Captured: Shot Down In Vietnam American Involvement, Part Two of Four

France’s withdrawal in 1954, left an unstable political situation in Vietnam.  In the North, Hồ Chí Minh established a communist government. In the South, the last emperor of Vietnam, Bảo Đại and his replacement, Ngô Đình Diệm, both sought closer ties with the West. The United States supported the new, non-communist government to counter the communist North.   

Eisenhower’s successor, President John F. Kennedy, undertook a major expansion of American involvement in Vietnam. Over the 34 months of his presidency, the number of American military advisors grew to 16,000. Kennedy also provided the South Vietnamese military with fighter planes, helicopters, and other war material and authorized the use of napalm and Agent Orange.

The largest escalation of American involvement in Vietnam took place under Kennedy’s successor, President Johnson. On October 21, 1964, he said, “[W]e are not about to send American boys 9 or 10,000 miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.”

The United States regarded the war as a battle between communism and anti-communism. They saw it as a proxy battlefield in the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. The North Vietnamese viewed it as a war of reunification and a mission to install a communist government across all of Vietnam. They saw foreign intervention on behalf of South Vietnam as meddling in the internal affairs of a unified Vietnam. 

Most of those serving in the military during Vietnam had voluntarily joined the armed services. However, when President Johnson escalated America’s involvement in Vietnam by introducing combat forces, the Selective Service – the federal agency responsible for the draft – dramatically ramped up the number of young men drafted.  President Nixon ended the draft in January 1973, creating an all-volunteer military. No men or women have been drafted into the armed forces since.