Sunday marks 50 years since U.S. combat troops arrived in Vietnam

ABC7 Chicago ^ | 03/08/2015

[E. Pluribus Unum]

DA NANG, Vietnam (WLS) -- Sunday marks 50 years since United States combat troops arrived in Vietnam when two battalions made up of hundreds of Marines landed in Da Nang on March 8, 1965.

They originally went to help the South Vietnam government defeat communist forces.

The U.S. sent in more troops over the next few years, peaking at 543,000 in April, 1969.

More than 58,000 U.S. troops lost their lives in the war. The last U.S. troops left the country in March 1973.

[onedoug]

Me too. RA at 17. Went at 18. 1/1 Cavalry, Americal, I CORPS. Glad I made it there, and back.

Returned with daughter APR 2000. Haunting, but beautiful country. And they still love Americans in the South.

The strategy is different, but the War yet goes on. Though soetoro will see that we lose it for sure.

[PROCON]

The American Navy was begging to be let off the leash, one carrier could have turned it into the Mother of All Highways of Death and it would have bought RSVN several more years of existence.

You are so right!

American politicians again f*cked the Troops!

[onedoug]

Alas, how different it might have been.

[doorgunner69]

I suppose my choice of branch was preordained by my Father:

That is him administering the IV. I sure did not want to be a swabbie, and all the stories I heard about the Marines as I grew up sealed it.

He told me about coming down to pick me up at Camp Pendelton during ITR, and being treated like visiting royalty when they found out where he had served!

[PROCON]

Semper Fi from an old Army guy.

Your Dad was special!

I followed my WWII Army Dad's lead too.

[Ax]

I think a lot of guys played that little game with their draft board I lost my draft card up on Cape Cod about 15 years ago. I was V-A status. Now at age 72, I don’t think I have to worry about the SSS beating down my door anymore.

[Mastador1]

Don’t they mean since combat troops were acknowledged?

[Pelham]

I’m 63 and was forced to start paying close attention to Vietnam in 1962 when my father went there as a military advisor. I learned more about the Vietnam War than I ever wanted to know.

“Everyone over the age of 50 know the U.S. could have cleaned VN’s clock btwn ‘67 and ‘72 but everyone probably also knows the bleeding heart Democrats never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity especially if they can blame the whole broken omelet on Republicans. They succeeded again.”

Let me remind you that Richard Nixon, Republican, was elected President in 1968. So if someone was keeping us from cleaning the NVA’s clock for the next four years it sure wasn’t a Democrat.

Nixon waited until 1972 before initiating Operation Linebacker, the bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong harbor. And I don’t remember any invasion of North Vietnam and the destruction of their military.

What I do remember are protracted and worthless peace talks with the PRVN. Somehow I figure that a President who wanted to win the war would have destroyed their cities, destroyed their army, and would have occupied their miserable piece of dirt. That sort of thing had a remarkable effect on Germany and Japan only 25 years earlier. A war in which America’s part managed to come to an end in 3 1/2 years. But Nixon, just like Johnson, didn’t do it and he had more than 3 1/2 years.

You don’t defeat an enemy by giving them endless time to regroup, by leaving their harbors open to military shipments, by never putting their main army on the run in their own territory. So please spare us “the Republicans would have won it!”. They had ample opportunity and did nothing with it. The loss of RSVN was a bipartisan affair.

[zeestephen]

It's important to recall that 400 “non-combat” American military personnel died in Vietnam before 1965.

While researching the number above, I came across a statistic I was not aware of.

Almost 20% of the 58,000 dead Americans died by non-combat accidents, disease, or suicide. The total is just under 11,000.

Here's another statistic people may not be aware of.

Roughly 3 million Americans served in Vietnam.

But only 1.5 million Americans ever came under direct enemy fire.

[zeestephen]

Re: “The loss of RSVN was a bipartisan affair.”

I think we need to include the Soviet Union in that equation.

The Soviets kept North Vietnam well supplied, and they made it pretty clear they would not tolerate a land invasion of North Vietnam by USA or South Vietnamese forces.

Since the Soviets had ICBMs, no one in the Pentagon or the White House, quite reasonably, wanted to miscalculate what the Soviets might do.

[abb]

Actually, JFK gets plenty of blame.

http://www.csmonitor.com/1991/1119/19182.html

“Khrushchev,” writes Reston, “had treated Kennedy with contempt, even challenging his courage, and whatever else Kennedy may have lacked, he didn’t lack courage. He felt he had to act.” Soon thereafter Kennedy sent more advisers to the battlefront in Vietnam. “This, I thought,” Reston continues, “was a critical mistake. Once Kennedy had over 15,000 ‘advisers’ engaged not only in giving advice but also in giving support on the battlefield. US power and prestige were thought by many officials in Washington and in Asian capitals to be committed.”

[Jimmy Valentine]

Thank you Johnson and McNamara indeed. When that Edsel promoting sob McNamara finally admitted that he and Johnson were not in it to win it but only as a holding operation that put me in a permanent rage about those two Remember “proportionate response”? Damn them both to Hell

[laconic]

The liberals always like to pass responsibility for the war totally onto Nixon; I was no great fan of his but there were 525,000 US troops in country when RMN took office. McNamara used to run around Georgetown cocktail parties bashing the war he started and strategized; a man wholly without character or decency, a hollow or straw man in the worst sense of the word. When McNamara wrote his trashy book about Vietnam, his highest praise was for the protesters and he wouldn’t take questions from veterans in the audience; Thank God David Halberstam followed him all over the country to dispel his lies at press conferences. McNamara finally withdrew from his book “tour” after Halberstam pinned him on his lies several times.

[centurion316]

Thanks for your informed, detailed, and insightful comments. You have really contributed to this conversation.

[Rick66]

My Dad,US Army, was there fighting when Kennedy got assassinated. It appears no combat troops were “officially” there till 65.

[ChildOfThe60s]

My father was of the opinion that had Kennedy not been assassinated, we likely would have gotten no further involved.

[centurion316]

If you want to read an interesting account of this period, read “The Final Collapse” by General Cao Van Vien. It’s available on line for free.

http://www.history.army.mil/html/books/090/90-26/CMH_Pub_90-26.pdf

[ASA Vet]

In early May 1961, a U.S. military aircraft taxied toward a well-guarded terminal building.
The plane slowed to a halt; steps were maneuvered up to its side, and the door was pulled open.
The tropical night air was heavy and dank, and the moon shone dimly through high thin clouds.
On board the aircraft were ninety-two members of a specially selected team.
The men were dressed in indistinguishable dark suits with white shirts and dark ties, and each man carried a new red U.S. diplomatic passport inside his breast pocket.
The men held copies of their orders and records in identical brown Manila envelopes,
and each man's medical records were stamped "If injured or killed in combat, report as training accident in the Philippines"
In such clandestine fashion, the first fully operational
U.S. military unit arrived at Tan Son Nhut Air Base in South Vietnam.

The unit was so highly classified even its name was top-secret.
It was given a codename, a cover identity to hide the true nature of its mission.
The unit's operation was housed in a heavily-guarded compound near Saigon,
and within two days of its arrival, Phase I was implemented.

Its operatives were intercepting Viet Cong manual Morse communications,
analyzing it for the intelligence it contained and passing the information to the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group-Vietnam.

The Army Security Agency was on duty.

[null and void]

Hmmm? I thought US diplomat passports were purple?

[GreyFriar]

Thank you for the ping, Old Crow.