Let's Learn about the Cold War: Part 17 - The Vietnam War

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Sean D. Smith
  • Minot Air Force Base Public Affairs
MINOT AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. --  The Vietnam War was a proxy war, another product of communist expansion and American policy to contain it. The conflict lasted for nearly 20 years, from 1955 to 1975, and took place in North and South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.

North Vietnam had the support of China and the USSR, while the South Vietnamese government was backed by the United States and NATO. Fighting began between South Vietnam and the Vietcong, which was loyal to North Vietnam. The United States and its allies provided support to the South Vietnamese, and ultimately committed to war in an effort to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam.

The war didn't go well. The American military was poorly suited fighting a guerrilla force as fierce as the Vietcong, and as the war dragged on, the North Vietnamese Army became increasingly involved with support from China.

American troops withdrew in 1973. Saigon fell to North Vietnamese forces in 1975, and the next year North and South Vietnam merged to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Millions of South Vietnamese were sent to reeducation camps during the aftermath, and more than 200,000 were executed.

The exact reasons for America's failure in Vietnam are still debated today, but the effects were far-reaching, and it was a transformative period in American history.

The Vietnam war wasn't popular; many of the American troops fighting were conscripts, and as the war dragged on, morale and discipline suffered. Hundreds of incidents of the deliberate assassination of an officer or NCO by his own subordinates occurred during the Vietnam war. This practice is known as fragging, and it contributed heavily to Washington's decision to make America's military an all-volunteer force.

American civilians were also displeased with the war; widespread objection to continued American intervention in Vietnam took the form of massive protests across the nation, some of which escalated to violence. One of the most iconic was the Kent State massacre, where the Ohio National Guard shot thirteen unarmed, American student protestors, killing four and wounding nine others.

The end of the war brought with it an influx of veterans to re-integrate with civilian life, and after the brutal circumstances in Vietnam, many suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. Public distaste for the war extended to the returning soldiers, and books like David Morell's First Blood, which would go on to become an iconic American film, were inspired by the cold reception that many returning veterans received. 

Vietnam isn't a fondly-remembered war, but it was an influential one. Foreign policy, protest culture and the treatment of combat veterans were only a few of the things that started to change in the following years.

Next time: The Berlin Crisis of 1961