[3] In total, 7,243 African Americans died during the Vietnam War, representing 12.4% of total casualties.
[286] A number of prominent Western journalists were also involved in covering the war, with Dickey Chapelle being among the first as well as the first American female reporter killed in a war. Ngo Dinh Nhu, who exerted political power in Vietnam, dies at 87", "Opinion | The Women Who Covered Vietnam", "The Stars, The Earth, The River | Northwestern University Press", Chinese Support for North Vietnam during the Vietnam War: The Decisive Edge, "North Vietnam's Master Plan | HistoryNet", "A History of U.S. Communications Security; the David G. Boak Lectures", "Kissinger: Drones have killed more civilians than the bombing of Cambodia in the Vietnam War", Human Rights in Vietnam: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on International Organizations of the Committee on International Relations: House of Representatives, Ninety-Fifth Congress, First Session, "Re-education in Unliberated Vietnam: Loneliness, Suffering and Death", "Read Gabriel García Márquez's Moving Vietnam Piece", "Vietnam Is Admitted to the U.N. As 32d General Assembly Opens", "Counting Hell: The Death Toll of the Khmer Rouge Regime in Cambodia", "The Demography of Genocide in Southeast Asia: The Death Tolls in Cambodia, 1975–79, and East Timor, 1975–80", "25 Years After End of Vietnam War, Myths Keep Us from Coming to Terms with Vietnam", "Echoes of Combat: The Vietnam War in American Memory", "US still making payments to relatives of Civil War veterans, analysis finds", "Iraq, Afghanistan Wars Will Cost U.S. 4–6 Trillion Dollars: Report", "The Drugs That Built a Super Soldier: During the Vietnam War, the U.S. Military Plied Its Servicemen with Speed, Steroids, and Painkillers to Help Them Handle Extended Combat", "War Resisters Remain in Canada with No Regrets", "Vietnam War Resisters in Canada Open Arms to U.S. Military Deserters", "Proclamation 4483: Granting Pardon for Violations of the Selective Service Act, August 4, 1964 To March 38, 1973", "Veterans Sick From Agent Orange-Poisoned Planes Still Seek Justice", "Chemical Spraying as Reported by Refugees from South Vietnam", "Association between Agent Orange and Birth Defects: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis", "U.S. starts its first Agent Orange cleanup in Vietnam", "In Vietnam, Old Foes Take Aim at War's Toxic Legacy", "Veterans' Diseases Associated with Agent Orange", "Statistical Information about Fatal Casualties of the Vietnam War, Electronic Records Reference Report", "fifty years of violent war deaths: data analysis from the world health survey program: BMJ", "Lost Souls: The Search for Vietnam's 300,000 or More MIAs", "In This War, Body Count Is Ruled Out: Casualties: Gen. Schwarzkopf makes it clear he's not repeating a blunder made in Vietnam", "Some Impressions of Viet Cong Vulnerabilities, an Interim Report", "Declassification of the BDM Study, "The Strategic Lessons Learned in Vietnam, "Vietnam-era unaccounted for statistical report", "Vietnam War Bomb Explodes Killing Four Children", Vietnam war shell explodes, kills two fishermen, "Amsterdam Mayor visits Hanoi-Amsterdam High School", "Presidential Proclamation Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War", "Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War", National Archives and Records Administration, "Trump marks Veterans Day with commemoration in Vietnam", "Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War", "Lessons of Vietnam" by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, ca. On 23 July 1962, fourteen nations, including China, South Vietnam, the Soviet Union, North Vietnam and the United States, signed an agreement promising to respect the neutrality of Laos.

Only 16 months later, the Cuban Missile Crisis (16–28 October 1962) played out on television worldwide.

[74]:48, On 2 August 1964, USS Maddox, on an intelligence mission along North Vietnam's coast, allegedly fired upon and damaged several torpedo boats that had been stalking it in the Gulf of Tonkin. [32]:131, The Strategic Hamlet Program was initiated in late 1961. Đặng Thùy Trâm became renowned after her diary was published following her death. Early opposition to U.S. involvement in Vietnam drew its inspiration from the Geneva Conference of 1954. Thai forces saw much more action in the covert war in Laos between 1964 and 1972, though Thai regular formations there were heavily outnumbered by the irregular "volunteers" of the CIA-sponsored Police Aerial Reconnaissance Units or PARU, who carried out reconnaissance activities on the western side of the Ho Chi Minh trail.

