What was the Vietnam War?

The war lasted for 12 years, with more than 56,000 American soldiers killed and more than 300,000 injured, costing more than 400 billion dollars, causing incurable mental trauma to the United States.

American military intervention in Vietnam

After World War II, the people of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia gained independence through armed struggle and uprising. 1945 On September 2nd, Ho Chi Minh announced the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on behalf of the interim government in Hanoi, northern Vietnam, and actively took actions to restore the reunification of Vietnam.

At the same time, in the south of Vietnam, it has been persistently opposed to * * *, and with the support of the United States, a new government was established in Saigon on June 1955+00.

1961may, in order to prevent the collapse of the Wu Tingyan regime, the United States sent 100 so-called "special forces" code-named "green berets" into South Vietnam.

1February 8, 962, the United States established a military command in Saigon under the command of General paul huggins, which marked the beginning of the direct involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War. On April 30th, US Deputy Secretary of State George Bauer announced a plan called "Strategic Village", which divided the areas with serious guerrilla infiltration in southern Vietnam into smaller areas. The main villages should use barbed wire and? The watchtower will be surrounded, people entering the village will be carefully examined and residents will be transferred to concentration camps. Subsequently, the U.S. Puppet Army frantically swept and surrounded the "strategic village".

Guerrillas in southern Vietnam fought against "strategic villages" and mopping up. According to statistics, from 1962 to 1964, guerrillas in southern Vietnam carried out counter-raids for more than 40 times, resulting in more than 2,000 American casualties. By 1964, the guerrillas in southern Vietnam liberated more than two-thirds of the land and 7 million people in the south, and the intervention of the US military was seriously frustrated.

The war escalated gradually.

The American military defeat in South Vietnam angered the American ruling group. 1At the end of 963, American President Johnson said at a meeting that the Wu Tingyan regime failed to stop the spread of the "red tide" and it was entirely possible that the situation in Vietnam was in the hands of Ho Chi Minh, which was "extremely unsatisfactory" and "must be improved".

1 963165438+1October1The United States instigated a military coup in South Vietnam, killed and replaced it with a new puppet Yang, actively looking for an excuse to expand the war.

1On August 4th, 964, the U.S. government claimed that the American destroyers "maddox" and "Tenner Cui" were attacked by an indefinite number of North Vietnamese torpedo boats while patrolling the high seas about 65 nautical miles from the nearest land in Tokyo Bay (i.e. Beibu Gulf).

It turned out that this was an excuse deliberately created by the Pentagon to expand the war against Vietnam. The American government took the opportunity to launch a "gradual escalation strategy", the so-called "limited expansion war".

Then, the US military began to carry out "saturation bombing" and "scorched earth" and bombed northern Vietnam on a large scale. At the same time, the United States continues to send more troops. By 1967, the number of American troops in Vietnam exceeded 500,000.

Guerrilla warfare made the American army suffer a lot.

The strangulation of the revolution by American and South Vietnamese troops aroused more resistance. In many combat zones in South Vietnam, every household forms a combat unit. There are gun holes in the house, bomb shelters in the ground, grain holes and cow holes. Every village is a fighting fortress, with militia and guerrillas in the village. Most villages and towns, especially those near the edge of occupied areas, have become heavily guarded fighting villages and towns. The battle village is well organized, and the villagers have their own combat posts. Guerrillas and militiamen stand guard and go into battle whenever there is any situation. After 1965, with the expansion of the war, a large number of guerrillas began to transform into regular troops and went to the front to fight against the US military.

1on April 3 and 4, 965, the us military suffered heavy losses in the battle of Qinghua. At 7: 00 a.m. on April 3, about 400 planes of the US Seventh Fleet moored in the South China Sea invaded Tsinghua Province in batches. American planes bombed some residential areas, civil engineering and economic facilities in northern Tsinghua Province. The air defense forces in northern Vietnam and the local militia self-defense forces used all kinds of firepower to shoot into the sky at the moment when the enemy plane swooped down, forming a strong and tight firepower network. Enemy planes were hit one after another and fell with thick smoke. On this day, they shot down enemy planes 17 and captured American pilots 1, setting a record for shooting down the most American planes in one day.

