Category:Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a prolonged conflict between the United States and North Vietnam from roughly 1965 to 1975. The fighting took place almost entirely in the Southeast Asian nation of Vietnam. Afraid that the theory of the "domino" effect would topple democratic governments in that region of the world, allowing communist interests to seize control, the United States government chose to engage the communist forces led by Ho Chi Minh. Receiving aid from China and from South Vietnamese guerrillas (Viet Cong) sympathetic to North Vietnam's cause, United States military forces became involved in one of the longest armed conflicts of the 20th Century. Though US forces persisted in their efforts, they were eventually driven out and victory over the north was lost.

The conflict also spread to the neighboring countries of Laos and Cambodia, both already unstable and poor. Following a system of roadways and paths through Laos called the Ho Chi Minh trail, North Vietnamese soldiers were able to infiltrate the South in unpredictable patterns, striking irregularly and unexpectedly at US and South Vietnamese army positions.

The war had a devastating effect within the United States itself. The war found more open opposition than support, mostly from young Americans in their teens and twenties. Public protests were a common occurrence and were often met with violence from law enforcement. Veterans returning from Vietnam were often met with hostility by young protesters. As a society, the country was torn apart; opposition to the conflict gave rise to the Free Love movement whose practitioners, called "hippies", staged sit-ins on college campuses or occupied public buildings, demanding that the government put a stop to the violence in Vietnam.

The war also ushered many new types of weapons such as napalm, a jellied form of gasoline that was highly flammable and used to destroy enemy forces hiding in the dense jungle growth of the region. Napalm was most often dropped from fighter jets. A chemical defoliant, code-named "Agent Orange", was also used by US forces to destroy the plant life of the jungle in the hopes that it would either poison North Vietnamese forces or uncover their camouflaged hiding places. Agent Orange, like napalm, was also delivered via aircraft, which would spray it over acres of rainforest.

The US also made use of some of it's most advanced jet fighters, most commonly the Northrup F-4 and F-5.