what are some of the most important question asked about the vietnam war?
444206
Where are all the missing PoWs?
486258
US combat troops were involved in the war from 1965 until their official withdrawal in 1973. During this period, 17% of South Vietnam inhabitants were killed. The war ended on April 30, 1975 with the military conquest of the South by the North.\npls chech the spellindg of vietnam
731395
U.S. military advisors first became involved in Vietnam as early as 1950, when they began to assist French colonial forces. In 1956, these advisors assumed full responsibility for training the Army of the Republic of Vietnam or ARVN. Large numbers of American combat troops began to arrive in 1965 and the last left the country in 1973.\n\nclick here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War\nhttp://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/timeline/
834786
Vietnam-a complicated war. As a matter of fact, it wasn't called a war for years-it was a "police action" or "conflict". Not a lot of clear answers there.\n\nU.S. military advisors first became involved in Vietnam as early as 1950, when they began to assist French colonial forces. In 1956, these advisors assumed full responsibility for training the Army of the Republic of Vietnam or ARVN. Large numbers of American combat troops began to arrive in 1965 and the last left the country in 1973.\n\nPresidents involved were:\nHarry Truman 1945-1953\nDwight Eisenhower 1953-1961\nJohn Kennedy 1961-1963\nLyndon Johnson 1963-1969\nRichard Nixon 1969-1974\n\n American forces rose from 16,000 during 1964 to more than 553,000 by 1969. (Johnson). The irony here is we couldn't win that guerrilla war with 553,000  troops but thought 100,000 in Iraq would be plenty. Robert McNamara(then Secretary of defense) has since said he believed JFK would have ended the war has he not been assassinated in 1963.  I believe Democrats were a bit fooled by Johnson in that he fought strongly for great civil rights laws(he did do a lot there) back then but on the other hand escalated the war. It was easy for Democrats to believe he was a good man fighting the good fight. \n\n \n\nNixon had continuously campaigned under the slogan that he "had a plan to end the Vietnam War." (Peace With Honor)Unfortunately, no such plan existed and the American commitment would continue for another five years. The goal of the American military effort was now to buy time, gradually build up the strength of the South Vietnamese armed forces, and to re-equip them with modern weapons so that they could defend their nation on their own. This policy became the cornerstone of the so-called "Nixon Doctrine"\n\nSo Nixon finally pulled troops out but dragged his feet for years.Since he was elected largely because he promised to get us out of Vietnam, people were unhappy it took so long. I believe he finally did withdraw to get re-elected. He was re-elected for a 2nd term but resigned because of Watergate. (Watergate was unraveling during the campaign but most people didn't believe he was involved-thought instead it was a left-wing conspiracy). His Vice-President became President and pardoned Nixon soon after. \n\nIt was a tumultous time indeed. Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968 during his Primary run for President.\nThere was a lot of talk that he would certainly be President but \nRichard Nixon was instead. \n\nThere was a lot more to all of this and I'd encourage you to research more-a fascinating time, although very sad. History, politics and life seems interchangeable.
531152
Marcel has made some good points, with the exception of the ending of the Vietnam War in 1973. Recently, in a debate about 'Deep Throat,' Pat Buchanan had stated that President Nixon had authorized the 1973 pullout from Vietnam as a means of getting peoples' minds off of Watergate. It is very unlikely that the war effort would have been terminated when it did, because earlier President Nixon had placed some very severe conditions on American withdrawal, but in 1973 they were all abandoned.\n\nSpecifically, President Nixon had made the following demands on North Vietnam and the Viet Cong:\n\n1-All foreign combatants to be withdrawn from South Vietnam - instead, the US accepted 'certification' that NVA units in South Vietnam would stay in place and not continue to attack.\n\n2-All American servicemen listed as prisoners would be returned to the USA or relevant explanations provided - the US had maintained that 1500 American servicemen were missing and assumed alive and captured in Laos by either the Pathet Lao or the North Vietnames Army, but the USA agreed to instead list them all as dead.\n\n3-Verifiable cease fire to be in place before the USA would withdraw forces - the USA agreed to drop this condition altogether.\n\nThe Christmas Bombings, largely credited with bringing the North Vietnamese back to Paris, would have probably been continued (with subsequent continuation of loss of B-52 bombers over Hanoi) until North Vietnam actually made agreements they would stick to. The USA would then have kept faith with South Vietnam in 1975 when the next round of incursions began, and hippies would then have assaulted President Reagan in 1977 for reinstituting the draft and sending troops back to South Vietnam and invading the Peoples Republic of China. In 1981, discredited by new military deadlocks in Shanghai, President Reagan would have been followed by President Edmund Muskie, the economy would have collapsed 1n 1983, and in 1984 President Muskie would have benn succeeded by President Gus Hall, perennial candidate of the American Communist Party. In 1989, President Hall would have broken ties with Moscow and alligned the PRUSA (Peoples' Republic of the United States of America) with Albania and Yugoslavia as a third tier of World Communism. World War III would have ensued.
