Path+to+War

In the time of imperialism, Vietnam was french. France had control of a lot of that area because of the new markets they offered. But in 1930, Ho Chi Minh, the leader of the Independence in vietnam, led a communist rebellion against France. Then, French got back china, which was where he fled to. Ho Chi Minh created the vietnam party, which was communism. After the Korean war, the US had some bad feelings about communism. Vietnam was split in two, north being communist, and south being a democracy. Ho Chi Minh ruled the north, and Ngo Dinh Diem ruled the south. A civil war broke out, which led to the United States siding with the south. The presidents in the time of war (and a little before) were Harry Truman, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.

In the Gulf of Tonkin, a US ship was sunk by Vietnam. Johnson asked congress if he could take military action in Vietnam. Congress unanimously answered yes. They came up with a plan called Rolling Thunder, which was to drop a lot of bombs on Vietnam. In 1965, 3,500 marines were sent into Vietnam to join the 20+ thousand military advisors that Dwight D. Eisenhower had already sent.