off Mutters Ridge, 2nd Bn 3rd
Marines. The
United States began drastically reducing their troop support in South
Vietnam during the final years of Vietnamization. Many U.S. troops were
removed from the region, and on 5 March 1971, the United States returned
the 5th Special Forces Group, which was the first American unit deployed
to South Vietnam, to its former base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Under
the Paris Peace Accords, between North Vietnamese Foreign Minister Lê
Đức Thọ and U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger,
and reluctantly signed by South Vietnamese president Thiệu, U.S.
military forces withdrew from South Vietnam and prisoners were
exchanged. North Vietnam was allowed to continue supplying communist
troops in the South, but only to the extent of replacing expended
materiel. Later that year the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Kissinger
and Thọ, but the Vietnamese negotiator declined it saying that a
true peace did not yet exist. The
communist leaders had expected that the ceasefire terms would favor
their side. But Saigon, bolstered by a surge of U.S. aid received just
before the ceasefire went into effect, began to roll back the Viet Cong.
The communists responded with a new strategy hammered out in a series of
meetings in Hanoi in March 1973, according to the memoirs of Trần
Văn Trà. As
the Viet Cong's top commander, Tra participated in several of these
meetings. With U.S. bombings suspended, work on the Ho Chi Minh trail
and other logistical structures could proceed unimpeded. Logistics would
be upgraded until the North was in a position to launch a massive
invasion of the South, projected for the 1975-76 dry season. Tra
calculated that this date would be Hanoi's last opportunity to strike
before Saigon's army could be fully trained
An RTO guides a Chinook delivering a sling load
of materials and supplies at Fire Support Base Pershing, near Dau Tieng.
Name and date unknown.
A LRRP team leader, unit D, 1st Squadron, 4th
Cavalry, 1st Infantry Division makes it signals his men during a patrol
in 1967.
M551 Sheridan of the 11th Armored Cavalry
Regiment.
American soldiers after burning a village.
A young Marine goes into battle. Vietnam, 1965.
American F-4C Phantom jet streaming contrails
from wingtips while regaining altitude after bombing small village known
to be a Vietcong stronghold during Vietnam War American infantrymen look up at the tall jungle
trees seeking out Viet Cong snipers firing at them. June 15, 1967
U.S.
Army 2nd Lt. R.C. Rescorla, Platoon Leader of 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry
Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division - Ia Drang Valley, South Vietnam.
November 16, 1965. 2nd Lt. Rick C. Rescorla, Platoon Leader of 2nd
Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, Ia Drang Valley,
South Vietnam - November 16, 1965. Born
in England, he first served in the British Army, then joined the U.S.
Army. Rick Rescorla, who was head of security for banking firm Morgan
Stanley Dean Witter, is credited with saving 2,700 people by making sure
they left the World Trade Center's South Tower before it collapsed. He
was killed when he went back in to rescue more people.
Getting
very "short," a 1st Air Cav trooper near Bong Son keeps close track
of his last remaining days in Vietnam (SPC5 Frank Moffitt/U.S.
Army/National Archives).
LCpl William G. Cox emerging from a VC tunnel
discovered in the Batangan Peninsula. When mapped, it was over 158 yards
long and two levels deep.
Operation "Billings" Medic from the 1st
Battalion, 16th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division, searches the sky for a
Medevac helicopter to evacuate a wounded buddy, following air assault
into LZ Rufe in June 1967. (U.S. Army/National Archives)
A U.S. military helicopter sprays Agent Orange
over Vietnam in this undated photo from the war.
South Vietnam, March, 1968: A U.S. Marine's
helmet tells a story during the prolonged assault by Viet Cong forces on
the base at Khe Sanh. John Olson, Stars and Stripes
A US Marine sniper team at work in Khe Sanh,
South Vietnam, February 1968. By David Douglas Duncan.
The M60 gunner who looks more than tired
A Navy lieutenant aims his flaming arrow at a
hut across the river that conceals a Viet Cong bunker.
A fast patrol craft on Cai Ngay canal during
the Vietnam War in 1970
A dated close call
Source warinvietnam
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