Reply #2: here......

[BrklynLiberal]

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U.S. COMBAT POWER

Because U.S. involvement in Vietnam increased gradually after the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, there is little consensus on when the war in Southeast Asia began.

Some date the war to the late 1950s. Others say it began on Aug. 5, 1964, when Lyndon Johnson announced air strikes against North Vietnam in retaliation for a reported torpedo attack on a U.S. destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin.

However, the Army's start date for the Vietnam War has been set by its Center of Military History as Dec. 11, 1961, when two helicopter companies consisting of 32 aircraft and 400 soldiers arrived in the country, an Army public affairs specialist said.

"It was the first major assemblage of U.S. combat power in Vietnam," explained Army historian Joe Webb.

Vietnam casualties, which amounted to 25 deaths from 1956 through 1961, climbed to 53 in 1962, 123 in 1963 and 216 in 1964, Pentagon statistics show.

At the time, the U.S. presence in Vietnam consisted mainly of military advisers. President John F. Kennedy increased their number from about 960 in 1961 to show Washington's commitment to containing communism.

But not until 1965, after Congress had approved the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, did Washington begin its massive escalation of the war effort. With a huge influx of soldiers, casualties in Vietnam soared to 1,926 in 1965 and peaked at 16,869 in 1968, the year of the Tet Offensive, data show.

In a major revision of U.S. military history in 1995, former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara said he believed the Gulf of Tonkin torpedo attack never occurred.

More than 58,000 U.S. military personnel died in Vietnam before the war ended in the mid-1970s.

In another comparison, British forces that created Iraq in the aftermath of World War One suffered 2,000 casualties from tribal reprisals, guerrilla attacks and a jihad proclaimed from the Shi'ite holy city of Kerbala, before conditions stabilized in 1921, according to U.S. military scholars.
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http://www.veteransforpeace.org/US_War_Dead_111403.htm