Vietnam today is a country on the eastern edge of the large Asian landmass known as Indochina. Before the Vietnam War many Americans did not know where it was located. When American troops finally came home, they sometimes found themselves still embattled. One of the most painful events in all of Americans history was the Vietnam War.
             The Vietnam War was an unsuccessful effort by the United States and the South Vietnam to prevent the communists of North Vietnam from uniting with the South Vietnam with North Vietnam under their leadership. In 1945 it started out the Vietnam vs. France. Ho chi Minh declared Independence from France. Ho chi Minh was the leader of the Vietnam Independence League. The French would only recognize them as a free state of the French Union. This led to fighting between the Vietnamese and the French. An International conference at Geneva in 1954 negotiated a cease-fire between the French and the Viet Minh. The conferees decided to separate them by sending the Viet Minh north of the 17th parallel and the Vietnamese fighting under French command would move south of the 17th parallel. Many people left their homes to either move south or north. In 1956 there was to be a supervised by an International Control Committee with the aim of reunifying Vietnam under a single popularly elected government. When 1956 came along South Vietnam's Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem refused to go along with the planned election. The U.S. supported his position. In response, North Vietnamese decided they would reunite Vietnam by military force. ( Britannica vol. 12 pg. 361)
             U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, fearing the spread of communism in Asia, persuaded the U.S. government to provide military and economic assistance to Diem's government. Guerrilla warfare spread as Viet Minh soldiers who were trained and armed in the North-the Viet Cong- returned to their homes in the South to assassinate, ambush,...