How many US soldiers were involved in the Vietnam war?

Answer 1

The Vietnamese refer to the time period of US involvement as "The American War". Additionally, there were more than 15 nations involved in the Vietnam War, between 1945 and 1975.

Not many people realize that what we in the US call "The Vietnam War" actually started in 1945 when Vietnamese began to fight the Japanese who had invaded their land. The Japanese had forced out the French, who had been in Vietnam since the 1870s. The Viet Minh, a militant organization that opposed Japanese occupation, began to fight a guerrila war against them. Once the Japanese withdrew from Vietnam at the end of World War Two, the French returned, but by that time, the Vietnamese were less willing to accept colonial rule again. Using the same tactics against the French that had worked for them in fighting the Japanese, the Viet Minh stood up to the more modern forces, culminating in 1954 in a death-blow at a place called Dien Bien Phu.

The Viet Minh were a small, scattered, rag-tag conglomerate of jungle fighters who used hit-&-run attacks, raiding parties, snipings and booby-traps as their main strategy, first against the Japanese and then against the French. The French, having learned a lot fighting the Germans and Italians in World War Two, had infantry, paratroopers, special forces, tanks, artillery, helicopters, planes, naval gunfire, communications and supporting units to their disposal. There were also Vietnamese who fought alongside the French, either in the French Army, French Foreign Legion, Navy & Air Force, or as part of the newly formed Vietnamese armed forces. Even with all of these supposed advantages, the Viet Minh killed or wounded a sufficient number of French and pro-French Vietnamese that the war's pyschological aspects were more damaging than actual military victories. Unlike the pride-inspiring events of resisting the Germans, this new type of war was a world away, and was bleeding France dry, both monetarily and emotionally. A stalemate was soon in the making, and the French people, both in France and in Vietnam, were tired of warfare, especially when there seemed to be no point to it. The French government was also fighting an insurgency in Algeria, and the results there were just as dismal.

The top military minds devised a plan in which they'd end the stalemate before it got started, by drawing the enemy far from the urban, agricultural and coastal areas, where the majority of the population was centered. The French military leadership selected a place called Dien Bin Phu, a village in an eastern valley of Vietnam. By fighting the Viet Minh deep in the jungle, they thought they wouldn't have the prying eyes and ears of the press, along with the accusations that they couldn't win against a smaller, less-sophisticated, poorly-trained, poorly-equipped peasant army. Begininning in the closing months of 1953, the French built a combat base that was supposed to make it more difficult for Viet Minh fighters to be resupplied, due to its remote location. The French themselves would have to be resupplied by air, but with planes and helicopters at their beck and call, they thought it was a fool-proof plan. What was envisioned as a final curtain for the Viet Minh called for good old-fashioned infantry patrolling that would ensure constant contact with smaller ground units, while heavy artillery would repel large-scale Viet Minh attacks. Between 12,500 and 17,000 French military men and their pro-French counterparts participated in the ensuing battle, from November 1953 to April 1954.

The Viet Minh outsmarted the French generals by tunneling under and into the base from all directions, but that wasn't the only way things went wrong. Being located in a valley, the French were surprised when the Viet Minh rained deadly artillery fire down upon them from the surrounding hilltops. The enemy had disassembled dozens of captured artillery pieces, and then dragged, pushed, shoved, and carried them to the slopes around Dien Bien Phu, along with thousands of pounds of ammunition. The combination of fire from above and continual ground attacks eventually wore down the French, who had suddenly become the defenders. The Viet Minh laid seige to Dien Bien Phu for months, in the end forcing the French to surrender and taking more than 11,000 of them as prisoners.

As a result of the downfall at Dien Bien Phu, French colonial rule suffered just as major a blow as the combatants. French Indochina ceased to exist, and soon afterward, the country of Vietnam split into two separate ones, North and South. Hanoi became the capital of the new North Vietnam, and Saigon remained the capital of the South. China and the Soviet Union backed North Vietnam, while the United States and the United Nations backed South Vietnam. Each of these superpowers supplied its varsity team with modern equipment, advanced training, schooling for officers, and advisors on the ground. The communist government and the people of North Vietnam were determined to reunite the country, by force if necessary. South Vietnam was determined to remain free, but its committment to that goal was splintered by sharp divisions within its cabinets and among the upper classes. Corruption fed by greed, and greed fed by corruption added to the difficulties in a problematic time for a struggling new country. With access to the open purse strings of the most powerful nation on earth (the United States), many politicians and business leaders were more inclined to line their own pockets than to help their people. North Vietnam worked stringently to punish anyone who cooperated with what they called the 'puppet government' of the South. With increasing boldness, the North sent spies and soldiers southward to harass the neighbors across its common border, where they used bombings, sabotage, kidnappings and assasinations on a regular basis to terrorize potential belligerents.

The Viet Minh matured also, changing their name to the Viet Cong. While still a guerrilla force, they grew in numbers and in fighting strength, fueled by nationalistic fervor and rollicking triumph at having defeated the French. Along with their cousins, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA), the Viet Cong became a prickly thorn in the side of the South Vietnamese.

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The United States first sent in 'advisers' to train the South Vietnamese forces in fending off the North Vietnamese in the late 1950s, as ordered there by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Officially, these advisors were not supposed to be taking part in frontline combat, but that wasn't always the case. When John F. Kennedy took over the presidency in 1962, the US was already heavily involved in Vietnam, which was not fully known to the American public. After Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as the commander-in-chief. The first full-fledged combat units were sent into South Vietnam in March 1965, when the US Marines of the Ninth Expeditionary Brigade went ashore at Danang. Over the next 3 years, Johnson has been credited with being responsible for the steady escalation of US troop numbers in Vietnam, and he based his orders on his advisors' assurances that more men were needed in order to win the war. In addition to ground troops, there were naval and air forces to account for the numbers of men and women fighting in Vietnam. The United Nations also took part the fray; troops from Australia, South Korea, and the Philippines, to name a few, fought alongside the Americans. China, Cuba, and many Soviet republics joined the battle in support of North Vietnam.

After the American/United Nations withdrew major combat units from South Vietnam in the early 1970s, only skeleton units remained. Most of the hard fighting was left up to the South Vietnamese Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. In April of 1975, North Vietnamese Army tanks rolled into the capital city, Saigon, and struck down the South Vietnamese flag, replacing it with their own. This act signaled the tangible end of the "American War," as the Vietnamese called it.

Even after the Americans (and the United Nations) were no longer part of the tapestry, the fighting was not yet over. Vietnam and Cambodia began fighting each other in late 1975, early 1976.

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So, from 1945 to the later part of the decade of the 1970s, more than two and a half million men, women and children fought in and around Vietnam. Between North and South Vietnam, at least 750,000 people died, both soldier and civilian. The United States lost more than 58,500 dead.

Answer 2

I am writing a young adults book that involves a character that gets drafted by the Army and need to have a location in Vietnam that our troops were stationed, a ligitimate squad, platoon and any other type discriptions that will make the novel true in the respect of the Vietnam War. Can you help me? Jane King

Answer 3

Approximately half a million troops. One out of ten did not come home alive.

Answer 4

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