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It was finally time, the moment I had been preparing for meticulously over the past few months. Accompanied by the rest of my team, I boarded a helicopter. Silence enveloped us. Words seemed inadequate amidst the mounting pressure, akin to a brooding, ominous cloud looming overhead. Internally, I grappled with a surge of fear, desperately attempting to quell its grip on my psyche. "Fear is the adversary on the battlefield," I silently reiterated to myself.

Despite the extensive training endured, I found myself questioning my readiness—how could I possibly be prepared? Merely a few months of preparation seemed insufficient in the face of impending conflict; the concept of warfare remained foreign to me. Doubts gnawed at my confidence, rendering me acutely aware of my vulnerabilities. Was this the culmination of my existence, destined to perish in this tumultuous fray?

Abruptly, a deafening bang shattered the stillness, jolting me from my reverie. Although the allure of retreating to the safety of the helicopter beckoned, I recognized it as an untenable option. The time for action had arrived. With resolve, I swiftly disembarked, assuming a crouched position to ready my weapon. This was the pivotal moment.

_________________________________________________________________

The moment had arrived. It was time for me to demonstrate the culmination of months of rigorous training. Alongside my comrades, I boarded the waiting helicopter. A heavy silence permeated the air, rendering speech unnecessary. The weight of anticipation pressed down upon us like a looming storm cloud, casting a shadow over our collective resolve. Internally, I grappled with a tide of apprehension, striving to shake off its paralyzing grip. "Fear is the adversary on the battlefield," I reminded myself, attempting to bolster my faltering confidence.

Despite the extensive preparation endured, doubts lingered. How could I possibly be ready? Only a scant few months of training stood between me and the daunting prospect of war. The harsh reality of my inadequacy gnawed at my resolve, threatening to undermine my courage. Was this the end of the line for me? The abrupt termination of all that I held dear?

Suddenly, a thunderous noise shattered the oppressive stillness, wrenching me from my introspection. Though the instinct to seek refuge in the confines of the helicopter beckoned, I knew retreat was not an option. With determination, I swiftly exited the aircraft, assuming a low stance to ready my weapon. This was the moment I had been preparing for.

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1. Literature: Many novels, short stories, and poems emerged reflecting the experiences of soldiers, civilians, and the broader societal impact of the war. Works such as "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien and "Dispatches" by Michael Herr provide powerful accounts of the war's human toll.

2. Music: The Vietnam War era saw the rise of protest songs that criticized the war and its impact. Artists like Bob Dylan, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Marvin Gaye wrote songs expressing anti-war sentiments and calling for peace.

3. Sculpting and Painting: Artists created sculptures and paintings depicting the horrors of war, the suffering of soldiers and civilians, and the political turmoil surrounding the conflict. Pieces such as "The Vietnam Veterans Memorial" by Maya Lin and works by artists like Leon Golub and Nancy Spero capture the emotional and psychological impact of the war.

4. Poetry: Poets such as Allen Ginsberg and Denise Levertov wrote powerful poems condemning the war and exploring its effects on individuals and society.

5. Dance: Dance performances often incorporated themes of protest, loss, and resilience inspired by the Vietnam War. Choreographers like Martha Graham and Alvin Ailey created works reflecting the social and political climate of the time.

6. Theater: Plays and musicals addressed the Vietnam War and its aftermath, tackling issues such as PTSD, political disillusionment, and the struggles of veterans reintegrating into society. Works like "Hair" and "Viet Rock" were notable examples.

7. Celebrities: Many celebrities became outspoken critics of the war and used their platform to advocate for peace and social justice. Figures like Jane Fonda and Muhammad Ali were particularly notable for their activism.

8. Athletes: Some athletes, such as Muhammad Ali, refused to serve in the war on grounds of conscience, sparking debates about the role of athletes in politics and social movements.

9. Scientists and Humanitarians: The Vietnam War spurred increased scrutiny of military technologies and tactics, leading some scientists and humanitarians to advocate for peace and work towards conflict resolution and reconciliation.

10. Words/Phrases from Native Language: The Vietnam War introduced words and phrases from Vietnamese into English, reflecting the cultural exchange and the impact of the conflict on language. Terms like "Viet Cong," "Ho Chi Minh Trail," and "napalm" entered common usage during this period.

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Buddhism was the dominant religion in Southern Vietnam with 70-90% of the population being buddhist. However Ngo Diem Dinh's government was dominated by Catholics in a sense which he sent up specific policies to convert people to Catholicism (Par. 3). Because of this, Diem's repression had formed multiple riots led by Buddhists in which resulted in nine people dying and women and children being killed by the police.

In the morning of June 11, at a street corner near the Xa Loi Pagoda, an old sedan pulled up dropping off a monk in saffron robe. The monk, Thích Quảng Đức, sat cross-legged on the pavement with two other monks pouring a can of gasoline over his head. The monk doused in gasoline began to pray with prayer beads in his hand. Then calmly, he lit a match. Instantly he was enveloped in billowing flame and smoke. He had committed self-immolation.

He sat still and calm continuing to pray. After three to four minutes passed, his charred body toppled over. After the event, multiple burnings happened simultaneously.

"... What have the Buddhist leaders done... the only thing they have done, they have barbecued one of their monks.

If the Buddhists wish to have another barbecue I will be glad to supply the gasoline and a match.

Let them burn and we shall clap our hands."

- Madame Nhu

Voices from Vietnam: Pages 15-17

VIETNAM, DIEM, THE BUDDHIST CRISIS

Quotes:

"Along about springtime (1963), the monks began to hint that they were going to pull off something spectacular by way of protest ...

"The monks were telephoning the foreign correspondents in Saigon to warn them that something big was going to happen. Most of the correspondents were kind of bored with that threat after a while and tended to ignore it. I felt that they were certainly going to do something, that they were not just bluffing, so it came to be that I was really the only Western correspondent that covered the fatal day."

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/08/28/160186991/malcolm-browne-journalist-who-took-the-burning-monk-photo-dies

https://time.com/3791176/malcolm-browne-the-story-behind-the-burning-monk/

https://tricycle.org/beginners/buddhism/why-have-some-buddhist-monks-set-themselves-on-fire/

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Aiden: 8 & 9 & 10 & 11 & 12

Domenick: 1 & 3 & 13

Easton: 4 & 5 & 11

Ahana: 4 & 5 & 6 & 7

Haasini: 2 & 3 & 12

Finished: 1, 2, 3, 8, 9

Perspective Narrative:

Aiden: Firework - 12

Ahana: ?

Domenick: Hamburger hill

Easton: Agent Orange

Haasini: Bamboo - Cause of war

Creative Piece #1:

Aiden: Short novel - 8 and 9

Ahana:

Domenick: Timeline

Easton: Letter

Haasini: Children's storybook - cause of war, participating countries

Journalism - Magazine:

Aiden: Breaking news - 10 and 11

Ahana: Breaking news - resolution

Domenick: Feature news -

Easton: Breaking news - resolution

Haasini: Feature news - Causalities

Creative Piece # 2:

Aiden:

Ahana:

Domenick:

Easton:

Haasini: Travel Journal - # 12

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Notes from my research and my brother:

The Vietnam War, spanning from the mid-20th century, remains one of the most intricate conflicts in history, shaped by a complex interplay of historical events, ideologies, and geopolitical dynamics. To understand its origins, we must embark on a detailed chronological exploration, spanning decades of colonialism, nationalism, and global power struggles.

1. Colonial Roots and French Indochina (1858-1940)

In 1858, France embarked on the colonization of Vietnam, eventually establishing control over the entire region of French Indochina, which included present-day Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

French colonial rule was characterized by exploitation of the region's resources, primarily rice and rubber, leading to economic disparities and widespread poverty among the indigenous population.

Cultural suppression was pervasive, as the French imposed their language, education system, and legal framework, eroding Vietnamese cultural identity and fostering resentment.

2. Rise of Vietnamese Nationalism (early 20th century)

The early 20th century witnessed the emergence of Vietnamese nationalist movements, inspired by figures such as Phan Boi Chau and Phan Chu Trinh, who advocated for independence and self-determination.

Nationalist sentiments were fueled by global anti-colonial movements and the principles of self-determination, championed by leaders like Woodrow Wilson after World War I.

Vietnamese intellectuals and activists utilized newspapers, pamphlets, and political clubs to disseminate nationalist ideas and mobilize support for resistance against French colonialism.

3. World War II and Japanese Occupation (1940-1945)

In 1940, Japan invaded French Indochina, seizing control from the weakened French colonial administration amidst the chaos of World War II.

The Japanese occupation brought significant changes to Vietnam, including the dismantling of French colonial institutions and the imposition of Japanese military rule.

While initially presenting themselves as liberators from Western imperialism, the Japanese exploited Vietnam's resources and manpower for their own war effort, leading to widespread suffering and resentment among the Vietnamese population.

4. Formation of the Viet Minh and First Indochina War (1941-1954)

Ho Chi Minh, a prominent Vietnamese nationalist leader, founded the Viet Minh in 1941, with the goal of resisting Japanese occupation and achieving independence for Vietnam.

Drawing inspiration from Marxist-Leninist ideology and nationalist principles, the Viet Minh employed guerrilla tactics and political mobilization to undermine Japanese and French colonial forces.

The First Indochina War erupted in 1946, as the Viet Minh launched attacks against French colonial garrisons across Vietnam, sparking a protracted struggle for independence.

