The U.S. first got involved after president Dwight Eisenhower said, "If we let the communists take over, the other Asian countries would fall like dominos." At that time he pledged to assist the South Vietnamese government with war. By 1954 there were 342 American military personal there. The mounting communist assault against the south then prompted president John F. Kennedy to increase the troop strength to 16,000 by the time he was assassinated in 1963.

One of the biggest ways the U.S. acquired t

The war also caused people to protest all over the U.S. especially on college campuses and at the nation’s capital. One of the worst tragedies happened at Kent State University on May 4th 1970. The Ohio government sent the National Guard because someone set a fire in protest. A crowd of students began to taunt the troops. Suddenly they opened fire and killed 4 students. At another college police opened fire on an antiwar protest killing 2 people. One of the biggest antiwar demonstrations took place at Washington D.C. in 1969. 40,000 people gathered at the Arlington Cemetery and marched through the city. 3 and ½ hours later the crowd grew to over 500,000 people who held antiwar demonstrations. Thousands held up a “V” sign that came to mean peace. It was the largest demonstration ever during the war. Many of the men who were opposed to the war grew out their hair and smoked marijuana to show their opposition to authority who tried to control the protests. These people were referred to as “hippies.”

One of the biggest battles of the war was the Tet offensive. It was also the biggest turning point in the Vietnam War. In August of 1963 Lyndon Johnson took over the American presidency because of the assassination of John Kennedy. He ordered the first air strikes on the North. Six month’s later the ‘Rolling thunder’ air campaign began. In this campaign alone more bombs were dropped on North Vietnam than were used in the whole of World War II. In the following five years, the two Vietnams received the equivalent of 22 tons of explosives for every square mile of territory. A total of 2.6 million Vietnamese were killed. The American deployment of troops jumped from 23,300 in 1963 to 184,000 in 1966 and reached 542,000 in January 1969 under Richard Nixon’s presidency. The Tet offensive is seen as the great turning point of the war

Some topics in this essay:
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