Since 1950, American funding has played a crucial role in supporting the French military efforts in Indochina. By early 1955, the U.S. government began financing the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem and the training of his military, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). This policy was driven by the fear of a potential domino effect in Southeast Asia if South Vietnam fell to Communism, as well as the more pragmatic concerns regarding U.S. access to vital resources, trade routes, and markets. Although President John F. Kennedy hesitated to commit large-scale American troops, by the summer of 1962, twelve thousand American advisors were stationed in South Vietnam.

Despite these financial injections, Diem’s government remained unpopular and ineffective, losing ground to the Viet Cong in the struggle for public support. One of the most damaging initiatives was the Strategic Hamlets Programme, introduced in 1962 based on British strategies from the Malayan Emergency. This program forcibly relocated entire villages into fortified compounds to protect them from the Viet Cong. However, it backfired, leading to widespread discontent and driving villagers toward the resistance due to its insensitivity and the corruption it fostered.

Militarily, the situation was equally dire. The failure of the ARVN during the Battle of Ap Bac in January 1963 illustrated Diem’s struggles, as his troops suffered heavy losses against a smaller Viet Cong force. Tensions escalated further in May 1963 when ARVN soldiers fired upon Buddhists celebrating Buddha’s birthday in Hue, igniting riots and protests against religious oppression. This unrest culminated in the self-immolation of Thich Quang Duc in Saigon, a protest that shocked the nation and the world. Fearing the repercussions of Diem’s declining popularity, the U.S. tacitly supported a coup that overthrew him on November 1, 1963. Diem and his brother fled to Cho Lon, where they were killed the next day.

The capital continued to experience political instability, marked by coups and a persistent atmosphere of corruption and nepotism, all while relying heavily on American support. Meanwhile, in the countryside, the Viet Cong were solidifying their base of popular support. Observing the instability in the South, Hanoi began sending battalions of North Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops down the Ho Chi Minh Trail in early 1964, with ten thousand Northern soldiers dispatched within the first year. Faced with the challenge of preventing a Communist foothold in the South while recognizing the limitations of Saigon’s military leaders, the U.S. resolved to “Americanize” the conflict.

A pivotal moment occurred in August 1964 when the American destroyer USS Maddox reported an unprovoked attack by North Vietnamese boats; two days later, it and another ship, the USS Turner Joy, claimed a second assault. It later emerged that the Maddox had been engaged in a covert operation to monitor North Vietnam’s coastal installations and that the second incident likely never occurred. Nonetheless, the U.S. responded with airstrikes against North Vietnamese coastal bases and, soon after, Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, granting President Lyndon B. Johnson the authority to deploy regular U.S. forces to Vietnam “to prevent further aggression.”

Operation Rolling Thunder

The attack on Pleiku in February 1965 by North Vietnamese forces marked a turning point in American military involvement and led to Operation Flaming Dart, a significant bombing campaign against NVA camps above the Seventeenth Parallel. This was followed by Operation Rolling Thunder, a sustained aerial bombardment campaign that began in March 1965. By the time it was suspended three and a half years later, over 350,000 sorties had been executed, dropping double the tonnage of bombs compared to all theaters of World War II—around eight hundred bombs daily. Despite these staggering figures, Rolling Thunder failed to disrupt the North’s supply lines or to compel Hanoi to cease its activities in the South. Instead, the bombing only strengthened Northern resolve, with civilians mobilizing to quickly repair the damage inflicted on infrastructure. Furthermore, NVA troop infiltration into the South continued to rise.

Warnings from politicians, such as William F. Knowland, who predicted that deploying U.S. ground forces in Indochina would be futile, were ignored. In March 1965, the first regular American troops from the 3rd Marine Division landed in Da Nang. By the end of that year, there were two hundred thousand American soldiers in Vietnam, with numbers approaching half a million by the winter of 1967. This influx also included significant contingents of Australian and South Korean forces, as well as smaller units from New Zealand, Thailand, and the Philippines.

The conflict these troops faced was characterized by its harsh and dispiriting nature: primarily a guerrilla war against an elusive enemy capable of vanishing into nearby villages, leaving American forces suspicious even of civilians. In the North, the relentless bombing campaigns led to a surge of anti-colonial sentiment against what was perceived as foreign aggression. In the South, disorientation prevailed. Some viewed the substantial U.S. presence as a deterrent to a prolonged conflict, while others felt it resembled an invasion, especially as American forces began to displace villagers and destroy their land, prompting many to support the National Liberation Front (NLF).

Although the Viet Cong were not without their own brutalities, often imposing a regime of fear through summary executions of suspected traitors, the alternative presented by successive Saigon governments was equally unappealing due to widespread corruption and unpopularity. To navigate this complex landscape, villagers quickly learned to adapt their responses, attempting to appease both sides of the conflict. This precarious balance created an atmosphere of mistrust, where neighbors became informants, and family members found themselves on opposite sides of the conflict as children were conscripted by whichever faction reached them first.