General William Westmoreland Essays - Vietnam War, Viet Cong

General William Westmoreland During the late nineteenth century the French concouquered Vietnam and made it a protectorate and in 1941 the league for the independence of Vietnam (Viet Minh) was formed to fight for independence from the French and on Sept. 2nd .1945. Ho chi Minh proclaimed it independent from France. The French opposed this and wanted to re-establish their rule but where defeated on the battlefield by the Viet Min and where forced to surrender this ended a war and French rule. After the war there was a conference in Geneva where Vietnam was divided into two parts along the seventeenth parallel there where now a north and a south Vietnam similar to Korea the north being lead by Ho Chi Minh was mainly communist. North Vietnam at the time was a very poor area being cut off from the agricultural benefits of south Vietnam Ho Chi Minh was forced to ask for help from communist allies like the soviet union and china whom gave needed supported both before and during the war. The south lead by an anti-Communist ruler named ngo Dinh Diem was headed towards a democracy. The south being supported by the French and the united states of America clearly shows how closely this conflict was tide to the cold war going on between the eastern and western superpowers who supported the war efforts on either side. North Vietnams goal was to unify both north and south Vietnam leaving one communist state even if it meant using military force, at this time the cold war was still going on an since the u.s.a. Feared the spread of communist in Asia, John F. Kennedy gave economic and military aid to south Vietnam in order to prevent the takeover of the south by the north although all though the conflict was still a civil war and the united states where not officially involved they where the force behind the south. The North Vietnamese resented the United States getting involved and on august 2nd 1964 three Vietnamese torpedo boats opened fire on an u.s. destroyer stationed 30 miles off the coast of Vietnam in International waters. The next day Johnson gave the order to "attack with the objective of destroying any hostile forces." Retaliation air attacks began that very same day with the goal of destroying Vietnams gunboat capability. As two more United States boats where supposedly sunk more American air and sea forces where sent into the region but held back from direct combat. This is when the United States officially entered the Vietnam War. They did this for a few different reasons the first was that they wanted to keep the independence of south Vietnam, the second had a lot to do with the cold war against communism. America believed that if north Vietnam would be able to turn the south communist as well then Vietnam could become very powerful, after all the U.S. had just witnessed the French be defeated by Vietnam. If Vietnam was to become a more powerful country then they would be able to persuade other Asian countries to become communist as well. I think that the U.S.A. felt it had to prove to it's allied nations that it was willing to fulfil its vow of stopping the spread of communist. As the u.s. decided whether or not to move the combat to North Vietnam or not. The North Vietnamese made a surprise attack and moved the combat to the south when it attacked one of the U.S.A.'s major airbases in Bein Hoa. Johnson immediately ordered a retaliation bombing on the north called rolling thunder which was supposed to scare them and convince them that they had no chance of winning. Bombing of this sort continued for some time. While u.s. troops where being brought in from other places in the world in order to launch a ground attack. By the end of 1965 over 180,000 American soldiers where stationed in South Vietnam under General William S. Westmoreland. The United States with superior firepower helicopters, planes, and many other advantages over the North Vietnamese where very confident about the outcome of the war. They where to be surprised by the Viet cong's surprise attacks and concealment as well as knowledge of the land and unity in the people. As the war pressed on it came more and more obvious that the Americans where not going to win this one simply because they where the richer larger more influential superpower. Soldiers where having a hard