5. Cold War Dynamics and the Domino Theory (1954-1964)

The Geneva Accords of 1954 temporarily partitioned Vietnam along the 17th parallel, reflecting the broader Cold War dynamics between communist and anti-communist forces.

The United States, guided by the Domino Theory, which posited that the fall of one Southeast Asian nation to communism would lead to the rapid spread of communism throughout the region, became increasingly concerned about the threat of communist expansion.

Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, the U.S. provided military and financial support to the government of South Vietnam, led by Ngo Dinh Diem, as part of its efforts to contain communist influence in Southeast Asia.

6. Gulf of Tonkin Incident and American Intervention (1964-1965)

In August 1964, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident provided a pretext for direct U.S. military intervention in Vietnam, as reported attacks on U.S. naval vessels by North Vietnamese forces prompted President Lyndon B. Johnson to authorize retaliatory airstrikes.

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, passed by the U.S. Congress in August 1964, granted President Johnson broad authority to use military force in Vietnam without a formal declaration of war, effectively escalating U.S. involvement in the conflict.

The deployment of U.S. combat troops in 1965 marked a significant escalation of the Vietnam War, transforming it from a localized insurgency into a major theater of the Cold War.

The causes of the Vietnam War are deeply intertwined with the historical context of colonialism, nationalism, and Cold War geopolitics. From the early stirrings of Vietnamese resistance to the Gulf of Tonkin Incident and beyond, a myriad of factors converged to ignite one of the most protracted and divisive conflicts of the 20th century. Understanding this detailed chronology is essential for unraveling the complexities and enduring impact of the Vietnam War on both Vietnam and the global community.

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Why is Agent Orange dangerous?

What are symptoms of being exposed to Agent Orange?

How has Agent Orange affected Vietnamese people?

This article was most recently revised and updated by

Agent Orange, mixture of herbicides that U.S. military forces sprayed in Vietnam from 1962 to 1971 during the Vietnam War for the dual purpose of defoliating forest areas that might conceal Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces and destroying crops that might feed the enemy. The defoliant, sprayed from low-flying aircraft, consisted of approximately equal amounts of the unpurified butyl esters of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T). Agent Orange also contained small, variable proportions of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo- p-dioxin-commonly called " dioxin"-which is a by-product of the manufacture of 2,4,5-T and is toxic even in minute quantities. About 50 million litres (13 million gallons) of Agent Orange-containing about 170 kg (375 pounds) of dioxin-were dropped on Vietnam. Agent Orange was one of several herbicides used in Vietnam, the others including Agents White, Purple, Blue, Pink, and Green. The names derived from colour-coded bands painted around storage drums holding the herbicides.

Among the Vietnamese, exposure to Agent Orange is considered to be the cause of an abnormally high incidence of miscarriages, skin diseases, cancers, birth defects, and congenital malformations (often extreme and grotesque) dating from the 1970s.

Many U.S., Australian, and New Zealand servicemen who suffered long exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam later developed a number of cancers and other health disorders. Despite the difficulty of establishing conclusive proof that their claims were valid, in 1979 U.S. veterans brought a class-action lawsuit against seven herbicide makers that produced Agent Orange for the U.S. military. The suit was settled out of court in 1984 with the establishment of a $180 million fund to compensate some 250,000 claimants and their families. Separately, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs awarded compensation to about 1,800 veterans.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Adam Augustyn.

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Agent Orange | Definition, Effects, & Victims

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Agent Orange, mixture of herbicides that U.S. military forces sprayed in Vietnam from 1962 to 1971 during the Vietnam War for the dual purpose of defoliating forest areas that might conceal Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces and destroying crops that might feed the enemy.

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This was a loud time in the roaring war, it shows soldiers fighting and holding their ground, the soldiers look scared, worried even, it is the middle of the Vietnam War, and the person closest to the camera is the head soldier in command commanding his army multiple shots firing between the two clashing sides, it smells of smoke and decay, his comrades are dying left, and right he decides to call in for backup, they'll be arriving shortly, but they don't know how much time they have, boom they have breached the entrance, he takes out his pistol and fares aimlessly, as the smoke widdles down, the chances of survival decrease, as the smoke clears they realize that the firing has stopped the enemy team has surrendered, he looks in front of him he sees his friend, his brother in arms laying lifeless on the floor, he runs to him seeing what has happened he sees a bullet wound he looks closer for further investigation, it was his bullet, he had killed his own friend, the war ends he goes back to living his life, he was on his way to his friends parents house to tell them about how their son was taken from this life far to soon. Tears drop from his eyes they drip further down his cheek and into his mouth, salty, salty that's the taste that's how he feels, is this life? I  have nowhere to go and now I'm going to tell my unalive friends, and parents what had happened to him, that his blood was on my hands, it was my fault, not his, I took his life, guns don't kill people do. (time ran out)

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My name is John Michael a army official that fought during the Vietnam war. This is a photo of me the blond one next to the flag. Furthermore, this flag was a very important peace during the war especially to me this was one of the only 2 reasons I still fought he other one being my sweetheart Elizabeth Jackson-heat my wife who passed yesterday. It was a sad passing but since she passed I started looking through my old photos of the war and it made me discover this one. In addition, after I saw this photo I tried to look for my friends that are in the photo Cris, Jayvon, and my best friend Olson, but sadly they have died as well so I decided to send this photo that I am writing about to the U.S. Vietnam War Museum.

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The Gulf of Tonkin Incident was a complex event that happened in the Gulf of Tonkin along the coast. This incident happened on August 2 to August 4, 1964. Furthermore, the U.S. destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy were sent to the Gulf of Tonkin. In addition the truth behind the incident is the president of the United States wanted to find a way to join the war s they shot at torpedo ships to give the congress a reason to allow the U.S. in the war. According to The Novel Voices of Vietnam.

On August 2nd the Maddox discovered that it was being approached by North Vietnamese torpedo ships; the Maddox shot warning shots at the torpedo boat to try and warn that they were getting close but then the torpedo boats still shot back at the Maddox. In trouble the Maddox called in air support from the Ticonderoga starting a air fight, although the fight started the Maddox was able to escape harm.

On August 4th the United States intercepted the North Vietnamese communications that led officials to believe that the North Vietnam planned to attack the destroyers. Later that night the two Destroyers, Turner Joy and Maddox went out to sea that night and were approached by multiple vessels, and it was to dark to aim so the destroyers could not hit the vessels. Furthermore, both destroyers shot at what they thought to be torpedo boats and called in air fighters. But the flyer of one of the air ships Stockdale later reported that he did not see any torpedo ships that night.

Johnson's response

Johnson and his advisors approved retaliatory strikes on North Vietnamese naval base as soon as the reports of the August 4th event came in. Johnson got his wish and joined the war with the South to fight the North.

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Gulf of Tonkin incident | Definition, Date, Summary, Significance, & Facts

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Gulf of Tonkin incident, complex naval event in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the coast of Vietnam, that was presented to the U.S. Congress on August 5, 1964, as two unprovoked attacks by North Vietnamese torpedo boats on the destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy and that led to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

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Topic 1: When did the war end? and when did it start

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Topic 1: When did the war end? and when did it start

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The USA got involved in 1954, and the ended war in the year 1975.

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France ruled over Vietnam from the late 1800's to 1954. Vietnam was part of a French colony called Indochina, which consisted of 3 countries, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.

During World War II, France lost Indochina to Japan. Then, Japan ends up losing World War II, France takes this opportunity to get Indochina back, to get their pre-war empire.

Before communism spread to North Vietnam, France controlled both parts of Vietnam (North and South). So, France developed the country to make more money. South was under this spell by the French and believed that whatever they did was the best for them.

Communism spread from Russia to China, China to North Vietnam. The North Vietnam wanted to reunite Vietnam as a whole under communism. France, The United States, and South Vietnam didn't want this. France and the U.S. were both concerned about the spread of communism in Southeast Asia, with France asserting its influence in the South by emphasizing that its actions were in the region's best interest.

"When the French first became interested in Indochina French missionaries sought to convert the Vietnamese to Catholicism, the religion of France." (digitalhistory.edu)

Sources:

https://www.history.com/news/vietnam-war-combatants

https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/teachers/lesson_plans/pdfs/unit12_1.pdf

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The National Liberation Front is a political organization formed on December 20, 1960 to overthrow the government of South Vietnam and reunite North and South Vietnam. The National Liberation Front is made up of civilian, political and military branches, also known as the Viet Cong (Vietnamese Communist).

As a whole, The National Liberation Front was a revolutionary movement that seeks the national independence of a country, usually by guerrilla warfare.

In the Vietnam War, The National Liberation Front was when North Vietnam fought to reunite the country under communism, during this process, the North used guerrilla warfare. The Guerrilla warfare is when operations / missions carried on by small individual forces. They usually have an objective of harassing, delaying, and disrupting the opponents operations.

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Table of Contents

This article was most recently revised and updated by

National Liberation Front (NLF), formally National Front for the Liberation of the South, Vietnamese Mat-Tran Dan-Toc Giai-Phong Mien-Nam, Vietnamese political organization formed on December 20, 1960, to effect the overthrow of the South Vietnamese government and the reunification of North and South Vietnam. An overtly communist party was established in 1962 as a central component of the NLF, but both the military arm, the Viet Cong, and the political organization of the NLF included many noncommunists. The NLF was represented by its own diplomatic staffs in all communist countries and in several neutral countries.

