Forrest Gump: the Vietnam War Through the Eyes of a Child

“In August of 1964, in response to the American and GVN espionage along its coast, the DRV launched a local and controlled attack against C. Turner Joy and the U.S.S. Maddox , two American ships on call in the Gulf of Tonkin” (Brigham 2). This resulted in the United States government giving Lyndon Johnson the ability to make war under the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. President Johnson then gave orders to perform air raids on Northern Vietnam pushing the United States further into the war. Compared to 1962 when only 9,000 soldiers supported the South Vietnamese, by June 1965 82,000 soldiers occupied the country. The number only continued to rise exponentially, and by 1966 370,000 soldiers had been sent in to prop their South Vietnam allies. President Richard Nixon withdrew American soldiers from Vietnam and as part of the “vietnamization” of the war. Over and 60,000 American soldiers had been lost in a war to preserve the status quo, not to win.

At the time of John Kennedy’s assassination there were 16,000 troops that were stationed in Vietnam -Brigham, 1. U.S. policymakers had to face the fact that there still needed to be more troops deployed into Vietnam to maintain the ultimate south

The Vietnam war did not officially start until the 1950's. This is when the U.S. started sending in troops. Before then the French had been trying to conquer what was then called Indochina. They began their conquest in 1859, by 1888 they had turned the area that is now called Vietnam and Cambodia into the Colony of French Indochina. This was challenged many times by different uprisings but none worked as well as the Viet Minh common front( this was controlled by the Vietnamese communist party). During WWII the French were defeated by the Germans. This severely weakened their authority in Vietnam. In 1940 the Japanese invaded and

To get some context the Vietnam War was part of a series of wars known as the Indochina Wars. The Vietnam War was preceded by the first Indochina War around fifteen years earlier. The first Indochina War was a fight for freedom between the Vietnamese (Viet Minh) and the Japanese/French. France had previously occupied Vietnam and Vietnam was known as French Indochina. The Viet Minh were

During the 1950s, US advisors were sent to French Indochina or what is South Vietnam (Eckhardt, 1991:6). Because of many internal conflicts with the North trying to take over the South, U.S. increased their involvement in Vietnam in the 1960s, nearly quadrupling the number of American troops in South Vietnam during 1961 and in 1962 (Hayes, 2014). The US continued to deepen its involvement, so that by the end of 1964 the Gulf of Tonkin resolution gave the President the authority to assign massive

While Kennedy was in office Kennedy he agreed to help Diem regime during his term in 1961. Kennedy sent more advisors and soldiers were sent to South Vietnam. In 1963 Kennedy tacitly approved an operation to overthrow Diem about three weeks before his assassination.

The Vietnam War began in 1954 and came to an end in 1975. It was a conflict that set in opposition the communist regime of North Vietnam and the Viet Cong

The United States began to support South Vietnam, but Diem proved to be a horrible leader and in 1963 was killed during a coup issued by John F. Kennedy. The National Liberation

After the assassination of President Kennedy President Lyndon Johnson used an alleged attack on a U.S. Navy ship in the Gulf of Tonkin to justify ordering massive amounts of American troops into South Vietnam to fight the North Vietnamese communists and Viet Cong who were coming down from the North. At one time there were 500,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam and the death toll some weeks (shown on television, along with images of the bloody fighting) added up to hundreds. Americans (especially young people) began to demonstrate against the war in the streets (Chandler, 2004).

From 1954-1963, Diem presided over an increasingly corrupt, devious, and repressive regime. Communist guerrillas backed by North Vietnam launched a new rebellion, but a civil disobedience campaign led by the country's Buddhist monks contributed more directly to his downfall. Brutal persecution of the dissident monks in 1963 damaged the regime's already shaky international reputation. With American support, Vietnamese

In 1958, Communist-led guerrillas, eventually known as the Viet Cong, began to battle the government of the South Vietnamese. The United States then sent 2,000 military advisors t support South Vietnam’s government. This number grew to 16,3000 by 1963. The military force slowly deteriorated. By 1963 the fertile Mekong Delta was lost to the overpowering Viet Cong. The war rose in 1965, when President Johnson issued commencing air strikes on North Vietnam and ground forces, which had risen to 536,000 by 1968. The Tet Offensive by North Vietnam turned many Americans against the waging war. President Nixon, following Johnson, promoted Vietnamization, the withdrawing of American troops and handing over the great responsibility of the war to South Vietnam. Protesting of the war dramatically increased, especially after Nixon’s attempt to slow North Vietnam forces and supplies into the South by sending American forces to destroy supply bases in Cambodia in 1970, which violated Cambodian neutrality. This provoked antiwar protests on many of the United Stats’ college campuses. In 1968 through 1973 attempts were made to end the ongoing conflict through diplomacy. Then in January 1973, an agreement was reached. U.S. forces withdrew from Vietnam and the U.S. POWs were released. In April 1975, South Vietnam surrendered to the North and Vietnam was once again united. The Vietnam War ended, but it took the lives of 58,000

“The Vietnam war was a costly and very long conflict that eroded the communist regime of North Vietnam and its allies against the South Vietnam and its ally, us the United States of America (Unknown Source).” The Vietnam War began on the eve of 1959, causing a struggle between two of our major national forces. These two forces were attempting to unify the country the both love, Vietnam.

The conflict in Vietnam for the United States started when President Dwight D. Eisenhower went along with the domino theory and sent in military advisors in South Vietnam to stop the communist movement from taking place in South Vietnam. The Vietnam conflict was between the communist’s and the United States. North Vietnam was led by Ho Chi Minh, and Ho Chi Minh led the Viet Cong, a guerilla group to help spread communism. The United States were supporters of the South Vietnam because they wanted them to maintain their government rather than falling to the domino theory of communism. After Eisenhower’s term ended John F. Kennedy became president and took control of the situation of Vietnam but on November 22, 1963, Kennedy was

United States Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy had spent millions of dollars to aid the non-communist South Vietnamese. Before 1964 thousands of American military advisers were training and assisting the South Vietnamese army. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s decision to bomb North Vietnam put the United States in the center of the longest war in the nations history. The Vietcong (North Vietnamese) grew more aggressive after the incident at the Gulf of Tonkin. On November 1964, they attacked the American base at Bien Hoa and destroyed five B-57 jets while damaging twenty more. Since the increase of tension with the Vietcong continued, draft calls had increased substantially in the United States and American casualties were being felt across the country.

After noticing that South Vietnam was on shaky ground, President Kennedy decided to send in a limited number of troops to aid Diem and his government. However, Diem began to lose popularity among his people and eventually he and his brother were assassinated. Three weeks after the deaths of these two leaders, President Kennedy was assassinated. President Lyndon B. Johnson decided more action needed to be taken in South Vietnam and, after two U.S. ships were destroyed in the Gulf on Tonkin, Johnson and his administration began to order air attacks upon the North Vietnamese (the U.S. referred to them as the "Vietcong"). Soon afterwards, the NLF attacked two U.S. army installations in South Vietnam and, as a result, Johnson orders bombing missions