Today in History: The First U.S. Combat Troops land in Vietnam
Today marks the fifty seventh anniversary of the arrival of the
first American combat troops in Vietnam. On March 8, 1965, 3,500 U.S. Marines
arrived in Da Nang to protect the U.S. airbase there from Northern Vietnam
attacks.
The Vietnam War was a long, costly and hostile conflict
between the communist government of North Vietnam and the Democratic Republic
of South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. The conflict was
intensified by the ongoing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet
Union.
In the end, North Vietnamese gathered their forces and rolled their tanks into Southern Vietnam territories, effectively ending the war in their favor.
The U.S. lost 58,220 of its men in this conflict.
Photo: Flickr