Unlike the Viet Minh (anti-French guerrilla force, many members of which became part of the Viet Cong), the NLF did not establish a provisional government until June 1969, when the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) of South Vietnam was announced. With the reunification of Vietnam in 1976, the NLF joined the Vietnamese Communist Party and the other political organizations in forming a National United Front.

Michael Ray.

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National Liberation Front | Facts, History, & Vietnam War

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National Liberation Front (NLF), formally National Front for the Liberation of the South, Vietnamese Mat-Tran Dan-Toc Giai-Phong Mien-Nam, Vietnamese political organization formed on December 20, 1960, to effect the overthrow of the South Vietnamese government and the reunification of North and South Vietnam.

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Over the course of the Vietnam War, The U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard unites trained and abetted the South Vietnamese forces. These forces located and destroyed the North Vietnamese troops and supply routes. They lead ground operations against the Việt Cộng, patrolled rivers, canals, and mined North Vietnamese ports.

The United States feared communism spreading and dominating South-East Asia, so the United States helped out the South to stop the spread of communism.

Some people thought South Vietnam would win because the United States was helping them, as the United States is known for their strong powers in the battlefields.

The US army had superior conventional weapons but they were ineffective against a country that was not industrialized, plus North Vietnam used guerrilla tactics and the dense jungle as cover.

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The U.S. presence in Vietnam began as early as 1944. By 1947, U.S. advisors were assisting the French colonial government in maintaining Indochine (as Vietnam was then known) as a colony.

At the same time, Soviet-supported rebel forces increasingly sought independence. For the U.S., the mandate was clear: limit Soviet power in Southeast Asia and halt the spread of communism. The first American death was in 1945. Direct U.S. involvement in Vietnam grew following surrender of the French and partition of North and South Vietnam in 1954. At that time, North Vietnam sought to develop a communist state, while South Vietnam aligned with the West.

Over the course of the Vietnam War, U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard units trained and assisted South Vietnamese forces; located and destroyed North Vietnamese troops and supply routes; conducted ground operations against the Việt Cộng; patrolled rivers and canals; mined North Vietnamese ports; participated in air and surface bombardment of targets in South and North Vietnam; flew reconnaissance and supply missions; and provided aeromedical flights, pararescue and air sea rescue. Meanwhile, medical teams worked tirelessly to aid sick, injured, and wounded service members. Helicopter ambulances brought casualties to hospitals within minutes of leaving the battlefield so that 97.4% of wounded service members admitted to military hospitals survived. Medical personnel participated in countless MEDCAP (Medical Civil Action Program) missions that provided medical care to Vietnamese civilians. At the close of the war, Air Force transports evacuated thousands of civilians and hundreds of former POWs.
Featured image: Men of the 503rd Infantry Regiment in Combat Near Đắk Tô, South Vietnam, Unidentified photographer, November 1967, Gift of Philip Harrison Enslow Jr., 2011

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America's Involvement | More Than Self: Living the Vietnam War | Exhibitions | Atlanta History Center

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The U.S. presence in Vietnam began as early as 1944. By 1947, U.S. advisors were assisting the French colonial government in maintaining Indochine (as Vietnam was then known) as a colony. At the same time, Soviet-supported rebel forces increasingly sought independence.

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Before the Vietnam War, economically, China was in a bad shape due to misguided economic policies. Despite this, China as a new communist country decided to help North Vietnam turn communist.

(China was trying to have as many neighboring countries turn communist as possible so they were willing to help North Vietnam become communist.)

China provided weapons, expertise, and manpower for the war. Everyone claims that China has spent over $20 billion in supporting North Vietnam and deployed 320,000 military personnel, in which 4,000 died.

For the most part, the Chinese stayed in the background. They rebuilt areas destroyed by the United States' bombs. If United States ground troops were to invade North Vietnam, China made it clear that they should expect a similar response.

Contrary to the Korean War, the U.S. surrendered to this threat.

China and the Soviet Union didn't have to contribute much to the war as the Americans, because they were supporting the side with more strength, however, Without China or the Soviet Union's assistance to the North Vietnamese, they wouldn't have been able to achieve their goal.

The U.S. military's budget was around 30 times greater than the entire gross national product of North Vietnam. (GNP)

The Gross National Product (GNP) is a way to measure all the goods and services produced by the people and businesses of a country, both inside and outside its borders.

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Initially, the Soviet Union took little interest in the Vietnam war then the Soviet Union increased its aid to North Vietnam following Nikita Khrushchev’s fall from power likely because of changes in leadership or strategic considerations.

The Soviet Union sought to make life challenging for the U.S. during the Vietnam War, driven by Cold War tensions and ideological rivalry. But, the Soviet Union didn't want to create a conflict between them and the U.S. so they sought this opportunity in front of them.

Along with other weapons, the Soviet Union provided surface-to-air missiles that China wasn't able to produce with the technology they had at the time. The Soviets were even rumored to have shot down some U.S. planes. However, they only deployed approximately 3,000 troops into the conflict, significantly fewer than the Chinese.

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Laos was neutral, it didn't side with North nor South Vietnam. In 1962, an agreement between the U.S., Vietnam (North & South) and several other countries agreed to leave Laos alone.

However, North Vietnam broke this agreement by sending troops , equipment and supplies Laos to support the troops on the battle field. During this time, North Vietnam took control of a communist rebellion.

In response, The United States bombed Laos for nine whole years. The Americans covertly rained down billions of pounds of bombs. It was go so intense that, on average, a planeload of explosives fell every eight minutes. Now, Laos remains the most heavily bombed nation on earth.

"Unexploded munitions from the Vietnam War-era continue to kill Laotians (and Vietnamese and Cambodians) to this day."

Additionally, President Richard Nixon allowed an invasion of Laos in 1971. Still, no matter how much they tried, The Americans never succeeded in intensively disrupting North Vietnam's supply routes neither did they stop Laos from becoming communist in 1975.

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The North Vietnamese moved troops, equipment and supplies through their neighboring country, Cambodia.

Initially, Cambodia was neutral in terms of the war and said nothing as North Vietnam moved through their country.

As said by Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodians felt as though they were surrounded by dangerous enemies. They had to be nice to them as they couldn't afford to offend the North Vietnamese despite being an anti-communist country in politics at that time.

Just like Laos, The United States reacted by secretly bombing the area, and President Nixon made it much more intense in 1969. Afterward, Nixon sent troops across the border in 1970, taking advantage of a sudden change in leadership that removed Sihanouk and replaced him with a pro-American general.

The U.S. bombing campaigns resulted in tens of thousands of Cambodians dying. Some historians argue that this may have contributed for the khmer Rouge, a communist insurgent group. The Khmer Rouge went on to seize power in 1975 and subsequently perpetrated a horrific genocide.

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Before the Vietnam War:

The Korean War took place from June 23 1950 - July 27 1953. During this war the U.S. helped South Korea.

Later on, during the Vietnam war, South Korea sends more than 320,000 troops to South Vietnam.

"South Korea dispatched forces to Vietnam partly to repay the U.S. for defending the South in the Korean War, Park says, and partly to keep the U.S. from pulling its own troops from South Korea and into Vietnam.

The U.S. paid Seoul some $5 billion in wages and assistance from 1965 to 1973." (npr.org)

"From Sept. 1964 to March 1973, more than 320,000 South Korean troops served in Vietnam. More than 5,000 South Korean’s died with more than 10,000 injured."

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A Vietnam War massacre case from 1968 forces a new reckoning in South Korea

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A Vietnamese woman sued South Korea’s government over a wartime massacre in her village by South Korean soldiers. A Seoul court recently ruled in her favor but the government will appeal the decision.

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Other countries with small contributions 

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Other countries with small contributions 

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During the Vietnam War, the Johnson administration actively sought international support to bolster its efforts. Several nations contributed to the conflict, driven by various motivations and interests.

Australia emerged as a significant contributor, deploying nearly 60,000 troops to support the United States and South Vietnam. The Australian forces faced significant casualties throughout the conflict, highlighting their commitment to the war effort.

Thailand also played a crucial role, contributing around 40,000 troops to the conflict. Their involvement was motivated by strategic considerations and a desire to maintain regional stability in Southeast Asia.

New Zealand made its presence felt with over 3,000 personnel serving in different capacities during the war. Despite being a smaller contributor, New Zealand's commitment underscored its support for its allies and its stance against communism.

Additionally, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Spain provided varying degrees of support to the United States. Their contributions, though smaller in scale, demonstrated their alignment with the anti-communist efforts in Vietnam.

Conversely, North Korea and Cuba allegedly provided assistance to the communist side, further complicating the geopolitical dynamics of the war.

Overall, the Vietnam War saw a diverse array of international contributions, reflecting the complex nature of the conflict and its global implications.

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Neutral or info: White

Relates to the South: Blue

Relates to the North: Purple

✨Chronologically ordered ✨

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Vietnam War: "What Are we Fighting For?"(ALP)

1860s - French held on to Vietnam even before and after World War II and imposed multiple rulings upon Vietnam.

1940 - Japanese came to Vietnam to interfere with French forces in hopes of gaining more territory.

1941 - A fifty-year-old Vietnamese man returned after thirty years of wandering abroad. His name was Nguyen Sinh Cung, later known as Ho Chi Minh.

Legends have it that he was a day laborer in Brooklyn and a pastry chef in a London Hotel. He traveled to Paris where he studied literature and philosophy and never forgotten about his homeland which was ruled by foreigners.

During his years in Europe, he was intrigued with the idea of Communism, even meeting up wiith Russian leaders Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky who were also mixed in the Communist group.