359111
Which war ? Vietnam has been at war for one thousnad years .\n" Every generation of men, they grew up knowing they were going to be in a war. The country had a 1,000-year history of warfare — with the Chinese, with the Japanese during World War II, with the French. — You accepted that as a way of life."\n\n" America inherited from the Europeans a world replete with dictators\nEven Vietnam was nothing more than a nasty inheritance from the French "
636438
Ask Bush & Cheney \nhow many loved ones\n(family) they've lost \nto their war...
1064122
Try these:\nhttp://www.plp.org/vietnam/vn8.html\nhttp://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=464033\nhttp://www.etvconsortium.com/catalog/..%5CGuides%5C8466-atm.pdf\nhttp://www.dsp.org.au/links/back/issue27/Nguyen.htm\nhttp://www.vwam.com/vets/history/anticolonial.html
623353
Vietnam War, conflict in Southeast Asia, primarily fought in South Vietnam between government forces aided by the United States and guerrilla forces aided by North Vietnam. The war began soon after the Geneva Conference provisionally divided (1954) Vietnam at 17° N lat. into the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). It escalated from a Vietnamese civil war into a limited international conflict in which the United States was deeply involved, and did not end, despite peace agreements in 1973, until North Vietnam's successful offensive in 1975 resulted in South Vietnam's collapse and the unification of Vietnam by the North.
240651
I do not understand exactly what you mean, but I suspect you are asking when did large numbers of Vietnamese come to Australia. Obviously, there were probably a few people from many different countries in Australia, but this probably wouldn't require the question you ask. So, when you refer to when, I will take it you mean large numbers.\n\nAfter the Americans (and some of its allies) left Vietnam in  1975, there was no one to fight against the Communist North Vietnamese who were waging war against the South. We were fighting against the North and when we left, there was no one to help the Southerners. Eventually, financial support and training also was removed from the South, while the North was receiving all it needed from it's allies. The North was simply to strong for the South and the North won. The northerners began to kill many from the south. The Southerners took to the sea in small fragile boats to escape the bloodshed. Hundreds of thousands fled. Many of these people wound up in Australia and in the United States. \n\nThis was after 1975. Many of these people weren't automatically given citizenship, but they were still living in countries like Australia, which is just to the south of Vietnam. It took in about 300,000 Vietnamese.\n\nThis is all from my general knowledge, but here is a good site that can explain some of the events.
692580
"The use of air power in the Vietnam War would change the way wars were fought for the Twentieth century and beyond. New technological advances and more sophisticated weapons made the Vietnam War a testing ground for the U.S. military. New tactics and approaches were used and to varying degrees of success. Air power would be used as a bargaining tool and as punishment for North Vietnamese acts of aggression. Vietnam also introduced the attack helicopter as a vital weapon and it dawned a new age of tactics for the U.S. military. Starting with the training and advising of the South Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF), and culminating with the Christmas bombing of 1972, the U.S. would be involved in the skies over Vietnam for over 15 years"\ndon't forget agent orange either.  I'm pretty sure that was the first time it was used as it was.
