The total involvement in Vietnam was actually much longer- 30 years- 1945-1975. The French Indochina colonies were occupied by the Japanese in WWII and US troops were involved in the clean up / repatriation. We never really left. We were heavily involved in the 1950s. In the 1960s it turned into a major conflict and by 1973 we brokered a cease fire. In 1975 North Vietnam broke the cease fire and that was the end of the Vietnam saga for us.
That may sound like a long time, but have you ever stopped to consider the modern day version of Vietnam? We’ve been in Afghanistan nearly 17 years with no end in sight.
During the conflict president Johnson was afraid of provoking the Chinese. He was deathly afraid of having a re-run of the Korean War where the Chinese invaded when we got too close to the border. This would be the case throughout the war as we never really put ground troops in the north. There were actually a few cases of Chinese troops and officers being found on the battlefields in the 1950s. It’s not clear if any Chinese served in combat against the US in the 60s and 70s, but I think you can assume there were probably a few. After the Tet Offensive in 1968 the US could have landed an army in the north and marched the few miles to Hanoi with very little resistance- but we were scared of the Chinese. We also never attacked the Ho Chi Minh trail with ground troops- we were scared of aggravating the neighboring countries and had to respect their borders (sounds crazy but even when the Russians were fighting in Afghanistan, all the weapons that were bleeding then dry cane from Pakistan. They could have shut that down in a day. They took no action and never violated the Pak border).
In 1968 the war is pretty much over. The north was exhausted and they are ready to give up and reach a peace treaty. Nixon is running for president and knows that if a peace treaty is reached then he will lose the election. President Johnson is illegally monitoring and wire tapping Nixon. Nixon meets with the south Vietnamese and engages in treason against the United States. He convinces them to pull out of peace talks and continue the war so he can get elected. He tells the South Vietnamese he will give them a better deal. All the deaths after 1968 were due to Nixon.
Johnson is now stuck. He wants Nixon arrested and executed for treason, but his evidence was illegally obtained and he would incriminate himself. He decides he will run for president after all and reveal this information to the mass public. The democratic convention was going on in Chicago and there were thousands of rioters outside. Mayor Daley and the Chicago PD tell Johnson they cannot guarantee his safety and that he might get assassinated. Johnson decides to bag the whole thing and never reveals the Nixon treachery.
The only time the US took the gloves off during the war was when we wanted to get out. In 1973 we were negotiation peace talks and North Vietnam walked away from the table. Nixon ordered every available B-52 to bomb the shit out of Hanoi in the heaviest aerial bombardment since Berlin in WWII. After about two weeks of bombing the north was ready to negotiate. If we would have done that on day 1 the war would have been over in a month in the mid 1960s.
The other interesting part is that Australia, NZ, South Korea, Thailand, and Taiwan all sent troops to the conflict. You don’t hear about it much, but the first “tunnel rats” were actually Australian.
The Vietnam war didn’t really “end” in 1975. Pol Pot plunged Cambodia into chaos and started disputing the border regions with Vietnam. Then he started killing everybody. Vietnam invades to push him out and takes over Cambodia. China invaded northern Vietnam to punish them for the invasion of Cambodia(Sino- Vietnamese war). Vietnam occupies Cambodia for the next decade and Thailand and Vietnam have frequent and violent border clashes up until the late 1980s.
And don’t forget the opium war- another fascinating piece of history. The Chinese nationalists in Yunnan Provence crossed into Burma in 1949 to escape the communist army. They kept their heavy weapons and turned into drug lords. They controlled the opium trade. So then in the late 1960s you have an undefeated Chinese nationalist army from WWII / Chinese Civil War, running around with all their WWII weaponry, and controlling the drug trade (supplying US troops in Vietnam). Then this Burmese drug lord tries to move some product without paying the Chinese their tax, so they go full Walter White on the Burmese when they cross into Laos. Then a general in the Lao army decides he’ll jump in and fight both sides and steal the drugs for himself- so now you have Burmese drug smugglers battling WWII Chinese Nationalist Army battling the Lao army with modern American guns and helicopters. The Chinese were defeated and the Lao Army took all the drugs (the CIA was very involved in drug running at this time).
