Summary

When WWII ended, the Allies occupied Vietnam and assigned Great Britain and China to disarm the Japanese. The country was divided at the 16th parallel with China in command of the North and Great Britain in command of the South. In the South, the British helped the French regain power, a power they had held in Indo-China for a century.

The Viet Minh, under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh claimed North Vietnam. The French and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV or North Vietnam) entered into negotiations for a planned free election for national unity. The election never happened. The French and Viet Minh fought a bloody war with a terrible French defeat in the valley fortress of Dien Bien Phu. At a peace conference in 1954 the French and the DRV agreed to a temporary division of the country at the 17th parallel. The French in the South and the DRV communists in the North.

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At this time, the soon to be famous DMZ or de-militarized zone was created at the dividing line of North and South, the 17th parallel. Once again, an election was planned to vote on national unity, and the election never happened. By the 1960's Americans had totally replaced the French in South Vietnam. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency established one government and then assasinated the president they established. In 1964, acting on disinformation about an attack upon U.S. warships in the Tonkin Gulf, the U.S. formally attacked North Vietnam and America's longest war was underway.

The war incited riots in the streets of almost every large American city and near disintigaration of the U.S. military.

President Lyndon Johnson called for an international show of many flags to stop the communists threat that both he and previous President John F. Kennedy had seen in Southeast Asia. In the end, seven countries joined America's "Free World Forces ": Australia, Korea, Thailand, New Zealand, The Phillipines, Taiwan and Spain. Many Canadians also fought with U.S. armed forces.

There were 10 million Americans under arms during the war. Three million Americans saw combat. The average age was 19, America's youngest combatants.

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Analysis

I believe very strongly that Vietnam was an unnecessary war because of the way America handled it. Were the parties involved a threat in any way to America or related to the everyday affairs of American citizens? I don't think so. The countries or nations involved had nothing to do with America and as far as I am educated I believe that America was in a neutral cituation with all of the countries involved. The world was and still is in a uproar over America's involvement with the vietnam war. Thousands of innocent young soldiers died in the war to to a stupid decision that someone made who had more power than us "normal citizens". I tell you what, if the war was to happen tommorow and I knew the information that I know about it now, I would be one of the American soldiers who took off to Canada to stand up for what they believe in. My dad was kind of involved in this war because he grew up with the so called "hippies". His brothers all went to vietnam and all came back alive. He was the only brother who was not drafted for the war. My dad in the era of the war marched and protested for the rights of american citizens and shaked Bobby Kennedy's hand the day before he was shot. Those are just some other things that I remember people telling me about the "vietnam era."

Postscript

Link to my postscript on the use of HTML and Internet for researching and essays.