People use words incorrectly.
While an incident happened; what people refer to as a hoax is the response to it.
Honestly, I don’t know enough about the incident to voice an opinion. But I do know that the response to the incident was probably not proportional—and it lead to significant involvement.
The term “hoax” is used a lot by Trump—and the colloquial meaning has moved from the literal. In literal terms it means false or fake. In colloquial terms it means manipulation.
These days there is a gross misuse of language, sometimes I wonder if we are speaking English anymore.
Most of the information about our war in Vietnam has been skewed by the Left. At the time, the NVA had at least two divisions operating in the south and we had only two choices: ignore what was happening - direct involvement by the NVA and allow Vietnam to fall into the Soviet sphere - or intervene to attempt to keep South Vietnam free, and the give the rest of Southeast Asia breathing space.
We underestimated the size and commitment of the enemy, the difficulty fighting a war half a world away, and the bad fit between our equipment, training and antics with those of the enemy. It didn’t help that our government chose to send a large portion of draftees into combat.
Nonetheless, we had it won until the Left/Democrats won the Congress.