America's Involvement in the Vietnam War: Why?

[Backlighting]

I fund it ironic that the guy (Johnson) who started the build up in earnest with his phony Gulf of Tonkin Resolution is the same guy who pulled the plug when victory was at hand.

I was drafted in '67(no lottery then), the result of the massive build up of troops by Johnson.
If you were a young man & able to walk...u were scooped up.
Your only other options (if not in college) were a couple of yrs in a Federal prison or flee to Canada.
I went in & made the best of it. A stroke of incredible luck got me stationed in Yokohama after the initial training, where I was assigned to a support group for my comrades in Nam.
It's 2 yrs of my life I'll never forget.

 

[Bill Gates Jr.]

American Involvement in Vietnam war...the rest of the story

After the French defeat, the Geneva accords temporarily divided the Communist North vs the Catholic led South. Elections were supposed to be held in 1956 but the Catholic leaders in the south knew they would lose to the North in an open election and refused. ** Chi Minh was still a popular figure for fighting the Japanese and then the French. The Catholics were more pro French and not as popular in a country that was primarily Buddhist.
The Domino Theory plus the 1949 victory of the Chinese Communist and all that happened in eastern Europe, led to the U.S. trying to prop up the South. We could never win the 'hearts and minds' of most Vietnamese. The lesson we supposedly learned is unless the majority of locals support the government you are supporting, you will fail. We forgot that lesson when we invaded Iraq (no threat to us) and Afghanistan. The Chaos in Iraq was predicted by some in the CIA, but they weren't listened too.
If the people of a country are not willing to fight for their country, all we can do is delay the inevitable. We see the results in those two countries every day on the news.
I served from July 62 to July 66. I never saw service in Vietnam. In 1962 when I joined Vietnam was not in the news. After 1 year of tech school, I spent 3 years in Germany. A friend was in Danang. I tell him I was holding back the Russian hordes.

 

[RavingMac]

This isn't how history works though. There is no one true narrative, no right way of telling what happened since it is very much a subjective enterprise. . . .

A truth worth repeating. If it were only that simple, then in present conflicts it would be easy to analyze the situation and then we all by consensus would support the side that was in the right . . . though of course the side in the wrong would see the error of their ways and repent of it and no intervention would be required.

Something I told me kids growing up when they were taking US and World History: "Isn't it amazing how all the other countries in the world were continually switching between good and evil. Sometimes the British were the bad guys, and sometimes they switched and became good. Same with the French, Germans etc. But the US was always amazingly able to come down on the side of right in every conflict."

Don't know if it helped them pass History, but it did help their development as thoughful and reasoned individuals.

 

[vansmith]

Something I told me kids growing up when they were taking US and World History: "Isn't it amazing how all the other countries in the world were continually switching between good and evil. Sometimes the British were the bad guys, and sometimes they switched and became good. Same with the French, Germans etc. But the US was always amazingly able to come down on the side of right in every conflict."

Ah yes, the ol' "we do no wrong and everyone else does at some point" narrative. If I read a history textbook, the best I get at trying to address social and political wrongdoings is "we don't do that anymore and it was a small group of people who were bad, not 'us'."