The Conflict
This period in history is actually called The Vietnam Conflict because it was never officially declared a war. The fighting continued from 1960 to 1975.
The French pulled all of their troops out when they lost and left South Vietnam struggling to fend off the North Vietnamese troops who had been expertly trained by The United States. In May of 1961, President Kennedy was pushed by the Pentagon to send 500 Special Forces Troops and Advisors to help South Vietnam defend themselves.
1963
Ngo Dinh Diem, The leader of South Vietnam was assassinated.
3 Weeks later, John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
Lyndon B. Johnson takes over as President.
1964
One of the more important events was the Gulf of Tonkin incident. North Vietnam allegedly attacked a patrol boat and 2 destroyers (The Maddocs and The Turner Joy). President Johnson then signed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which says we have to " Take all necessary measures to protect the US forces ..."
At this point there was no holding back. The United States started sending more troops and the draft began. It was also the point when the protesting and anti-war movement in the US began to get much more serious.
1965
President Johnson sent 35,000 Marines to South Vietnam. At first 2/3 soldiers volunteered which caused 1/3 of the soldiers to be drafted. This number of draftees continued to go up until almost all of the soldiers were draftees.
On April 17 1965, 100 students planned on meeting in front of the Washington Memorial to protest about the draft and how unfair the war was. 25,000 students showed up to protest.
Most people think this is where the "war' starts because in 1965 we sent 2 Marine battalions in full battle gear to the Southern Vietnam Army.
1965 - 1969
President Johnson continues to increase the number of troops until 1969 when we hit the maximum number of 543,400 troops in Vietnam.
In 1969, The US and South Vietnam held peace talks with North Vietnam. During the negotiations President Johnson decided to bomb the North Vietnamese troops back to the stone age. We dropped 129 B52 bombs per day from the 18-30th of December 1969. We dropped more bombs in that time period than we did over the entire pacific theatre in WWI and WWII combined.
1970 - 1973
President Nixon was elected and he began to end the war.
January 23 1973, President Nixon agrees to pull the troops left in Vietnam and let them defend their country. He called this "Vietnamization".
Before he was able to fully pull out all of the troops he was enveloped into the Watergate scandal - I won't get into depth about this but he had Republican FBI members sneak into the Democratic party's hotel rooms and wire tap their rooms, recording their conversations. The people who broke in were caught and Nixon was blamed leading to his resignation in November of 1973.
Vice President Gerald Ford takes over as President and pulls out all of the remaining troops in South Vietnam. The Fall of Saigon was end of the US occupation in Vietnam.
First American Killed in Action- July 8 1959
Last American Killed in Action- April 29 1975
American Troops Killed in Vietnam: 58,220
Total ALL Deaths (Including North Vietnamese Army and Civilians) estimate: Between 1.3 million and 3.9 million depending on the source.