Vietnam+-+Path+to+War

Vietnam is on the other side of the world from the US. It is called French Indo-China. Vietnam was part of France during the Imperial Age. In the early 1900's a man named Ho Chi Minh lead a communist revolt. He has been asking that Vietnam should be become independent from France for many years including at the treaty of Versailles. In the 1940's during WWII Vietnam is still under French rule but is taken over by Japan like many other surrounding countries in South East Asia at the time. He becomes famous for being a rebel leader against the Japanese while under their rule. After the war France took over again but Ho Chi Minh formed a rebel group and started a war for Independence. He finally won and Vietnam became a Communist country. All during this time President Truman was sending military help and money to France

The US becomes worried because the Red Scare is going on and so the US wants to contain communism. US tries to stunt the growth by "temporarily" splinting Vietnam in two by the Geneva accords. Soon there are going to be free elections to unite the country. The southern part of Vietnam "South Vietnam" was lead by a man named Ngo Dinh Diem. Soon a civil war starts between the two countries and this is where the US starts to get involved. Now America's involvement. President Eisenhower takes a very active roll now. He starts sending military advisers to help train South Vietnam's army for defense against the Vietcong. Soon there is a cue of Ngo Dinh Diem when JFK takes over.He doesn't want to be soft. Then JFK dies. LBJ takes over. He just begins sending more advisers like usual but then he starts to see that Vietnam is more important. One day US ships are patrolling the Gulf of Tonkin and North Vietnamese ships start torpedoing a US destroyer. LBJ then gets a bill passed so he can send all the troops he wants to NV without declaring war. First LBJ came up with the plan Rolling Thunder which is a plan to relentlessly drop a seemingly endless supply of bombs on the NV until they give in. That doesn't work and the first 3,500 US marines land in 1965 to be active ground troops.