THE VIETNAM WAR “It was wrong, terribly wrong.” -Robert McNamara

I. BEFORE WE GOT THERE….  Vietnam had a history of being conquered and controlled  Former French colony  Japanese occupied during WWII  After the Japanese defeat in WWII, Vietnamese thought they could get a fresh start…WRONG!  The French wanted them back as a colony  French-Indochina War  Ho Chi Minh led the Vietnamese forces  He was a communist

II. LONG TERM COMMITMENT  Truman pledged money to help the French defeat the communist forces in Vietnam  Eisenhower continued that support plus added some military advisors  Dien Bien Phu- French give up and Vietnam is divided into north and south  What does this mean for the US?  Let’s pick a leader  US proped up leader Ngo Dinh Diem in the the South  Diem was a brutal dictator  He was not loved by the people  South Vietnamese really don’t want him as the leader, like Ho Chi Minh instead

II. LONG TERM COMMITMENT CONTINUED ….  Diem started creating a lot of problems, uncomfortable for the US  JFK withdrew support to Diem  Military coup  US found a new leader to prop up  Continued fighting to stop the spread of communism

III. SEND IN THE TROOPS  Lyndon B. Johnson committed troops after the Gulf of Tonkin incident, 1964  Gulf of Tonkin Resolution- Congress allowed LBJ to do what was necessary to resolve the conflict  So who were we fighting?  North Vietnamese forces (Viet Minh)  South Vietnamese guerilla fighters that supported Ho Chi Minh (Vietcong)  Who was on our side?  The South Vietnamese government (run by a military general)

STOP!  Reflection Question #1  Why didn’t the United States have the full support of the people in South Vietnam?

IV. FIGHTING THE WAR  American military wasn’t prepared for geography  Jungle, rivers, rain  American military didn’t know how to respond to guerilla warfare  Hit and run attacks  Vietcong used tunnels to move supplies and troops  Americans couldn't’t tell our enemy from our friend  Civilians worked as spies, transported supplies, and hid supplies  American response = send more troops, drop more bombs, use chemical warfare, SEARCH AND DESTROY

STOP!  Reflection Question #2  Analyze the American military policies in Vietnam. Were they effective or ineffective? Why?

V. CONTROVERSY  As war went on, Americans lost site of why we were there  Images of dead Vietnamese civilians and burning villages were seen on TV, radio, newspapers  Draft forces men into the military  Protests at home get ugly  Kent State  Americans back at home started to turn on the soldiers  LBJ doesn’t run for a 2 nd term because of his failures in Vietnam

STOP!  Reflection Question #3  Put yourself in the shoes of the average American in 1968, how would you feel about the Vietnam War? Explain your thought process.

VI. BEGINNING OF THE END  Richard Nixon elected president  Promised to end the war  Started secretly bombing Cambodia in order to destroy the Ho Chi Minh Trial  1973 a cease-fire called between Viet Minh/Vietcong and the United States  American troops leave Vietnam  1975, the South Vietnamese capital city of city, Saigon, falls to the communists  Vietnam is now one united, communist country

VII. LEGACY  58, 000 Americans died in combat  300,000 were wounded  Cost the US $200 billion  Vietnam vets were not welcomed home, many adjusted poorly to civilian life  Americans lost trust in the government  No formal declaration of war  Govn’t officials had mislead the public about the need for war  Passage of the 27 th amendment- voting age now 18 years old  Vietnam War Memorial  Vietnam  10 million homeless in South Vietnam  Industry destroy in North Vietnam  More than one million casualties

STOP!  Reflection Question #4  Create a graphic organizer of 5 mistakes the United States made in Vietnam.

MISTAKES THE US MADE IN VIETNAM