He returned to Vietnam changing his name to "Ho Chi Minh" which means bringer of light in Vietnamese.

He worked for an organization known as the Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh, or Vietminh for short, and thus grew suspicions because of his Communist ties.

Regardless, he was left alone as during World War II, any enemy of Japan was an aly to the US.

1954 - Vietminh were able to stop the French and defeated them in war later coming up with an agreement known as the "Geneva Agreement" which forced the French to withdraw for North Vietnam and the Vietminh and the French would have to leave South Vietnam. There would also have to be an election help in 1956.

During this time, a theory also formed. The Domino Theory is a theory involving world domination involving Communism. The basic idea was that if a nation no matter how big or small it was were to fall under Communist rule, the neighbors of the nation could be susceptible to Communist to and thus creating a Domino Effect.

1959 - Ho Chi Minh dreamed of a united Vietnam under Communist rule and so from the North, he rallied villagers in the Southern Vietnam to support his cause. Ngo Dinh Diem, the Prime Minister of South Vietnam, had called these supporters the Vietcong, Vietnamese Communist.

1963 - Diem was slowly and steadily losing followers. He was very reclusive in his activities, and imposed laws such as making dancing and popular music illegal and forbade women to wear make-up or western-style skirts. He closed down bars and gambling houses. He also made it so that public gatherings required government approval.

In response to this, Vietnamese people poured the streets protesting. One highlight protest involved a Buddhist Monk named Thich Quang Duc. He sat down in a busy intersection in Saigon and doused his orange robes with gasoline. He set himself ablazed and reporters quickly filled the scene recording the whole incident. Multiple protests involving suicide followed.

Madame Nhu, wife of Ngo Dinh Diem, quoted, "Let them burn and we shall clap our hands." On another occasion, she mentioned, "If the Buddhists want to have another barbecue, I will be glad to t supply the gasoline."

March 8, 1965 - The first combat troops were sent to Vietnam. U.S. Marines. Prior to this, hundreds of military advisors were sent to aid South Vietnamese in the war as regardless of South Vietnamese government, the US opposed communism. As the old saying goes, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Diem wasn't the most respectable leader, though as long as he opposed Communism, if the South were to win the war, the US hoped there would rise a new and better leader.

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Agent Orange is a mixture of herbicides that the U.S. military sprayed in Vietnam during the Vietnam War for the purpose of defoliating the trees and crops that might give resources to the enemies.

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The Domino Theory is a theory involving world domination involving Communism. The basic idea was that if a nation no matter how big or small it was were to fall under Communist rule, the neighbors of the nation could be susceptible to Communist to and thus creating a Domino Effect.

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This conflict started because of troubles from the north and the south, Vietnam became a communist country, from China, and they ended up getting back their land from the French. So people started to dislike Vietnam because no one likes a communist.

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Oh it's never felt so much better and alive. I feel like steroids are flowing in my body. I can see the flesh of the being, burned and chared. Red and burnt. His entire body blackened by my touch. Oh how much I love the pain.

They're all still. No one daring to take a step.They're all afraid. Scared. Pathetic beings. I'll consume you too. Die.

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A monk in Saigon doused in gasoline by a Buddhist and was burned alive. This was the Diem government discriminated against Buddhist.

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Comment any design ideas you have on this post.

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"Tien Nguyen"

Dear Ba Noi,

To describe and thank you and Ong Noi for what you've two done for me is ineffable. From making me Pho and Bánh tét, even giving up the massage chair to let me sit on it. Both you and Ong Noi mean beyond the world to me. I'm so glad you've taken the time to let me learn and share your experiences in the war.

Love,

Aiden Le-Poeng

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Smoke like illusions of clouds masked the sky with their bodies obstructing the sun. Though, clouds were moist and without a scent, smoke could clog your body, rotting your lungs. I smelt the smoke. I saw the smoke. It carried the message that there was still a quarrel amongst the land: Da Nang.

How much I would love to leave. I was so afraid. But even if I wanted to run, I couldn’t. The children, the farm, house, everything. How could we leave if we only have so much to hold on too. But if it's between life or death, do I let go?

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My hands were worn. They were constantly being soaked in water and strained with wringing clothes. Wrinkled and covered with blisters, it looked almost like wet paper with how rough it was. Nevertheless, I dipped my hand in the bucket and continued to wring the shirts and pants.

“Our only job is to live”. That was my Aunt’s favorite line. She believed deeply in the idea that we continue to work each and everyday just to provide for ourselves and families. I stayed at my Aunt’s house where I helped around with chores. I was constantly outside either hanging clothes or thrashing the stems of rice plants. The work was tedious, yet I never complained about it. I had been working since I was seven. Being seventeen, the thought of work seems to elude and becomes second nature.

My Aunt’s house was built on top of wooden logs walled by dried bamboo tied with vines with a roof of dried bamboo leaves. It was a simple house yet it required lots of care.

As I was doing the laundry one evening, I managed to let my mind go. At least that’s how it seemed. I hadn't put much thought into what I was doing. It was as if my body took over completely and I let my mind go numb. It was like a human going automatic. Strange.

It wasn’t until I heard a loud cry that I gained consciousness again. How horrifying it sounded; it was a scream that felt like it touched your entire body, as if the person had been stabbed multiple times over and over. As if the stab to the heart wasn’t enough. I froze still grabbing onto the shirt I was washing.

Multiple screams erupted outside carrying the voices of the villagers. I was shaken abruptly by my Aunt who rushed outside of the house. I looked at her and she looked back with such a horrified face, I felt death had already taken my life. She had said no words, however I could tell by her shaken eyes what she was thinking. Run.

I dropped the shirt I was washing into the bucked and dashed running to the front of the house barefoot feeling every grain of dirt with every step. She ran alongside me, however slow and broken footed.

When I reached the outside of the house, my body shook from the sight. Bodies laid like multiple rocks gathered and thrown. Still, and carelessly lying.

Men were killed relentlessly with multiple shots to their body. Children were slapped across the face and knocked with the butt of rifles. Mothers fell on their knees trying to ignore the shots in their body to hold the babies in their hands. However, they gave in, dropping them to the floor. How pitiful it was as they cried motherless.

It wasn’t until the ends pointed at their faces. And their cries ceased.

I ran and ran, away from the sight and away from them. They chased the running people with rifles lugged around their body. They always aimed for the head. Who would want to waste more than a bullet on us?

My aunt and I had kept a far distance away from the commotion which flicked in me a hope that we could escape. And then, she fell. A bullet had pierced her head and she had fallen to the ground. I paused and could see her face with her eyes wide open lying on the floor. I turned my head away and ran with my eyes closed and tears in my eyes.

Like a nightmare, I wanted to wake up.

Please let this be a dream.

Please don’t let my aunt die.

Please don’t kill me.

Why?

Why must this happen to us?

My eyes caught sight of the nearby forest and I sprinted as fast. I stubbed my feet into numerous branches though I ignored the pain. Sharp twigs stabbed my feet though I was numb to the pain. I tripped and fell, however I never failed to gain my balance. I wasn't going to allow myself to die. I couldn’t.

I ran endlessly until my human instincts told me to hide behind the tree in front of me. I walked slowly to the tree afraid to make any noise with my steps. All was silent, I didn't want to abrupt any of it. I stood standing, closing my eyes with my back to the tree taking a deep breath. Blood was spread across my body from small injuries on my run. I hadn’t lost much blood, yet I felt like I was about to faint.

I opened my eyes, and that's when I saw him. Looking straight at me. His eyes were empty. I felt such killing intent with just his glare.

His gun pointed at me and before I could react to anything, I fell to the ground. I felt nothing but laid there frozen. My hands slowly move to the upper part of my neck. Wet. Sticky. I pulled back from what I touched and what I saw almost made me faint. Blood.

Panting heavily, I heard another shot. I heard a thud from the direction of the person who shot me. Soon soldiers came rushing over me. I could see their faces only vaguely as they all looked blurry. Was I going to die?

I could tell they were yelling. Their faces were red and their mouths mimicked that of yelling. On their forehead showed tension as it formed wrinkles. Veins stretched from their necks that they seemed as if they were going to burst. So much was going on but yet, I heard nothing.

I could feel my body being luggaged by the men and before I knew it, I was lying down on what seemed to be a bed or some sort of cushion. I was afraid. Death itself didn’t scare me, though it was feeling it. Would I lose consciousness then and there? Would I die in a way which I sleep for eternity.

Before I could continue these thoughts further, I attempted to turn my head and look around. To my ignorance, I’d forgotten the wound beside my neck and so I could only move my eyes as I squinted in pain. My eyes caught sight of the outside and inside. On the very top of where I was seated, I could see two long blades. The blade spun faster and faster. I was on a helicopter. Like the helicopter, it seemed like everything was spinning. No longer being able to bear the pain nor the sight of everything around me. I closed my eyes, crossing my fingers I wouldn’t sleep forever.

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I awoke with my eyes squinting at a bright light. It hung on top of a white ceiling, staring at me while making a protracting noise. Though a soft sound, it sounded like how I imagined beams of lights would sound like.

Along with the straining noise, I heard the sound of something unknown to my ears. It was like a bird's chirp except louder. It pertained to a sort of high pitch instrument.

Beneath my body I felt cushions which were softer than the beds back home. How nice. I could stay here forever. My back felt stiff which I assumed meant I was asleep for a while. I attempted to raise my body but I failed to do so looking like a big fish flailing around widely.

