When did the Vietnam War Start?

Surprise me! All these veterans, some vn vets, and they don't know their vn history. But being political animals they will make wild claims about Kennedy & LBJ!!! NO cons, the vn war was started up by Eisenhower, and the first advisor's and troops died on his watch, which is what America has recognized as the beginning, even the pentagon, the VN memorial, etc. You have been lied to, you have been duped, and you have con-pooped.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower of the United States (1953–1961)

President Dwight D. Eisenhower coins one of the most famous Cold War phrases when he suggests the fall of French Indochina to the communists could create a "domino" effect in Southeast Asia. The so-called "domino theory" dominated U.S. thinking about Vietnam for the next decade.

President Eisenhower gave an historic press conference on April 7, 1954.
Eisenhower expanded on this thought, explaining, "You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is a certainty that it will go over very quickly." This would lead to disintegration in Southeast Asia, with the "loss of Indochina, of Burma, of Thailand, of the Peninsula, and Indonesia following." Eisenhower suggested that even Japan, which needed Southeast Asia for trade, would be in danger.

1953 ~ During his term, Eisenhower will greatly increase U.S. military aid to the French in Vietnam to prevent a Communist victory. U.S. military advisors will continue to accompany American supplies sent to Vietnam. To justify America's financial commitment, Eisenhower will cite a 'Domino Theory' in which a Communist victory in Vietnam would result in surrounding countries falling one after another like a "falling row of dominoes." The Domino Theory will be used by a succession of Presidents and their advisors to justify ever-deepening U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

1954 — In January, Navarre's Deputy asked for additional transport aircraft. Negotiations ended on March 3 with 24 CIA pilots (CAT) to operate 12 US Air Force C-119's, flying undercover using French insignia, but maintained by the USAF.

July 21, 1954 - The Geneva Accords divide Vietnam in half at the 17th parallel.

January 1955 - The first direct shipment of U.S. military aid to Saigon arrives. The U.S. also offers to train the fledgling South Vietnam Army.

November 1, 1955 — President Eisenhower deploys the Military Assistance Advisory Group to train the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. This marks the official beginning of American involvement in the war as recognized by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

The first American soldier killed in the Vietnam War was Air Force T-Sgt. Richard B. Fitzgibbon Jr. He is listed by the U.S. Department of Defense as having a casualty date of June 8, 1956. His name was added to the Wall on Memorial Day 1999.

July 8, 1959 — Charles Ovnand and Dale R. Buis become the first two American Advisers to die in Vietnam.

First battlefield fatality was Specialist 4 James T. Davis who was killed on December 22, 1961.




And now you know WHO started the VN War and when US troops commonly called advisors first started dying there on the red soil.

 

Yes those idiot US planners who saw Communism spreading from China. Communism, which in both the Soviet Union and China killed tens upon tens of millions of people. Nothing to see here folks, is that the attitude they should have had?

 

and of course the implication is that the 9 causalities under Eisenhower meant that Kennedy and Johnson simply had to escalate it to 50,000+ casualties. Dumb and dumber

Get over it, your democrats own that war, and the republican Nixon took us out

 

Isn't it GREAT that we can still point fingers, 50 years later, at each other and say "You REPUBLICANS or you DEMOCRATS started Vietnam"? (sarcasm).

Get over the (*)(*)(*)king labels at which party "started" Vietnam for chrissakes! Worse than saying a Republican freed the slaves. Or that Democrats of that time were founders of the KKK.

Vietnam was a bloodstain on this country's history and one that we should have learned from, regardless of party. But we didn't. We have politicians, many who served at that time, who would, and did, plunge this country right back into the same kind of quagmire that Vietnam was and under misguided premises, as bad or worse, than Vietnam.

But don't fool yourself about what, not who, took us out of that war. The anti-war protests of the 60s were the driving force and those certainly weren't the realm of the right.

 

All high and mighty when the stain is on the wrong party, tell it to banchie, he's the one working overtime to make it into a republican war

 

>>>MOD EDIT: INSULT<<<. Last time I checked Ike didn't send 550,000 troops to Vietnam, on the other hand LBJ did.

case closed.

 

For whom? the US or the Vietnamese?

 

The Vietnam war started before the US set foot there, we took over from the French after they were defeated, how hard could it be?
There were elections scheduled, but the Eisenhower Administration felt the wrong guy would win, the same Eisenhower Administration that thought the wrong guy did win the election in Iran, and installed the Shah, which worked out excellent....for a while, same with Vietnam that was going pretty good, until we had a president from Texas, (has anyone noticed that presidents from Texas get us into situations where we lose wars?)
LBJ thought he could bluff old Ho Chi Minh, he'd dump an enormous US combat force, and then through a back door offer Ho 10 billion in aid if he'd just make peace, what could possibly go wrong, apparently the idea that the Vietnamese would fight for their country never occurred to LBJ.
Just like the other president from Texas never imagined that the Iraqis would fight for their country (after all, he'd done everything he could to avoid fighting for his country)

 

The Problem Was
Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, their advisers and what not bought into Kennanism.
The idea espoused by ( )0( ) George F. Kennan that the Communist were
one big politically homogenous Red Family who had to be contained.
It took NIXON to "get it". And we all know or should, NIXON hated Communist.
So through the fifties, China and the USSR had familial skirmishes along their long border.
Their use of "villages" taught me the word, hegemony.
And who can forget how the Eastern Europeans loved their Soviet stewards.
I always knew Kennan was full of it and I can not understand how Truman, et al bought into it.

