Feb. 9, 1965: First Combat Troops Sent to Vietnam

[Lard]

R.I.P. to the 58,000+ who did not return.

A U.S. Marine Corps Hawk air defense missile battalion is deployed to Da Nang. President Johnson had ordered this deployment to provide protection for the key U.S. airbase there.

This was the first commitment of American combat troops in South Vietnam and there was considerable reaction around the world to the new stage of U.S. involvement in the war. Predictably, both communist China and the Soviet Union threatened to intervene if the United States continued to apply its military might on behalf of the South Vietnamese. In Moscow, some 2,000 demonstrators, led by Vietnamese and Chinese students and clearly supported by the authorities, attacked the U.S. Embassy. Britain and Australia supported the U.S. action, but France called for negotiations.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/us-sends-first-combat-troops-to-south-vietnam

[dflprincess]

1. Another date thay should "live in infamy" n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. Soon after that, they asked me to extend my enlistment to kill people to kill people I didn't know.

My reply to the suggestion landed me 30 days of mess duty.

[HereSince1628]

3. Of course the early troops sent there were 'advisors'

and though they provided direct support to combat troops, they weren't called combat troops.




I earned one of these little bastards.

[Kennah]

4. Lt. Col. Albert Peter Dewey (1916 - September 26, 1945)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._Peter_Dewey

"Dewey was the first American fatality in Vietnam, killed in the early aftermath of World War II."

"Dewey is not listed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. because the Defense Department has ruled that the war officially started, from a U.S. perspective, on November 1, 1955, after the U.S. took over following the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu."

[Lard]

5. No telling what the real caualty number is

Probably have to add on to The Wall if they put them all on there.

[Obamanaut]

6. Truly a date to remember, but recall that advisors (often military) were

sent to assist the French many years earlier, during Truman's administration. This continued through Eisenhower and Kennedy.

http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1945.html

July 26, 1950 - United States military involvement in Vietnam begins as President Harry Truman authorizes $15 million in military aid to the French.

American military advisors will accompany the flow of U.S. tanks, planes, artillery and other supplies to Vietnam. Over the next four years, the U.S. will spend $3 Billion on the French war and by 1954 will provide 80 percent of all war supplies used by the French

[lpbk2713]

7. I was in Boot Camp June to Sept 65.

The Tonkin Gulf incident happened Aug 65 and things started to escalate from then on. Of course in Boot Camp we had no radio or TV or any access to anything going on in the outside world. Our company commander told us we were all going to die. He even brought in newspapers to prove it was actually happening. I never met up with him again after that but if I did I'd be sure to tell him what a bullshitting SOB he is.

[Octafish]

8. How about that Gulf of Tonkin Incident?

LBJ Tapes on the Gulf of Tonkin Incident

It's like remembering the Maine, in a way.

[niyad]

9. k and r --welcome to DU

[niyad]

10. I wonder how many people know that ho chi minh repeatedly asked the US for help in getting the

french out of his country--he was called communist, but was primarily an agrarian nationalist.

Political education in France

From 1919–1923, while living in France, Nguyễn Sinh Cung embraced communism, through his friend Marcel Cachin (SFIO). Cung claimed to have arrived in Paris from London in 1917 but French police only have documents of his arrival in June 1919.<3> Following World War I, under the name of Nguyễn Ái Quốc (Nguyen the Patriot), he petitioned for recognition of the civil rights of the Vietnamese people in French Indochina to the Western powers at the Versailles peace talks, but was ignored. Citing the language and the spirit of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, Quốc petitioned U.S. President Woodrow Wilson for help to remove the French from Vietnam and replace it with a new, nationalist government. His request was ignored.

. . . . . .




Independence movement
Hồ Chí Minh at the River Li in China, 1961.

In 1941, Hồ returned to Vietnam to lead the Việt Minh independence movement. The "men in black" were a 10,000 member guerilla force that operated with the Viet Minh.<11> He oversaw many successful military actions against the Vichy French and Japanese occupation of Vietnam during World War II, supported closely but clandestinely by the United States Office of Strategic Services, and also later against the French bid to reoccupy the country (1946–1954). He was also jailed in China for many months by Chiang Kai-shek's local authorities.<12> After his release in 1943, he again returned to Vietnam. He was treated for malaria and dysentery by American OSS doctors. In the highlands in 1944, he lived with Do Thi Lac, a woman of Tay ethnicity.<13> Lac had a son in 1956.<13>

After the August Revolution (1945) organized by the Việt Minh, Hồ became Chairman of the Provisional Government (Premier of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and issued a Proclamation of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam that borrowed much from the French and American declarations.<14> Though he convinced Emperor Bảo Đại to abdicate, his government was not recognized by any country. He repeatedly petitioned American President Harry Truman for support for Vietnamese independence,<15> citing the Atlantic Charter, but Truman never responded.<16>

. . . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh

[MadHound]

11. How many people know that we did give him help,

Starting with massive shipments of arms and supplies we sent him immediately after WWII ended. There for awhile the US was playing both sides in the French/Indochina war. When the French couldn't cut it anymore we stepped in to their place.

The US used Vietnam to make a ton of money for the MIC, much like what is happening now with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[Taverner]

12. Yes - He was pro-Democracy all the way!

He only turned to Communism as a last resort