I tried to turn my head, however I failed. I looked down with my eyes and saw my neck wrapped around in bandages. How did that happen? I turned my eyes left and saw that my arm was attached to a package of what seemed to be water. On my right, I found out where the high pitched sound was coming from. It looked like a plain white box however it had images on the face of it moving up and down. What a strange instrument.

I laid down looking up at the ceiling trying to recall what had happened. I felt like I was in an entirely different world with these sounds and mechanisms all seeming new to me.

I reached for the spot that nearly missed my neck and slid my hand across the side of my body where I had also been shot at. Both the injuries were bandaged, though it burned like boiling water.

The water continued to boil, and soon I grew numb to its heat. The energy in my body was sapped like a wilted flower. I felt myself slowly perishing from existence. I wonder if I was going to die. My eyes drooped and my vision went blurry. I closed my eyes. And I crossed my fingers, hoping to sleep forever.

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The first big-budget Hollywood film that confronted the Vietnam War was "The Deer Hunter". The Deer Hunter, showcased captive American soldiers being tortured and forced to play Russian roulette.

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Agent Orange consists of equal amounts of unpurified butyl esters of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid and 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid.

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Ik this seems off, but trust me, it's a good source for what I'm writing about...

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Ik this seems off, but trust me, it's a good source for what I'm writing about...

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One of the first big-budget Hollywood films to confront the Vietnam War, "The Deer Hunter," showed captive American soldiers tortured and forced to engage in a grisly game of Russian roulette. The film's grim depiction of young Americans' loss of innocence stirred raw emotion in audiences in 1978, three years after the war's end.

Ned Tanen, then the president of Universal Pictures, felt the intensity at a preview showing in Detroit. "The screening was a blood bath," Tanen said. "Some people were very moved, but we had walk-outs and lots of people who were enraged and totally shocked."

For the record:

For the Record
Los Angeles Times Friday April 21, 2000 Home Edition Part A Part A Page 3 Metro Desk 2 inches; 43 words Type of Material: Correction
Vietnam's effects--In an article Sunday on the Vietnam War's effects on American culture, a reference to a magazine cover satirizing the My Lai incident was incorrect. The cover featured the character Alfred E. Neuman and the headline "What, My Lai?" and appeared on the August 1971 issue of National Lampoon.

Tanen himself was confronted by a beefy auto worker who stormed out of the theater. "He said, 'Do you have anything to do with this [expletive] movie?' And when I said yes, he grabbed me by the throat and wrestled me to the ground. . . . I mean, this is the same film that won the Oscar, but here's this guy trying to punch my lights out in the lobby."

The tumultuous response to "The Deer Hunter" mirrored the divisions the war wrought in American society. For young and old, rich and poor, white and minority, Vietnam became the great divide, the catalyst for a seismic shift in contemporary pop culture.

The antiwar movement, coupled with the disillusionment of Watergate and the youth culture's embrace of mind-altering drugs, helped create a new breed of alienated antiheroes who have held sway in the culture for a generation, from John Lennon and Jack Nicholson to Kurt Cobain and Tupac Shakur.

This new pop culture sensibility embraced a provocative anti-authoritarianism that offered a clean break from the sunny optimism of most films and music in the 1950s and early 1960s. The war sparked an era of distrust, paranoia and cynicism among musicians, filmmakers, novelists and comedians. It could be heard everywhere, but especially in pop music, in the protest ballads of Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs, then in Top 40 hits like Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son" and Edwin Starr's "War."

Hollywood didn't directly address Vietnam until the war was over. But many of the most acclaimed films of the late '60s and early '70s, including "The Godfather," "Chinatown," "Easy Rider" and "Midnight Cowboy," were seen as heavily influenced by a distrust and cynicism that grew out of the war.

As critic Pauline Kael wrote in a 1973 essay called "After Innocence": "The Vietnam War has barely been mentioned on the screen, but you could feel it in the conviction-less atmosphere, the absence of shared values, the brutalities taken for granted. . . . the heroes didn't believe in anything and didn't pretend they did."

The war disturbed some artists while it inspired others. "Vietnam changed everything because it changed the way we looked at everything," says David Crosby of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, coauthor of "Stand and Be Counted," a new book about pop artists and politics. "The war was such a visceral issue that people couldn't help but create great art from it."

Counterculture Icons Molded by Conflict

Pop icons who embodied the mercurial spirit of this new counterculture were all shaped by the war: John Lennon performed at peace concerts; Muhammad Ali was stripped of his heavyweight crown for refusing to be drafted; Jimi Hendrix, a onetime member of the 101st Airborne division, regularly played "Machine Gun" in concert, dedicating the song to "all the soldiers fighting in Chicago, Milwaukee, New York and, yeah, all the soldiers fighting in Vietnam."

Hendrix's feedback-laced version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" became so fixed in youth culture consciousness that when Francis Ford Coppola made "Apocalypse Now," the director hired Randy Hansen, a Hendrix impersonator, to re-create the late guitarist's raw style on the film's soundtrack.

The war provoked art that fed the burgeoning "us versus them" antiwar spirit of the times.

"The war changed the music, and the music helped galvanize the antiwar effort," says Howie Klein, president of Reprise Records, who was active in college protests in the '60s. "The war was this hammer that split everything apart. Once you questioned the war, you began to question everything."

In Vietnam, soldiers listened to Hendrix, Dylan and the Jefferson Airplane. Black Marines in Da Nang started a riot when officers removed R&B; records from the PX jukebox.

In the last days of the war in 1975, the troops played the Animals' "We've Gotta Get Out of This Place." As Michael Herr wrote in his wartime memoir, "Dispatches," when he returned to the United States he couldn't tell "the Vietnam veterans from the rock and roll veterans. The Sixties had made so many casualties, its war and its music had run power off the same circuit for so long they didn't even have to fuse."

'Deeply Tortured Feeling' Drove Art

At home, musicians embraced the antiwar cause and provided the voice of the counterculture. "We were the town criers of the culture," says Crosby. The night Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles in 1968, Crosby stayed up and wrote "A Long Time Gone." After Neil Young heard the news that National Guardsmen had killed four Kent State college protesters in 1970, he wrote "Ohio." Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young recorded the song the next day. The song was on the radio a week later.

"The war provoked artists," says film director Arthur Penn, whose 1970 movie about a survivor of the Indian Wars, "Little Big Man," was inspired by his outrage against Vietnam. "It made people angry and depressed and involved. Great art isn't created in benign, complacent times like we're living in now. It's created when there's a deeply tortured feeling in the culture, when everything is in disarray."

Network prime-time television didn't deal directly with the war until "China Beach," a dramatic series set in an Army hospital in Vietnam, which arrived in the late 1980s. But the war, which was on network news every night, seeped into TV through routines on "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" and the hit sitcom "All in the Family," which used clashes between hawk Archie Bunker and his longhaired son-in-law, "Meathead," to air debates about the draft and other war-related issues.

Vietnam also inspired a new generation of acerbic satire. The originators of "Saturday Night Live" and the National Lampoon were twentysomething comics who came of age during the height of the antiwar movement. For them, anyone in authority was the enemy, an attitude that fueled films like the 1978 hit "Animal House."

Richard Belzer, the stand-up comic turned co-star of "Homicide" and "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit," recalls buying a Mad magazine after the My Lai massacre of Vietnamese civilians; the magazine had Alfred E. Newman on the cover, dressed as My Lai participant Lt. William L. Calley Jr., saying, "What, Me Lie?"

"One of the big turning points was seeing the Smothers Brothers get kicked off CBS for doing antiwar material," says Belzer, referring to the role the show's battle with network censors played in its cancellation in 1969. "When artists are repressed, it turns them into radicals. There was such a pervasive distrust of government that comedy became very political. A lot of great comics were doing satire--Richard Pryor, Robert Klein, George Carlin. It got to the point where every joke wasn't just a joke anymore. It was about questioning authority--it turned a lot of us from coincidence theorists into conspiracy theorists."

The movie industry, a far more cautious business than music or comedy, kept its distance from the Vietnam ferment until the war was safely over. One of the few antiwar films made while the conflict was still raging was "M*A*S*H," a 1970 comedy directed by Robert Altman and set during the Korean War. Its subversive air was perfectly in sync with the Vietnam protest era.

"Altman used to say that 'M*A*S*H' wasn't an antiwar movie but a movie against movies that made war seem acceptable," says Larry Gelbart, a writer-producer on the first four seasons of the "M*A*S*H" television series, which premiered in 1972. "It's no wonder that Vietnam was too hot to handle in Hollywood. After the Cold War and the blacklist, Hollywood was very hesitant about criticizing the government. No one wanted to be tainted by a brush with red paint on it," Gelbart adds, referring to Hollywood's shutting out, in previous decades, of industry figures suspected of Communist connections.

Studio executives viewed movies about the war as the ultimate lose-lose proposition--they were controversial and downbeat. One of the few movies made that dealt directly with the war before it ended was John Wayne's jingoistic "The Green Berets," made in 1968.

"Everybody was spooked by the subject of Vietnam. It was so divisive," recalls producer David Foster, who made "Heroes," a 1977 film starring Henry Winkler as a troubled Vietnam vet traveling the country looking up his war buddies. "Half the country was for the war and half the country was against it, so who are your customers? The only reason 'Heroes' got made was that we had Winkler, who was The Fonz on 'Happy Days,' so the studio thought everybody would like him."