On April 4, the US military raided Qinghua again, but the local armed forces came prepared. This time, the American army failed even worse. On this day, Tsinghua * * * soldiers and civilians shot down 30 enemy planes and captured American pilots 1 name alive. After this campaign, American bombing was in a dilemma.

From 1964 to 1965, the South Vietnamese National Liberation Army and the guerrillas fought mobile and carried out a series of sudden attacks, ambushes, tough battles, round-up assistance and anti-mopping-up battles. According to preliminary statistics, the southern military and civilians annihilated nearly 6,000 American troops, more than double the total number of American troops annihilated from 196 1 to 1964 at the end of February. In many places where we fought on the battlefield, the bodies of American troops were lying at random, emitting a stench. According to Edgar, an American war correspondent, he visited Guzhi County, not far from Saigon, on 1964, and found that the bodies of American troops were floating in the Ganmi River in the county, unattended, and the river was mixed with blood, which was terrible dark green in the sun. Occasionally, several children pass by, fiddling with the body with long sticks, looking for something of value. In a field rescue department of the US military, the soldiers who were blown to pieces were lying in hospital beds. According to Miss Huss, a nurse, she has to deal with four or five bags of residual limbs almost every day.

1At the end of July, 1967, the South Vietnamese government increased its armed forces by 65,000 people, with a total of more than100000, and at the same time considered lowering the recruitment age to 18. At the press conference on August 3, US President Johnson also publicly announced that the number of US troops deployed in Vietnam would be increased to 45,000 to 50,000, and by 1.968, the number of US military services and arms would reach 525,000.

1968, the south Vietnamese people's armed forces launched the "new year offensive". After 45 days of fierce fighting, more than 6.5438+0.5 million people were annihilated, which dealt a heavy blow to the "gradual escalation" strategy of the United States. The offensive also demoralized the US military, and the domestic anti-war movement rose. US Secretary of State Lasker said with a heavy heart: "It is expected that this will be a long, intense and disappointing struggle."

Nixon is going to leave Vietnam.

Due to the unity of the loyal opposition and the Vietnamese army and people, the United States spent a lot of manpower and material resources in Vietnam but failed to achieve the expected results, causing unanimous opposition at home and abroad. The anti-war movement in America is getting higher and higher. 1969 65438+ 10, when Nixon became president, tens of thousands of people in Washington took to the streets with placards such as "Nixon is the number one war criminal" and "Nixon is the tool of billionaires" and held large demonstrations, scaring Nixon into hiding in a bulletproof "glass cover" to deliver his inaugural speech.

Under the strong pressure at home and abroad, Nixon found Kissinger, assistant to the president for national security affairs, hoping that he could help the United States get out of the Vietnam War. So Kissinger began to actively run for mediation.

Kissinger first put forward the plan for the United States to get away from Vietnam, and then approached the Vietnamese government and the Soviet Union. 1969 On May 4th, Kissinger invited Dobrynin, the Soviet ambassador to the United States, to the White House office. Kissinger said: "If we mistake flexibility for weakness and understanding for lack of determination, then we are all wet. I must also be very frank and understand that if this unnecessary pain continues, it will definitely affect other decisions. It's not good for anyone to drag on like this. "

Dobrynin reflected the American plan to the Soviet government, and the Soviet Union showed a cold attitude. Since then, the United States has made many representations, but progress has been slow.

On May 3, 1969, the US Army Command, which invaded Vietnam, announced that since the United States entered the Vietnam War in May 3, 1969, 35,000 American officers and men had died and 5,400 planes had been lost. This figure shows that more than 4 months after the Nixon administration took office, the invasion of the US military caused more than 4,000 deaths, with an average of about 1000 deaths per month. Nixon's hesitation in withdrawing troops eventually led to a painful ending.

