Page 10 - Stand Down Vietnam

VIETNAM WAR
1955 - 1975

“The Vietnam War in Vietnam also known as the American War, was a Cold
War-era proxy war that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from
December 1956 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war
followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam—
supported by the Soviet Union, China, and other communist allies—and
the government of South Vietnam—supported by the United States and
other anti-communist countries. The Viet Cong (also known as the
National Liberation Front, or NLF), a lightly armed South Vietnamese
communist common front directed by the North, fought a guerrilla war
against anti-communist forces in the region.

In the course of the war, the U.S. conducted a large-scale strategic
bombing campaign against North Vietnam, and over time the North
Vietnamese airspace became the most heavily defended airspace of any
in the world.

U.S. government viewed American involvement in the war as a way to
prevent a Communist takeover of South Vietnam. This was part of a
wider containment strategy, with the stated aim of stopping the spread
of communism. According to the U.S. domino theory, if one state went
Communist, other states in the region would follow and U.S. policy
thus held that accommodation to the spread of Communist rule across
all of Vietnam was unacceptable. The North Vietnamese government and
the Viet Cong were fighting to reunify Vietnam under communist rule.

Direct U.S. military involvement ended on 15 August 1973 as a result
of the Case–Church Amendment passed by the U.S. Congress. The capture
of Saigon at the hands of the North Vietnamese Army in April 1975
marked the end of the war, and North and South Vietnam were reunified
the following year. The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of
fatalities (see Vietnam War casualties). Estimates of the number of
Vietnamese service members and civilians killed vary from 800,000 to
3.1 million. Some 200,000–300,000 Cambodians, 20,000–200,000
Laotians, and 58,220 U.S. service members also died in the conflict.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War