Few Former Activists Made Antiwar Films

Even after "Heroes" did well at the box office, Vietnam remained a sensitive topic. Jerome Hellman, who produced the 1978 Jon Voight-Jane Fonda antiwar film "Coming Home" at United Artists, says every other studio turned him down. Mike Medavoy, who was head of production at United Artists when the studio made "Coming Home" and "Apocalypse Now," says that even though most '70s-era Hollywood filmmakers were sympathetic to the antiwar cause, the movies still had a divided reaction.

"After our marketing people saw 'Coming Home,' they came into my office and said, 'How dare you make this movie?' " he recalls. "They thought it anti-American. They said, 'You should be ashamed of yourself.' "

By the late 1970s, Hollywood was full of young executives who had been active in the antiwar movement. Yet few of them ended up making overtly political movies. Director Rob Cohen, whose first film, "Small Circle of Friends," was based on his activist years at Harvard, says there was a young antiwar executive at every studio. "But they ended up doing movies about bowling and country music stars," he says. "When you have people who are anticapitalist working in a highly capitalist business, you come out being a capitalist in sheep's clothing."

Still, many believe that Hollywood's liberal politics influenced the tone of Vietnam films. "There's a lot of guilt in those '70s films because very few young filmmakers ever served in the war," says critic David Thomson, author of "A Biographical Dictionary of Film."

"It's also why you see so many shattered-Vietnam-vet movies. People in Hollywood thought soldiers should come back without their legs as a symbol of America's decadence and stupidity."

Writer-director Patrick Duncan, who served in the 173rd Airborne in Vietnam, says he and his friends who had served in the war saw "Coming Home" and loathed its "negative stereotype" of despondent, disturbed Vietnam veterans.

"The movies created this new myth of the crazed Vietnam vet, when in reality 99% of us went back to our lives," says Duncan, who wrote "Courage Under Fire," set during the Gulf War, as well as the HBO series "Vietnam War Stories."

"It had a big impact on all news coverage. If a guy wore fatigues and carried a gun, every story would say, 'Crazed Viet Vet Shoots Up McDonald's,' even though he turned out to be a nut who'd never served in any war."

Mistrust of Authority Was Common Theme

Hollywood painted a considerably darker view of Vietnam than it did of World War II, though many would argue that it was an accurate reflection of the prevalent view in society. "Everyone stopped trusting the government . . . in films like 'Taxi Driver' and 'All the President's Men' on the left or 'Dirty Harry' on the right," says Peter Biskind, author of "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls," a history of 1970s Hollywood.

"The common denominator is that you can't go to the government and expect justice--you have to do it yourself, which is all linked to the trauma of the war."

Others believe Hollywood grew out of step with the mainstream. "Most Americans admire and trust the military, yet Hollywood makes movies which are profoundly anti-military," says critic Michael Medved. "The Gulf War, for example, was hugely popular with the public, yet the only Hollywood treatment of it has come in dark films like 'Courage Under Fire' and 'Three Kings.' Outside of the films made by Oliver Stone and a few other Vietnam veterans, Hollywood's Vietnam movies were made by people who had a tremendous desire to justify their reasons for avoiding serving in the war."

Hollywood's interest in Vietnam revived during the second term of the Reagan administration, with the box office success of "Rambo: First Blood II" in 1985. The hit film spawned a new cycle of Vietnam films, which included the boldly antiwar "Platoon" and the pro-military "Hanoi Hilton."

Perhaps the most influential film from that era was "Top Gun," a modern military drama that barely mentioned Vietnam but captured the gung-ho ebullience of the Reagan-era 1980s, much as "M*A*S*H" had captured the anti-authority mood of the '60s.

"Those movies were very much a reaction to the futility people felt about the war," says USC history professor Steven J. Ross, who is writing a history of American politics as seen through movie stars and their films. "The message was, 'We didn't lose the war, we just lost the will to win.' "

In pop music, the gulf between Vietnam critics and supporters was just as wide a decade after the war had ended. In 1984, when Reagan was running for reelection, Bruce Springsteen released "Born in the U.S.A.," whose title song spoke in the voice of an embittered Vietnam veteran. The widely divergent reactions to the album, whose cover had Springsteen in front of a huge American flag, showed how easily pop images can mean different things to different people in different political eras.

Rock critics viewed "Born in the U.S.A." as a bitter indictment of America's involvement in Vietnam, but many fans saw the song as an endorsement of patriotic values. After seeing Springsteen in concert, George Will wrote an admiring column, praising the star's blue-collar outfit of T-shirt and headband, which reminded Will of another pop symbol: Robert DeNiro in "The Deer Hunter." Soon Reagan was on the bandwagon, praising Springsteen during a New Jersey campaign stop, saying America's future "rests in the message of hope in songs so many young Americans admire: Bruce Springsteen."

Springsteen let his music speak for itself. But his use of Vietnam as a metaphor for his disillusionment with '80s Reaganomics helped inspire a new generation of socially conscious musicians.

"There's not a line in the song that I hadn't felt about myself as a kid growing up during that war," says maverick singer-songwriter Steve Earle. "I've written a helluva lot of songs about the loss of innocence, which is pretty much what Vietnam was all about."

But in an era like today, when pop music is ruled by teen idols and when movies that evoke the '60s--most notably "Austin Powers"--focus on style over substance, does Vietnam still have any hold on the pop culture imagination? Or do Da Nang and Hue feel as far away as Gettysburg and Verdun?

System Co-Opted Movement's Images

Haskell Wexler, who directed "Medium Cool" and was the cinematographer for "Coming Home," says the antiwar movement's politics were, to him, co-opted by the system.

"When I was making 'Medium Cool,' my crew couldn't get served in restaurants because they had long hair, and my actresses were arrested for suspicion of prostitution because they weren't wearing bras," he says. "A few years later, TV anchormen had long hair and everyone stopped wearing bras. The movement changed the appearance of culture, but its more serious message got choked off."

Others see Vietnam-era activism alive in a host of new political issues.

"Kids in their 20s are still anti-establishment, but it's more personal. They don't always connect it to politics," says director Robert Greenwald, whose new film, "Steal This Movie," chronicles the life of antiwar leader Abbie Hoffman. "My daughters and their friends have a real '60s envy; they want to know what it was all about. But the issues that move kids today are different--they're involved in protests against genetic engineering or the Seattle confrontation over world trade."

Danny Goldberg, the former head of Warner Bros. and Mercury Records who helped organize the 1979 "No Nukes" antinuclear concerts, contends that the activism of the Vietnam era is still a major influence on pop culture.

"The war is gone, but it helped fuel the culture wars that still exist today, whether it's the environment, abortion rights or gay rights," says Goldberg, who now runs Artemis Records. "Look at the many ways that Vietnam vets have made their presence felt, from Oliver Stone to John McCain. The war cast a big shadow. When we're 80, we'll all still be arguing over who was right and who was wrong."

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

LESSONS AND LEGACIES

Twenty-five years after the war, The Times is looking at Vietnam's impact on America, including its popular culture. Today in Sunday Calendar:

How filmmakers portrayed the war.

How war changed TV careers and coverage.

A visit to Maya Lin's veterans memorial, left.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Lessons and Legacies: 25 Years After Vietnam

The longest war America has ever fought--and the first one it lost--Vietnam continues to provoke questions and evoke emotions both vivid and complex. The U.S. was involved in Indochina from the late 1950s until the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975. Through the rest of this month, The Times will examine the impact of that turbulent time on American society and popular culture and on institutions from the military to the media.

Also see https://www.latimes.com

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Alienation: War, which ended 25 years ago, became a symbol used by artists to reflect changing views of U.S. Cult of antihero has persisted for a generation.

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The Battle of Saigon was on April 30 1975 and the battle was won by the North. Furthermore, Between 1968 and 1975 the war was turned against the United States with public support fading. In Addition, this battle was important to the war because it finally ending the war with a North Vietnam Victory.

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The National Museum of American Diplomacy

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On April 30, 1975, the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese Army, effectively ending the Vietnam War. In the days before, U.S. forces evacuated thousands of Americans and South Vietnamese. American diplomats were on the frontlines, organizing what would be the most ambitious helicopter evacuation in history.

The logistics of issuing visas and evacuating these Vietnamese and American citizens were not glamorous but were essential. American diplomats were behind every detail. Some diplomats showed exceptional bravery saving Vietnamese citizens who would have faced persecution under the new regime.

These artifacts and photos in our collection offer a glimpse of what diplomats and refugees experienced during the Fall of Saigon. More broadly, they show the challenging and dangerous circumstances diplomats may encounter while performing their work.

Saigon in April 1975

Although the United States had withdrawn its military forces from Vietnam after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in 1973, approximately 5,000 Americans remained-including diplomats still working in the U.S. embassy in Saigon. While President Nixon threatened a forceful response to a violation of the treaty, many factors, including lack of domestic support and the distraction of the Watergate scandal, provided an opportunity for the NVA to launch an offensive.

Throughout March and April 1975, the North Vietnamese Army captured more and more Southern cities. South Vietnamese citizens began to flee in mass numbers. The fall of the second-largest city, Da Nang, sparked even more refugees to depart.

In Saigon, South Vietnamese lined up at the embassy to gain entry to the United States. Patti Morton, a trailblazing Diplomatic Security Special Agent serving as a Regional Security Officer in Saigon-the first woman in such a role-documented the scene on the embassy grounds in the footage below, taken on an unknown day in April.

The Final Days: The Fall of Saigon

On April 29, 1975, North Vietnamese troops shelled Saigon's Tan Son Nhut Air Base. U.S. Ambassador Graham Martin then ordered the evacuation of Saigon. As a signal to Americans in Saigon that the evacuation had begun, Armed Forces Radio started to play "White Christmas" on repeat.

