Guidence

[Old Seabee]

I have been doing a lot of reading lately about Vietnam, trying to figure out what is was all for. I just finished "Street With Out Joy" now I am wondring just how stupid the powers to be both military and political could have been. If Fells acount is correct, which looking back he was, why did no one hear. I would like to have my brothers guide me to the most definiyive book on Vietnam.

[phuloi]

WE Were Soldiers Once...And Young by Col. Hal Moore and Joe Galloway

[39mto39g]

old sea
There is no book like what you want.
Vietnam was a different war, By year, by unit and by region.
When people write a book about Vietnam they write about a certain time in history, Most likely a time that "They" were involved.
Vietnam war was vastly different from a war 1965 Hale More to a 1968 Tet to a 1972 withdraw.
Reading one book about someone’s opinion about a war at a certain time is just , Well, you fill in the adjectives.

There is no simple answer.
Ron

[DeadlyDaring]

I found some stuff related to Vietnam for you.

You may already have read this somewhere

The Vietnam War – most commonly used name in English

Second Indochina War – also used name in English

Vietnam Conflict – most commonly accepted used name in English

Chiến tranh Việt Nam – (The Vietnam War)

Kháng chiến chống Mỹ - (Resistance War Against America), loosely translated as the American War.


A total of 16 countries were involved in Vietnam, 9 Allied and 7 Communist countries


Allied Commanders

Nguyễn Văn Thiệu
Lam Quang Thi
Nguyen Cao Ky
Ngô Đình Diệm
Ngo Quang Truong
Dwight D. Eisenhower
John F. Kennedy
Lyndon B. Johnson
Robert McNamara
William Westmoreland
Richard Nixon
Gerald Ford
Creighton Abrams
Frederick Weyand
Elmo Zumwalt
John Paul Vann
Robin Olds
Lon Nol
Park Chung Hee
Thanom Kittikachorn
Harold Holt
Keith Holyoake
Ferdinand Marcos

Communist Commanders

Hồ Chí Minh
Lê Duẩn
Trường Chinh
Nguyễn Chí Thanh
Võ Nguyên Giáp
Phạm Hùng
Văn Tiến Dũng
Trần Văn Trà
Lê Ðức Thọ
Đồng Sỹ Nguyên
Lê Đức Anh
Tran Do
Nguyen Van Toan
Hoang Minh Thao
Nguyen Minh Chau
Tran The Mon
Chu Phong Doi
Truong Muc
Vo Minh Triet
Pol Pot
Zhou En Lai
Nikita Khruschev
Leonid Brezhnev

Was the Vietnam War an undeclared or declared war?

If it was officially a declared war, it would have meant that Congress declared it war. the President only has the power to send and command the troops wherever he wants, he doesnt have the power to offically declare war.

It was an undeclared war.
It was in violation of both the 1954 Geneva Agreements AND the UN charter, and the US was the cause of the war.

The US did not go in to protect South Vietnamese forces.
The US violated all aspects of the 1954 Geneva Agreements -- installing a dictator, a Catholic Seminary student, Ngo Dien Diem, in the South, first as Prime Minister then as President following declaring the southern TEMPORARY DEMILITARIZED ZONE as an independent country; by introducing military and civilian advisers into the south; by not allowing National elections to be held in the south before June 1956 as specified in the 1954 Geneva Agreements and by sending arms and other military equipment into the south in violation of the Geneva agreements.

Vietnam was a conflict; the Gulf of Tonkin resolution passed by Congress gave President Johnson the authority and power to use military force but did not declare war. Since the majority of the fighting was in South Vietnam and we had been requested by the South Vietnamese government to assist we really had no one to declare war on. The air strikes on North Vietnam and "excursions" into neighboring countries were to destroy supply lines and depots used to support the Viet Cong. As North Vietnamese Regular Army became more common the air strikes were deemed necessary to stop them.

The U.S. has not had a declared war since World War Two.
Korea was an United Nations effort and the troops there acted under the UN guidelines-the commander was an American.

Vietnam-The action was partially by the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and partly in accordance with the provisions of the SouthEast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) Treaty. This is why other country had troops in Vietnam also-it was not a soley American operation which is widely forgotten in most "history" of the conflict

So it was an undeclared war. But it was a war, despite what some people may say.

[Old Seabee]

thanks guys, you have given options to look at. 39MTO, you are right East Danang in 1965 was a lot different then Dang Ha and CauVet in 1968.