786410
Here are a ton of links at the bottom of the page:\n\nhttp://www.riverinesailor.com/\n\nhttp://vikingphoenix.com/military/war/vnwar/vietnamwar-usn.htm
145363
This may seem too simple, but the best way to find the information that you're looking for is to talk to other Vietnam Vets. Good places to find them is at a local VFW or a Veteran's hospital. \n\nMy father server in Vietnam as well, and has only recently opened up about what happened to him there. I've herd the same happening with many other Vietnam Vets too. Something about the recent Iraq War has triggered many of them to talk after more than 30 years of wanting to forget about what happened. \n\nI have family in Vietnam to include uncles that served on both sides of the war. They seem to be easier about letting the past go than the American veterans. One of my uncles served almost ten years in a communist prison, had all his arms and legs broken many times and had his eye ripped out of his head. Even he has let the war go into the past. \n\nAnotehr good place to look is the Internet. There are hundreds of Web sites that haev very good information about the Vietnam War with the ones supported by veterans having the most accurate information. Don't bother with the government supported sites - they're still lying aobut what happened. \n\nGood luck with your reseasrch!
42076
Basically, it was a failure (like today's war in Iraq) and many American soldiers' lives were lost.\n\nThe Vietnam War or Second Indochina War 1 was a conflict between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN, or North Vietnam), allied with the National Liberation Front (NLF, or "Viet Cong") against the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, or South Vietnam), and its allies — notably the United States military in support of the South, with US combat troops involved from shortly after the Korean War until the official withdrawal in 1975.\n\nAfter France's attempted recolonization of Indochina was defeated in 1954 by the Viet Minh at the battle of Điện Biên Phủ, an agreement to temporarily partition the country in two with a de-militarized zone (DMZ) was reached at the Geneva Conference (1954). The "Vietnam War" ostensibly began as a civil war between feuding governments. Being Western-oriented and far less popular than Hồ Chí Minh's northern rebellion, the South Vietnam government fought largely to maintain its governing status within the partitioned entity, rather than to "unify the country" as was the goal of the North. Fighting began in 1957 and with U.S. and Soviet-Chinese involvement would steadily escalate and spill over into the neighboring Indochinese countries of Cambodia and Laos.\n\nThe Geneva partition was not a natural division of Vietnam and was not intended to create two separate countries. But the South government, with the support of the United States, blocked the Geneva scheduled elections for reunification. In the context of the Cold War, and with the recent Korean War as a precedent, the U.S. had feared that a reunified Vietnam would elect a Communist government under the popular Hồ Chí Minh. South Vietnam and its Western allies portrayed the conflict as based in a principled opposition to communism —to deter the expansion of Soviet-based control throughout Southeast Asia, and to set the tone for any likely future superpower conflicts. The North Vietnamese government and its Southern dissident allies (NLF) viewed the war as a struggle to reunite the country and to repel a foreign aggressor —a virtual continuation of the earlier war for independence against the French.\n\nAfter fifteen years of protracted fighting and massive civilian and military casualties, major direct U.S. involvement ended with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in 1973. Fighting between Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) forces against the dominant combined People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and NLF forces would soon bring an end to the RVN and the war. With the Northern victory, the country was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) with a communist-controlled government based in the new capital Hanoi.\n\nThis is just a brief summary. For more information on the Vietnam War, go to:\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War
1036873
For the US, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution; the Civil War, western expansion, World War II; we came out the number one country in the world from that, and Vietnam caused us to lose our innocence about such things.  For many Vietnam was the glass through which all subsequent issues are viewed.  Also, the Civil Rights movement of the 60's.  AND the great industrial progress:  telephone, autos, planes, etc.
562696
The ground war thing in Vietnam was hard, just like it had been for the French in the 1950's. Guerrilla warfare used by the Viet Cong attacked and caused many casualties to larger U.S. forces. The U.S. had no answer to match these hit and run tactics. The other problem was American GI's had no idea who the enemy was because many people in the South supported Ho Chi Minh. The South Vietnamese government was unstable and corrupt, so people in the South liked the idea of a unified Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh knew the American public did not like blood, so as long as Americans were dying he knew the war was going his way. Poor public opinion at home ensured that an escalated ground war was out of the question. For example invading China.
788764
Communism is the buzzword.  But really its called Imperialism.\nWars outside of national soil are for greed and pride.\nKorea and Vietnam did not represent a threat to the US.  Not until they decided to attack first.