"[154][155], During the first month of the offensive, 1,100 Americans and other allied troops, 2,100 ARVN and 14,000 civilians were killed.
The frequency of guerrilla attacks rose as the insurgency gathered steam. He argued that with two months of good weather remaining until the onset of the monsoon, it would be irresponsible to not take advantage of the situation. In Vietnam the diary has often been compared to The Diary of Anne Frank and both are used in literary education. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union and China poured weapons, supplies, and advisers into the North, which in turn provided support, political direction, and regular combat troops for the campaign in the South. They often had to witnessed their fellows and friends being killed or disfigured by mines, booby-traps and sniper fire while unable to take retaliatory actions as the enemy avoided to engage in conventional warfare. May 12, 1975, "Chapter I, Background to the Crisis, 1940-50", "Stabbed in the back! By the 1950s, the conflict had become entwined with the Cold War. Major allies, however, notably NATO nations Canada and the United Kingdom, declined Washington's troop requests.[140]. In the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August, a U.S. destroyer was alleged to have clashed with North Vietnamese fast attack craft. "[84]:264 In April 1961, Kennedy approved the Bay of Pigs Invasion and that invasion failed.

They also struggled with logistical problems and the complex political situation in Vietnam. [260]:78 Torture was conducted by the South Vietnamese government in collusion with the CIA.[261][262]. They did have some significant advantages, however, including a close knowledge of the local people, language and terrain. Beginning in the summer of 1955, Diệm launched the "Denounce the Communists" campaign, during which suspected communists and other anti-government elements were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, or executed. "[310] The US used its security council veto to block Vietnam's recognition by the United Nations three times, an obstacle to the country receiving international aid. Indeed, there was no longer a 'regime' in the sense of a relatively stable political alliance and functioning bureaucracy. Women were enlisted in both the PAVN and the Viet Cong, many joining due to the promises of female equality and a greater social role within society. [309], Gabriel García Márquez, a Nobel Prize winning writer, described South Vietnam as a "False paradise" after the war, when he visited in 1980: "The cost of this delirium was stupefying: 360,000 people mutilated, a million widows, 500,000 prostitutes, 500,000 drug addicts, a million tuberculous and more than a million soldiers of the old regime, impossible to rehabilitate into a new society. [32]:221 In the same month, Johnson pledged that he was not "committing American boys to fighting a war that I think ought to be fought by the boys of Asia to help protect their own land". 2 North Vietnamese strategy. "[308] Such variations may be because "Some estimates may include not only detainees but also people sent from the cities to the countryside." On the opposite side, US troops were apparently much better equipped and highly trained.

Myths play a central role in the historiography of the Vietnam War, and have become a part of the culture of the United States. All-female units were present throughout the entirety of the war, ranging from front-line combat troops to anti-aircraft, scout and reconnaissance units. [180]:331 The significant decline in U.S. morale was demonstrated by the Battle of FSB Mary Ann in March 1971, in which a sapper attack inflicted serious losses on the U.S.

[134] With this recommendation, Westmoreland was advocating an aggressive departure from America's defensive posture and the sidelining of the South Vietnamese. [328] James E. Westheider wrote that "At the height of American involvement in 1968, for example, 543,000 American military personnel were stationed in Vietnam, but only 80,000 were considered combat troops. [2], Black Americans were more likely to be drafted than White Americans. Building up on the success of ARVN units in Cambodia, and further testing the Vietnamization program, the ARVN were tasked to launch Operation Lam Son 719 in February 1971, the first major ground operation aimed directly at attacking the Ho Chi Minh trail by attacking the major crossroad of Tchepone. which intended to find a treatment for malaria to provide the assistance to the PAVN who suffered malaria. [279][280] American bases were ringed by bars and brothels. Bloods distinguished themselves by wearing black gloves and amulets, as well as bracelets made out of boot laces. Whether this preparation was adequate or specialised enough for the situation in Vietnam is doubtful. "[5], The Black Liberation Front of the Armed Forces was a Black solidarity group formed by Eddie Burney. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian officials acknowledged that the Soviet Union had stationed up to 3,000 troops in Vietnam during the war. The deposing of the monarch Norodom Sihanouk by the Cambodian National Assembly resulted in a PAVN invasion of the country at the request of the Khmer Rouge, escalating the Cambodian Civil War and resulting in a U.S.-ARVN counter-invasion.

[299] While many in the U.S. military believed that the Viet Cong and PAVN would not be able to exploit insecure communications, interrogation of captured communication intelligence units showed they could understand the jargon and codes used in real time and were often able to warn their side of impending U.S. $143 billion adjusted for inflation in 2015) during the Vietnam War. [148]:148–9, Prior to Tet, in November 1967, Westmoreland had spearheaded a public relations drive for the Johnson administration to bolster flagging public support. Communist forces were under a single command structure set up in 1958.