Vietnam. Eisenhower made the commitment and JFK failed to uncommit.
But most of all, I blame all those parrots who did not think and bought into George F. Kennan. May he burn in Hell.


Moi

Contain ​

 

The Pentagon and the military do not recognize the Vietnam war as begining under Ike you simply made that part up.

One could argue that the first casualties mark the begining but in fact this is a weak postion because it is not the begining point for many other wars such as WWII. The American war against Japan did not begin with the first casualties or even the first attack by the Japanese against the American Navy. The first advisors in vietnam were not sent under Ike they were sent under Truman even your own post acknwledges this fact when you state that Ike INCREASED the advisory presence he did not in fact send the first ones.

Most history books acknwledge the long build up and escelation to the war but in fact the starting point for Americas major involvement in Vietnam is usually recognized as the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. This is simply because advisors do not mark the begining of war nor do casualties as I pointed out above. Much as some people try to twist history to make VIetnam into a respublican war it was not. True republicans were involved but the massive American war in vietnam was started under democrats and that is historic fact.

 

Kennan divided the world into Red and Non-Red. It's simple, and simplicity appeals. Vietnam was just one of the resulting tragedies. The US and USSR both insisted that other countries be aligned with one side or the other. There was even a "non-aligned bloc" of countries that refused final alignment to lure both sides to offer them aid. That other countries had their own creeds and their own agendas was not a possibility that troubled either Washington or Moscow. Often, smaller countries would just align themselves with the highest bidder, without ideological conviction at all. This "bipolar world" distorted politics for a generation.

Now the US and USSR would have been rivals whether Kennan was there or not. But Kennan added two dangerous ideas to the mix: first, an academic's assurance that ideology was more important then the pragmatic concerns of economics and power politics; second, that blocking the spread of communist ideology would automatically block the economic and political expansion of the USSR and its allies. On close examination, both his ideas were wrong.

The USSR was foremost an empire in pursuit of wealth and power. Ideology offered a useful explanation for what it was doing, but another ideology could easily have been built had communism been found wanting. Communism was the advertising or the excuse, not the heart of the Soviet empire. Kennan, an otherworldly academic, found it easy to believe that ideology was the engine. Not so.

Since ideology wasn't the Soviet engine, stifling that ideology could not have halted the spread of Soviet power, although the lack of so convenient a rationalization might have slowed its progress. It was Kennan's belief in ideological containment that made Vietnam seem so urgent. If communism could expand to one small country, people reasoned that it could expand to any other. Communism was not rationally perceived as an impractical 19th century philosophy; it was emotionally perceived as a dark cloud threatening to engulf the world. Readers of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings will remember Sauron's Dark. Kennan's contemporaries looked at the globe and saw a similar Dark expanding. Kennan popularized the idea that this Dark could be defeated by containment.

 

Here is a clear case of denial.

 

Because you are in denial.

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Another con in denial.

 

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

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

 

No, you are in denial.

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Ceremony Commemorates Vietnam War’s First Combat Casualties
By Samantha L. Quigley
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Jul. 8, 2009 – Bright blue skies above the National Mall today belied the solemnity of the ceremony commemorating the first two American combat casualties of the Vietnam War.

“On this date 50 years ago, two men lost their lives in a country that most of us here in the United States had never heard of at the time,” said Jan C. Scruggs, founder of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, at the ceremony. “The deaths of U.S. Army military advisors Maj. Dale Buis and Master Sgt. Chester Ovnand marked the beginning of a lengthy war, which became a very divisive event for our society.”

The ceremony concluded with the playing of “Taps,” and the placing of a wreath at the apex of The Wall, below the names of the first two U.S. combat casualties of the Vietnam War.

http://www.defense.gov/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=55051

Need a calculator? 2009 - 50 = 1959 Guess who was president? Ike.

NO SOUP FOR YOU!!

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Still in denial......

 

LBJ Sent half a million troops to Vietnam. Why are you in denial.

 

Thread OP: When did the Vietnam War Start?

 

Um wrong about the protests.

As you point out these anti war protests mainly took place in the 60s. The war ended in the 70s.

The anti war protests were all about fringe idiots looking for anything to protest they did not reflect mainstream thoughts or opinions or feelings nor did they influence the government to end the war.

in fact the protests died out long before the war ended. The war dragged on despite the protestors.

In fact the protests withered away to nothing almost the day after Nixon ended the draft. It seems they had no principle other than "I PERSONALLY do not want to go to war".

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Yes I am correct and it is you in denial that is fact

 

Not when you try to claim it did.
It is you in denial

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Once again it is you in denial not me.

Yes the first casualties were in 59.

You are wrong however to arbitrarily claim that said casualties mark the official begining of the war.

 

Not under Ike. Lie as much you like, but troops in Vietnam under Ike where there in a non-combat function. Kennedy had advisory teams in a combat role with the South Vietnamese Army, including the newly formed Special Forces. After Kennedy was killed LBJ reversed courses, from Kennedy's decision to to pull out, and sent half a million troops. >>>MOD EDIT: INSULT<<<<

 

How many people die from capitalist poverty, do you estimate?

 

Not nearly as many as from socialism and other despotisms.

 

Zero

There is no such thing as CAPITALIST poverty.

Poverty is poverty and communism always increases it whereas capitalism minimizes it.

 

You cannot divorce poverty from the system which allows it. Your idealized capitalism does not exist in reality.

 

Consistently, WRONG. 25,000 die a year because of a lack of health insurance.