Vietnam War

Category
Wars
Begin
1955
End
1975
Region
Southeast Asia
Reference
3 million casualties; [Smithsonian, p. 478]
Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"In so many ways, symbolic as well as practical, it would be difficult to exaggerate the impacts of the lengthy American campaign in Vietnam and other parts of Southeast Asia upon the international power system—or upon the national psyche of the American people themselves, most of whose perceptions of their country’s role in the world still remain strongly influenced by that conflict, albeit in different ways. The fact that this was a war fought by an “open society”—and made the more open because of revelations like the Pentagon Papers, and by the daily television and press reportage of the carnage and apparent futility of it all; that this was the first war which the United States had unequivocally lost, that it confounded the victorious experiences of the Second World War . . . That it coincided with, and in no small measure helped to cause, the fissuring of a consensus in American society about the nation’s goals and priorities, was attended by inflation, unprecedented student protests and inner city disturbances, and was followed in turn by the Watergate crisis, which discredited the presidency itself for a time;" [Kennedy: Great Powers, p. 404-5]

This period is linked to the following events

Event Name
Category
Date
French lose to communists in Vietnam and United States is drawn into the conflict
War
1954
U.S. strikes North Vietnam with bombing campaign that lasts for 3 years
War
1965
Tet Offensive disrupts South Vietnam and perceived as a defeat to Americans
War
1968
My Lai Massacre fuels American and international revulsion toward Vietnam War
War
1968
United States & North Vietnam cease fire--North forces allowed to stay in South
War
1973
Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge take control in Cambodia
War
1975

This period is linked to the following movies

Movie title
Genre
Released
Apocalypse Now Redux
Historical
1979
Platoon
Historical
1986
Good Morning, Vietnam
Historical
1987
Born on the Fourth of July
Historical
1989
Casualties of War
Historical
1989
Heaven & Earth
Historical
1993
Path to War
Historical
2002
We Were Soldiers
Historical
2002
Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States
Documentary
2013
First They Killed My Father
Historical
2017