That may sound like a long time, but have you ever stopped to consider the modern day version of Vietnam? We’ve been in Afghanistan nearly 17 years with no end in sight.
During the conflict president Johnson was afraid of provoking the Chinese. He was deathly afraid of having a re-run of the Korean War where the Chinese invaded when we got too close to the border. This would be the case throughout the war as we never really put ground troops in the north. There were actually a few cases of Chinese troops and officers being found on the battlefields in the 1950s. It’s not clear if any Chinese served in combat against the US in the 60s and 70s, but I think you can assume there were probably a few. After the Tet Offensive in 1968 the US could have landed an army in the north and marched the few miles to Hanoi with very little resistance- but we were scared of the Chinese. We also never attacked the Ho Chi Minh trail with ground troops- we were scared of aggravating the neighboring countries and had to respect their borders (sounds crazy but even when the Russians were fighting in Afghanistan, all the weapons that were bleeding then dry cane from Pakistan. They could have shut that down in a day. They took no action and never violated the Pak border).
In 1968 the war is pretty much over. The north was exhausted and they are ready to give up and reach a peace treaty. Nixon is running for president and knows that if a peace treaty is reached then he will lose the election. President Johnson is illegally monitoring and wire tapping Nixon. Nixon meets with the south Vietnamese and engages in treason against the United States. He convinces them to pull out of peace talks and continue the war so he can get elected. He tells the South Vietnamese he will give them a better deal. All the deaths after 1968 were due to Nixon.
Johnson is now stuck. He wants Nixon arrested and executed for treason, but his evidence was illegally obtained and he would incriminate himself. He decides he will run for president after all and reveal this information to the mass public. The democratic convention was going on in Chicago and there were thousands of rioters outside. Mayor Daley and the Chicago PD tell Johnson they cannot guarantee his safety and that he might get assassinated. Johnson decides to bag the whole thing and never reveals the Nixon treachery.
The only time the US took the gloves off during the war was when we wanted to get out. In 1973 we were negotiation peace talks and North Vietnam walked away from the table. Nixon ordered every available B-52 to bomb the shit out of Hanoi in the heaviest aerial bombardment since Berlin in WWII. After about two weeks of bombing the north was ready to negotiate. If we would have done that on day 1 the war would have been over in a month in the mid 1960s.
The other interesting part is that Australia, NZ, South Korea, Thailand, and Taiwan all sent troops to the conflict. You don’t hear about it much, but the first “tunnel rats” were actually Australian.
The Vietnam war didn’t really “end” in 1975. Pol Pot plunged Cambodia into chaos and started disputing the border regions with Vietnam. Then he started killing everybody. Vietnam invades to push him out and takes over Cambodia. China invaded northern Vietnam to punish them for the invasion of Cambodia(Sino- Vietnamese war). Vietnam occupies Cambodia for the next decade and Thailand and Vietnam have frequent and violent border clashes up until the late 1980s.
And don’t forget the opium war- another fascinating piece of history. The Chinese nationalists in Yunnan Provence crossed into Burma in 1949 to escape the communist army. They kept their heavy weapons and turned into drug lords. They controlled the opium trade. So then in the late 1960s you have an undefeated Chinese nationalist army from WWII / Chinese Civil War, running around with all their WWII weaponry, and controlling the drug trade (supplying US troops in Vietnam). Then this Burmese drug lord tries to move some product without paying the Chinese their tax, so they go full Walter White on the Burmese when they cross into Laos. Then a general in the Lao army decides he’ll jump in and fight both sides and steal the drugs for himself- so now you have Burmese drug smugglers battling WWII Chinese Nationalist Army battling the Lao army with modern American guns and helicopters. The Chinese were defeated and the Lao Army took all the drugs (the CIA was very involved in drug running at this time).