9781422278987

VIETNAM WAR

Chapter One A LONG LEGACY

A lso known as the Second Indochina War and the U.S. War in Vietnam, the Vietnam War lasted from 1965 to the Communist victory on April 30, 1975, but is sometimes dated to a start in 1959. Of the several other names associated with this conflict, the one most generally used is the Vietnam War. It is worth noting, however, that the appellation Second Indochina War is useful in contextualizing the conflict in relation to the First Indochina War that resulted in the departure of the French as the colonial power, and linking the Vietnam War with the other conflicts being fought in South-

Words to Understand Defoliant: Chemicals applied to plants causing their leaves to drop off, often to remove cover from an enemy in war. Guerrilla: A person who engages in irregular warfare, harassing the enemy by sabotage or surprise raids. Indochina: Peninsula in south-eastern Asia comprising six countries.

East Asia at various times during this period: thus Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia can be seen as the theaters

in which a larger Indochinese conflict was fought, between the end of the Second World War in 1945 and the Communist victory in 1975. The term Vietnam Conflict is used primarily in the USA to indicate that Congress never formally declared war on North Vietnam, and that in purely legal terms the president made use of his constitutionally mandated authority, on many occasions supplemented by resolutions in the Congress, to have LEFT: Vietnam 1949. The French position is overrun by the Vietnamese after a five-hour fight during the Battle of Pho Rang in north-eastern Vietnam. OPPOSITE ABOVE: French troops at the commencement of insurgent action in the Tonkin area in 1947. OPPOSITE BELOW: French armored troops clearing countryside near Saigon in October 1945. the U.S. forces fight what was described as a “police action.”

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