By this point, sea lanes were blocked and planes could not land in Saigon, leaving only one option for an evacuation: a helicopter airlift.

After the defense attaché compound was attacked, the U.S. embassy became the sole departure point for helicopters. The original plans called to only evacuate Americans, but Ambassador Martin insisted on evacuating South Vietnamese government officials and the embassy's local staff.

Meanwhile, 10,000 South Vietnamese waited at the embassy gates, hoping to make it onto a helicopter.

From April 29th to April 30th, helicopters landed at 10-minute intervals in the embassy, including landing on the embassy roof. With some pilots flying for 19 hours straight, over 7,000 people were evacuated, including 5,500 Vietnamese, in less than 24 hours.

Diplomat Wolfgang J. Lehmann and the Final Hour at the Embassy

One diplomat working to facilitate the evacuation was Wolfgang J. Lehmann, who served as the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. embassy in Saigon. Lehmann was one of the last people to leave the embassy on April 30th.

After witnessing Ambassador Martin depart on a helicopter and then departing on the next one along with about six other embassy staff members, Lehmann recalled the flight to a waiting evacuation ship:

"We could see the lights of the North Vietnamese convoys approaching the city...The chopper was packed with the rest of the staff and remaining civilian guards...and it was utterly silent except for the rotors of the engine. I don't think I said a word on the way out and I don't think anybody else did. The prevailing emotion was tremendous sadness."
- Wolfgang J. Lehmann

This day planner was used by Wolfgang Lehmann, the Deputy Chief of Mission in Saigon. The planner was donated to the museum in 2019 by Wolfgang's nephew, Walter Lehmann.

On the page documenting the day of April 30, 1975, you can see that Lehmann made two notes: "05:20 left Saigon" and "06:10 arrived USS Denver."

President Ford Thanks Diplomats for Historic Evacuation

Lehmann kept and framed a copy of this personal message sent on May 5, 1975 from President Ford to Ambassador Graham Martin, thanking him and the entire embassy staff for the successful evacuation effort. The telegram reads:

"Dear Graham: I want to express my deep appreciation to you and your entire staff for the successful evacuation of Americans and Vietnamese from Saigon. The tireless dedication of your mission and its skillful performance under the most severe pressure was vital to the accomplishment of this most difficult and delicate operation. Please accept as well my sincere personal compliments. Your courage and steadiness at this critical period enabled us to evacuate our own citizens and a very large number of endangered Vietnamese. I hope you will convey to your entire staff my deep gratitude and that of the American people for a job well done. Sincerely, Gerald R. Ford"

Diplomat Evacuates Hundreds of Vietnamese Refugees in Cần Thơ

While Saigon was falling, the rest of South Vietnam was also evacuating as quickly as possible. Approximately 100 miles away In Cần Thơ, one diplomat saved hundreds of Vietnamese refugees by devising and leading a risky evacuation.

Francis Terry McNamara served as Consul General in Cần Thơ, Vietnam at the time of the U.S. evacuation. In the hectic days prior to the final pull-out, McNamara's orders from the U.S. Embassy were to evacuate only the Americans; they were only going to provide helicopters with enough room to evacuate the 18 or so American employees - for expediency and security reasons.

McNamara knew that he could not leave his loyal Vietnamese employees or their families behind, as they would likely face detention or even death for working for the Americans.

McNamara refused to evacuate just the Americans from the consulate, as were the instructions from the evacuation coordinator in Saigon. Saigon desperately needed Cần Thơ's helicopters, the coordinator relayed.

Using his negotiation skills, McNamara said they could have the consulate's helicopters now, rather than in six hours after evacuating Americans, if McNamara could evacuate everyone, including Vietnamese staff, by boat.

After they got disconnected, McNamara was able to get Jacobsen back on the phone. He recalls,

"Reluctantly, he agreed, "You've got your permission to go by water," he granted. "Just get the hell out of there." I had finally worn him down. The whole world was ending around him, and he could not get me off the telephone."
- Consul General Francis Terry McNamara

Utilizing his skills as a former sailor, McNamara commandeered some barges with help from a USAID colleague and quickly loaded the remaining Americans, Vietnamese employees, and their families for evacuation.

McNamara captained the convoy down a Mekong Delta tributary, which was stopped at one point by the South Vietnamese Navy and took fire from Viet Cong troops. The U.S. Navy was supposed to meet them at the mouth of the South China Sea, but a ship never arrived.

The barge bobbed in the open sea for a few hours until they saw some lights. It was an American freighter contracted by the CIA for evacuations. However, they had no idea who McNamara and his band of about 300 Vietnamese and Americans were. They were finally convinced to take everyone on board to safety.

In 2019, Ambassador McNamara donated the U.S. flag and the Consular flags, taken from the consulate building as they evacuated and then subsequently flown on the barge he commanded during the evacuation. Over the years, the blues of the flags have turned to deep red due to a chemical reaction that occurs in some older plastic-based materials, including fabrics.

The Bravery and Resilience of Vietnamese Refugees

No one showed more bravery in this evacuation than the Vietnamese that went to extreme risks to evacuate their families from the war zone, risking their lives to board helicopters as quickly as possible. Some of those refugees would go on to become American citizens and serve their country, including serving as diplomats. One such story is that of Anne D. Pham, now a U.S. Foreign Service officer who was evacuated from Vietnam as a small child.

"...Brave individuals like USAID officers Joseph Gettier and Mel Chatman sought alternative, last-ditch means to rescue people. They commandeered military transport barges that had been used to carry supplies during the war...That was how my parents left their homeland with their six young children. Our escape down the Saigon River, with darkness setting in, was a dangerous one. Near Vung Tau Harbor, where the river opens to the Pacific Ocean, we came under rocket fire. Thankfully, as I was only 3 years old, I have only faint memories of the journey. As the barge drifted out to sea, crammed with refugees, my father held me close and solemnly said to my eldest brother: "Take a good look at your country. It will be the last time you see it." The next day, we were plucked out of the ocean from our barge and boarded the U.S.S. Sgt. Andrew Miller."

Pham would later join the Foreign Service and become a faculty member of the National Defense University. She had opportunities to meet and honor "her heroes" that played a part in the evacuation. She recounts:

"By saving me on that fateful day, they planted the seeds of strength and hope that helped me to achieve my dream of working for the State Department...While I am a product of a painful chapter in history, I am also a product of the greatness of America, with its diverse society, democratic ideals and opportunity for all. Only in America can a former refugee child become a senior adviser working for the same agency as do the Foreign Service officers who saved her."
- Foreign Service Officer Anne D. Pham

References: Finding My Heroes, Finding Myself: From Refugee Child to State Department Official | The Foreign Service Journal - April 2015 Tears Before the Rain: An Oral History of the Fall of South Vietnam Oral History of Wolfgang J. Lehmann | The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project Oral History of Ambassador Francis Terry McNamara | The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project

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The Fall of Saigon (1975): The Bravery of American Diplomats and Refugees - The National Museum of American Diplomacy

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On April 30, 1975, the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese Army, effectively ending the Vietnam War. In the days before, U.S. forces evacuated thousands of Americans and South Vietnamese. American diplomats were on the frontlines, organizing what would be the most ambitious helicopter evacuation in history.

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Hamburger Hill was a battle from may 10 to may 20th 1969 that was won by the South. This battle was important to the war because it was a fight for a 3,000 foot hill and who ever controlled the hill would gain a huge advantage because they would have the high ground.

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For almost 11 days in May 1969, American troops waged a deadly battle for control of a 3,000-foot-tall hill in a remote valley in South Vietnam. Famously known as "Hamburger Hill," the battle launched the first phase of Operation Apache Snow, a coordinated attack by the U.S. Army and South Vietnamese forces (known as the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, or ARVN) against units of the northern People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN). The operation's goal: to eliminate enemy forces in the A Shau Valley, including a regiment commonly referred to as the "Pride of Ho Chi Minh."

Hamburger Hill marked a turning point in America's involvement in the Vietnam War. After nearly a dozen deadly assaults, on May 20 the U.S. military finally captured Hill 937, known locally as Dong Ap Bia ("the mountain of the crouching beast"). When they abandoned it just days later, controversy erupted over what many saw as a senseless loss of lives-a debate that has continued in the decades since.

How the Battle of Hamburger Hill Got Its Name

The hill and the battle got its infamous nickname thanks to the intensity of the fighting there, in what soldiers dubbed a "human meat grinder." Sergeant James Spears, a 19 year old who fought in the battle, told reporters, "Have you ever been inside a hamburger machine? We just got cut to pieces by extremely accurate machine-gun fire." The name "Hamburger Hill" caught on quickly, in part, because so many journalists flocked to the area to report on the battle.

High causalities resulted, in part, from a shift in the North Vietnamese fighting strategy. "They know they don't have to win the war, they just have to outlast the United States," says Meredith Lair, associate professor of history at George Madison University. "It's not about achieving a decisive victory, but to inflict damage and wreak havoc with the political situation in the United States."

Bob Harkins, who was the commanding officer of Alpha Company, 3rd Battalion, 187th Regiment, elaborated: "They read the U.S. newspaper clippings, and they saw the demonstrations and unpopularity of the war. If they could inflict major casualties on us, then that would necessitate a change in our tactics. And to a great extent, it did."

