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Domino Theory/Eisenhower speech
Eisenhower had a speech and referred to countries surrounding Vietnam as dominos saying a domino theory could/would occur and countries around Vietnam will fall. -
Dien Bien Phu
A very long battle between the French and Vietnamese ended with the French losing. This allowed for the Vietnamese to end the first Indochina war. -
Geneva Accords
The Geneva Accords was a meeting to get the Vietnamese their independence and to unite the country. The Geneva Accords was not followed by the United States -
Period: to
U.S. advisors
Kennedy sent in U.S. advisors to overlook the vietnamese soldiers. There was about 11,000 at the end of 1962 and 53 were killed. -
Gulf of Tonkin Incident
The Gulf of Tonkin incident was an incident that had 2 "attacks" one being real and the other being fake. The United States ships were firing at the coast basically asking to be attacked. -
Tonkin Gulf Resolution
The Tonkin Gulf Resolution gave the president all power to send troops to fight an undeclared war. This gave the president the power to bypass congress and just send men to die for something we may not even want. -
Body Counts
Simply due to the fact the enemy is everywhere the military used body counts as a way to see if we were winning the war. There were no front lines so body count was the only way to tell. -
Search and Destroy Missions
This was an offensive to try and push out the Viet Cong and it was very dangerous for the soldiers because they would walk through jungles and tall plants and could be ambushed at any second. Platoons would go out for 30-40 days at a time. -
Rolling thunder
This was a bombing campaign that lasted 3 years. This was meant to destroy factories but since Vietnam wasn't industrialized it was useless so our efforts switched to supply routes and enemy locations -
Troops In Vietnam
This is the day we first set boots on ground. The day we started to let Americans die in a war they didn't understand.