If the negotiations fail, the United States has to "gracefully retreat." U.S. Defense Secretary Laird proposed: "The South Vietnamese army should be strengthened to replace the U.S. military in the war. The withdrawal of American troops depends on the ability of South Vietnamese troops to undertake American combat missions. Vietnamese' is to replace American casualties with Vietnamese casualties. "

1On June 8, 969, President Nixon announced halfway that 25,000 American troops would be withdrawn from Vietnam by the end of August of that year. This is the first time the Nixon administration has withdrawn its troops from Vietnam.

But America still hopes for a miracle. 1969165438+1On October 3rd, Nixon made a televised speech to the whole nation at the White House. His policy of "fighting, talking, crossing and withdrawing" was opposed by the masses. In response to Nixon's challenging televised speech, the "New Mobilization Committee for Ending the Vietnam War" organized a large-scale "March on Washington" protest. In the same week, similar activities exceeded 10.

As a last resort, the United States stepped up its withdrawal while strengthening the power of the South Vietnamese regime, and the number of American troops stationed in Vietnam gradually decreased. 1973 65438+1On October 27th, after long-term negotiations, the United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam signed the Paris Agreement on Vietnam, which declared the failure of American military operations in Vietnam. After the withdrawal of American troops, more than 20,000 military advisers were left in South Vietnam, and a considerable number of naval and air forces were retained to support the operations of 1.65438+ Wan Nan Vietnamese troops.

1975 In the spring, the North Vietnamese army and the South People's Armed Forces launched a famous spring offensive, and defeated the South Vietnamese army after three major battles: Xiyuan, Hue-Da Nang and Saigon. 1July, 976, Vietnam completed the reunification of the north and the south.

The horror memory of Americans

During the Vietnam War, the United States dropped 8 million tons of explosives on Vietnam, far exceeding the sum of bombs dropped on the battlefield of World War II, resulting in more than 6,543.8+0.6 million deaths in Vietnam and more than 6,543.8+0.0 million refugees displaced in zhina. The United States itself suffered heavy losses, with more than 56,000 people killed, more than 300,000 injured and losses exceeding $400 billion. American military intervention in Vietnam was large in scale (about 540,000 Americans fought in Vietnam in 1973) and dragged on for a long time (12 was the longest foreign war in American history), which caused incalculable psychological trauma.

Randolph Barker, who lost his legs in the war, complained angrily in an interview with The New York Times: "(The government) asked us to fight for freedom and ideals, but the war made me lose my freedom forever. And so far I don't know what kind of ideal and freedom I am fighting for. Every year, apart from reuniting with those sad comrades in tears, it seems that pain and loneliness are the whole of my life. "

During the war, the American economy fell sharply, and the dominance of the dollar suffered a heavy blow, resulting in a huge fiscal deficit.

The Vietnam War completely changed the pattern of the struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union: throughout the 1970s, the United States turned to strategic defense, while the Soviet Union was in a strategic offensive position.

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said: "The Vietnam War may be a tragedy, and the United States should not have invaded." George mcgovern, a senior senator, said: "I think the Sino-Indian War is the biggest military, political, economic and moral mistake in our history."

After the Vietnam War, former US Secretary of Defense McNamara, who left office for nearly 30 years, published Book Review: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam in 1995 with the encouragement of many Vietnam introspectives. McNamara believes that the decision makers of the US government have not realized that "neither our people nor our leaders are omnipotent. On issues that do not involve our own survival, the international community should hold an open debate to decide what is the best interest of another country and people. We have not used our ideals or choices to shape the natural forces of any other country. But until today, we are still repeating similar mistakes in many parts of the world. "

Unfortunately, this lesson summed up with blood and tears has not attracted enough lessons in the current American government.