Medics rush an injured paratrooper to an evacuation helicopter during fighting on 'Hamburger Hill' in the Vietnam War. (Credit: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)

Hamburger Hill's Forested Terrain Posed Challenges

Located in the northern region of what was then the Republic of South Vietnam, Hamburger Hill sits approximately 60 miles south of Khe Sanh, and just a little more than a mile from the Laos border, in the A Shua Valley. Although the hill itself held little strategic significance, the valley was the scene of fierce fighting throughout the Vietnam War because it was a common supply route for North Vietnamese troops and matériel moved along the legendary Ho Chi Minh Trail, which stretched through North and South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

Both the valley and the hill were remote and densely forested, making it difficult for the U.S. military to conduct accurate reconnaissance work. Instead, they were forced to rely on reports by combat patrols, along with information gleaned from PAVN prisoners-leaving them ill-informed about the size and location of enemy forces in the early days of the battle. Indeed, few of the soldiers who fought there were even told before the mission that taking the hill was their objective.

The Battle Went on for Days

When the 3rd Battalion, 187th Regiment landed on the hill on May 10, military command estimated that they would reach the summit in a matter of hours. Instead, it took 10 more days and nearly 12 full assaults.

The U.S. Army dropped more than 1,088 tons of bombs, 142 tons of napalm, 31,000 rounds of 20-mm shells, and 513 tons of teargas on North Vietnamese forces. "It looks like a moonscape," Lair says. "It looks a lot like the Western Front battlefields of World War I...absolute devastation."

Once the fighting was over, 72 Americans were dead (some from friendly fire) and more than 370 were wounded. Estimates of North Vietnamese losses vary, but at least 630 were killed. According to James Wright, emeritus professor of history at Dartmouth College and the author of Enduring Vietnam: An American Generation and Its War, the four companies of the 187th that landed on that first day suffered casualty rates of 50 to 75 percent.

The U.S Military Quickly Pulled Back

And yet, just days later, on June 5, 1969, U.S. forces withdrew from the hill. The North Vietnamese soon reoccupied it.

While American withdrawals of this nature were common during the war, Wright believes the decision to abandon Hamburger Hill may have been influenced by the nearby Battle of Khe Sanh in early 1968. That led to a 77-day siege during which U.S. Marines struggled to hold on to a garrison under fierce attack by the North.

Harkins thinks much of the controversy surrounding Hamburger Hill can be attributed to misconceptions of the mission's true aims. "The battle got caught up in (old) WWII terminology about capturing terrain," he says. "In Vietnam, as long as there were no bad people on that hill, that hill had no significance. We didn't fight it for terrain, we fought it to destroy a (enemy) force."

Controversy Began on Homefront Before the Battle Had Ended

On May 20, the day the hill was captured, Sen. Edward Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat, took to the Senate floor and denounced the battle. Other politicians and activists joined a chorus of voices who believed American blood had been needlessly shed.

This in itself was a turning point in the war. Previously, says Wright, critics had focused primarily on the geopolitical wisdom of fighting this war, or on the casualties and the cost of military engagement. Increasingly, they decried civilian casualties, on the morality of the war. Now, he added, "criticism expanded to include tactical wisdom, military judgment and the competitive egos of commanders."

But the public wasn't willing to absorb casualties in 1969 to the same degree they had four years earlier. Some 30,000 G.I.s had died in the interim and the antiwar movement had reached full flower. Hamburger Hill, Lair says, "was a real shock to the system."

But while some criticized what they considered a senseless loss of life, many who fought at Hamburger Hill had a different opinion. As Harkins recalls, "I was lying in a hospital bed and my kids brought the newspaper to me, and the headline was 'Senator Kennedy says it was a waste of life.' Well, you could imagine the kids who just got shot and saw their buddies get shot. And they asked me, 'Sir, do you think we did the right thing?' Yeah, we did the right thing. To hell with Kennedy. He doesn't know what we were doing."

Hamburger Hill Changed U.S Military Tactics

In the immediate aftermath of Hamburger Hill, the United States shifted its tactics. Over the protests of some senior military leaders, the Defense Department significantly restricted the size and scope of U.S.-led missions. And on June 8, less than three weeks after the battle ended, President Richard Nixon announced a new policy (already well into the planning stages before Hamburger Hill) known as Vietnamization. The South Vietnamese army would now be primarily responsible for combat operations, and U.S. troops would begin to withdraw.

"We tried to not engage with North Vietnamese units, and push the South Vietnamese to do that. And that worked until 1974-75, when the North Vietnamese launched its all-out assault into South Vietnam," Harkins says.

Hamburger Hill's Legacy

In the 1990s, Hamburger Hill veterans began an annual gathering at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, home to the 101st Airborne Division. Each year, some 50 to 80 former members of the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment gather there. The goal, Harkins says, is "to connect with the current soldiers of the battalion. We spend time with them, talk to them about how we did things, how they did things. Really listen to them and try to bond with the current members of the unit." The reunion provides both an opportunity to remember and honor those lost on Hill 937, and an opportunity for those who survived it to pass along their knowledge to a new generation.

The Battle of Hamburger Hill continues to have a hold on American memory. The fighting there has been immortalized in films, television shows, video games and even referenced in a song by rapper Eminem.

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Why the Battle for Hamburger Hill Was So Controversial

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For almost 11 days in May 1969, American troops waged a deadly battle for control of a 3,000-foot-tall hill in a remote valley in South Vietnam. Famously known as "Hamburger Hill," the battle launched the first phase of Operation Apache Snow, a coordinated attack by the U.S.

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Tet Offensive was between January 30 to March 28 in 1968 This battle was won by the South. This battle affected the war because it was the peak of the U.S. support, after this battle the U.S. troops and officials in the war started to erode giving the North more power and a better chance to win the war.

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Today, we're passing along a bit of history that made a big impact during the Vietnam War - the Tet Offensive.

Some may know the Tet Offensive had something to do with Vietnam, but that's about it. Jan. 30 marks the anniversary of the start of that campaign, so what better time than now to learn a little about it, right?

The Tet Offensive was a big deal because it marked the peak of U.S. involvement in the war. Before then, U.S. forces had been on the ground for more than three years, fighting with South Vietnam's democratic government to try to expel the communist north. After Tet, however, U.S. troops' numbers - and public support - started to erode.

But how? Why? Well, here's the gist of it.

The Enemy's Plan: Division and Collapse

Although the U.S. had better trained troops, more air power and more artillery than the North Vietnamese government, both sides were at a stalemate in early 1968. So, the leader of the north, Ho Chi Minh, set about a plan to break that.

On Jan. 30, 1968, in a wave of coordinated surprise attacks, Ho Chi Minh sent 70,000 of his troops and members of the Viet Cong - guerilla allies from the south - to overrun military bases, towns and cities in South Vietnam, including the capital, Saigon.

His goal was two-fold:

Managing the Element of Surprise

How was the enemy able to get the jump on U.S. and South Vietnamese troops? It all had to do with timing.

Tet is a huge holiday in Vietnam marking the start of the Lunar New Year. In the first few years of the Vietnam War, there had been decreased fighting around the holiday, so U.S. troops and its allied forces thought that would continue in 1968.

But enemy leaders saw it as the perfect time to pounce. Not only would the Allies be unprepared, but holiday travelers would provide good cover for the Viet Cong to make their move.

The Battle for Hue

While American and South Vietnamese troops were caught off-guard by the attacks, they were able to quickly retake most territory the enemy captured, including the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, where the Viet Cong had managed to breach the outer walls.

But the Battle for Hue City was a different story. Enemy invaders quickly overwhelmed the city's government, took control of its ancient citadel and executed thousands of residents. It took nearly a month for Allied troops to regain control there, and it came at huge costs - hundreds of U.S. troops and thousands of communist soldiers lost their lives.

Hue's losses were costly off the battlefield, too. While U.S. military leaders claimed we were winning the war, journalists - who were given unprecedented access to military engagements at Hue - painted a different picture. And that changed everything.

Militarily, a U.S. Win; Publicly, an Ugly Turning Point

The Tet Offensive ended in early April 1968 as a military defeat for the communists. The enemy failed to keep any captured territory, the Viet Cong's southern infrastructure was decimated, the South Vietnamese refused to embrace the north's ideals, and thousands of enemy fighters died.

At the same time, though, it was a huge loss for the U.S. cause. The shocking images coming out of Vietnam vividly showed the horrors of the war, and many were shocked by the enemy's resilience. Tet made it clear that a U.S. victory in Vietnam was not imminent, and the American public's support began to wane.

After Tet, U.S. generals at the heart of the campaign asked to add to the more than 500,000 troops already in Vietnam, hoping to start a counteroffensive. But President Lyndon B. Johnson and other leaders, taking note of growing antiwar sentiment at home, chose to do the opposite. Troop limitations were announced, and there was a halt on bombings. De-escalation began.

Essentially, the Tet Offensive was the beginning of the end of the Vietnam War. It took seven more years of fighting to officially come to a close, but that attack by the north is what started the negotiations.

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Highlighting History: How "Tet" Began the End of Vietnam

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The Tet Offensive was a big deal because it marked the peak of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

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The battle of Khe Sanh was from January 21 to March 31 1968. Furthermore, this battle was significant to the war because it was one of teh largest and bloodiest battles also it helped the North divert U.S. troops and material to the fringes of the country helping the North prepare for Tet Offensive.

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There was no real affect of religion of the fighters and government officials in the war; but it did affect the everyday citizens did get affected because of the events of the war and since all these bad things happened during the war made the citizens try and build a relationship within their religion to stop the bad things from happening.