Vietnam Was A Country That Was Far Removed From The American Essays

Vietnam was a country that was far removed from the American people until their history and ours became forever interlinked in what has come to be known as the Vietnam conflict. It is a classic story of good guys versus bad, communism versus freedom, and a constant struggle for stability. Americas attempt to aid the cause of freedom was a valid one, but one that ended up with South Vietnam being dependent upon us for its very life as a nation. "Vietnamization" was the name for the plan to allow South Vietnam to stand on its own, and ended in leaving a country totally on its own, unable to stand and fight. Vietnam was a French territory until the Viet Minh insurgency of the late 1940's and through 1954. Although regarding this uprising as part of a larger Communist conspiracy, Americans were not unsympathetic to Vietnamese aspirations for national independence. The ensueing defeat of the French brought an end to the first stage of what was to be a thirty year struggle. The Indochina ceasefire agreement (Geneva Accords) of July 21, 1954 led to the creation of seperate states in Laos and Cambodia, and the artificial division of Vietnam into two republics. In the North the Communist Viet Minh established the democratic of Vietnam, and in the south a random collection of non - Communist factions, led by Ngo Dinh Diem, formed the Republic of Vietnam. The general elections provided for by the agreement never took place, and the two states quickly drew apart. The United States immediatly threw its support behind the southern regime and extended military aid through a Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) under the command of Lt. General John W. O'Daniel. American objectives in South Vietnam were reletively simple and remained so -- the establishment and preservation of a non - Communist government in South Vietnam. Initally, the most pressing problem was the weakness of the Saigon government and the danger of cival war between South Vietnam's armed religious and political factions. Diem, however, acting as a kind of benevolent dictator, managed to put a working government together, and O'Daniel's advisory group, about three or four hundred people, went to work creating a national army. Slowly, under the direction of O'Daniel and his successor in October 1955, Lt. General Samuel T. Williams, the new army took shape. The primary mission of this 150,000 man force was to repel a North Vietnamese invasion across the Demilitarised zone that seperated North and South Vietnam. Diem and his American advisors thus organised and trained the new army for a Korean - style conflict, rather than for the unconventional guerrilla warfare that had characterised the earlier French - Viet Minh struggle. President Minh also maintained a substantial paramilitary force almost as large as the regular army. This force's primary task was to maintain internal security, but also acted as a counter weight to the army, whose officers often had political ambitions that were sometimes incompatible with those of Diem. From the beginning, such tensions weakened the Saigon government and severly hampered its ability to deal with South Vietnam's social and ecenomic problems. At the beginning of 1968 the military strength of the Saigon government was, on paper, impressive. The regular armed forces consisted of about 250,000 men, organised into a conventional army, navy, air force, and marine corps, well equipped with tanks, artillary, ships and aircraft, Behind the regulars was a similar - size militia - like organization, the Territorial forces. Although consisting mainly of small rifle units, the territorials had begun to recieve modern radios, vehicles, and small arms during the early 1960's, and their capabilities had increased considerably. The organization of the armed forces mirrored most Western nations; a civialian Ministry of Defence directed a military general staff which headed a heirarchy of operational commands and various support and training facilities. The Territorial Forces, a formal part of the armed forcse since 1964, was apportioned amon the forty - four province cheifs, the principle administrators of Vietnam. In comparison, the Viet Cong army looked pertty weak. With some 80,000 lightly equipped regulars, back by about 80,000 - 100,000 part - time geuirillas and supported by a few thousand North Vietnamese troops and a fragile supply line hundreds of miles long, it was hardly an imposing force. Nevertheless, this force had inflicted a series of defeats on the South Vietnamese troops, all but throwing then out of the copuntryside and back into the cities and towns. Vietnamization In the spring of 1969 Presiden Richard M. Nixon initiated his new policy of "Vietnamization." Vietnamization had two distinct elements: first, the unilateral withdraawl of American troops