Vietnam War

Barbara Diggs

Description

More than 58,000 American troops and military personnel died in the humid jungles and muddy rivers of Vietnam during the 20-year conflict called the Vietnam War. Why? What were they fighting for? And how could the world's most powerful and technologically advanced military be defeated by a small, poverty-stricken country? These questions have haunted the U.S. government, the military, and the American public for nearly a half century. In The Vietnam War, kids ages 12 to 15 explore the global conditions and history that gave rise to the Vietnam War, the reasons why the United States became increasingly embroiled in the conflict, and the varied causes of its shocking defeat. As readers learn about how the fear of the spread of communism spurred the United States to enter a war that was erupting on the other side of the world, they find themselves immersed in the mood and mindset of the Vietnam Era.Through links to online primary sources, including speeches, letters, photos, and songs, readers become familiar with the reality of combat life for young American soldiers, the frustration of military advisors as they failed to subdue the Viet Cong, and the empty promises made by U.S. presidents to soothe an uneasy public. The Vietnam War also pays close attention to the development of a massive antiwar movement and counterculture that divided the country into "hawks" and "doves." In-depth essential questions help middle schoolers analyze primary sources and develop their own evidence-supported views on a range of issues.The Vietnam War also fosters critical thinking skills through projects such as creating antiwar and pro-war demonstration slogans, writing letters from the perspective of a U.S. soldier and a south Vietnamese citizen, and building arguments for and against the media's coverage of the war. Additional learning materials include engaging illustrations, maps, a glossary, a bibliography, and resources for further independent learning.The Vietnam War is one book in a set of four that explore great events of the twentieth century. Inquire and Investigate titles in this set include The Vietnam War; World War II: From the Rise of the Nazi Party to the Dropping of the Atomic Bomb; Globalization: Why We Care About Faraway Events; and The Space Race: How the Cold War Put Humans on the Moon.Nomad Press books in the Inquire & Investigate series integrate content with participation, encouraging older readers to engage in student-directed learning as opposed to teacher-guided instruction. This student-centered approach provides readers with the tools they need to become inquiry-based learners. Common Core State Standards, the Next Generation Science Standards, and STEM Education all place project-based learning as key building blocks in education. Combining content with inquiry-based projects stimulates learning and makes it active and alive. Consistent with our other series, all of the activities in the books in the Inquire & Investigate series are hands-on, challenging readers to develop and test their own hypotheses, ask their own questions, and formulate their own solutions. In the process, readers learn how to analyze, evaluate, and present the data they collect. As informational texts our books provide key ideas and details from which readers can work out their own inferences. Nomad's unique approach simultaneously grounds kids in factual knowledge while allowing them the space to be curious, creative, and critical thinkers. Soon they'll be thinking like scientists by questioning things around them and considering new approaches.

Sujets

• Histoire
• USA
• United States of America
• Vietnam
• Viêt Nam
• États-Unis
• Asia

Informations

• Publié par: Nomad Press
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9781619306592
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 7 Mo

Extrait

Nomad Press
A division of Nomad Communications
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Copyright 2018 by Nomad Press. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from
the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review or for limited educational use .
The trademark Nomad Press and the Nomad Press logo are trademarks of Nomad Communications, Inc.

ISBN Softcover: 978-1-61930-660-8 ISBN Hardcover: 978-1-61930-658-5
Educational Consultant, Marla Conn
Questions regarding the ordering of this book should be addressed to
Nomad Press
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White River Junction, VT 05001
www.nomadpress.net
Titles in the Inquire Investigate Great Events of the Twentieth Century set






Check out more titles at www.nomadpress.net
You can use a smartphone or tablet app to scan the QR codes and explore more! Cover up neighboring QR codes to make sure you re scanning the right one. You can find a list of URLs on the Resources page.
If the QR code doesn t work, try searching the internet with the Keyword Prompts to find other helpful sources.
Vietnam War
What are source notes?
In this book, you ll find small numbers at the end of some paragraphs. These numbers indicate that you can find source notes for that section in the back of the book. Source notes tell readers where the writer got their information. This might be a news article, a book, or another kind of media. Source notes are a way to know that what you are reading is true information that other people have verified. They can also lead you to more places where you can explore a topic that you re curious about!
Contents
Timeline
Introduction
What Was the Vietnam War?
Chapter 1
Vietnam s Revolution Sparks War
Chapter 2
The Cold War Heats Up the Conflict
Chapter 3
Sinking Deeper into Hostilities
Chapter 4
Resistance and Division
Chapter 5
Spiraling to the End
Chapter 6
War s Aftermath
Glossary Resources Index
TIMELINE
Circa 3000 BCE
The first-known settlers live in what would become northern Vietnam.
208 BCE
Chinese General Trieu Da forms the Kingdom of Nam Viet.
111 BCE
Nam Viet falls under Chinese rule for the next 1,000 years.
938 CE
The Viet people overthrow the Chinese at the Battle of Bach Dang.
1613
Occasional civil war occurs between northern and southern Viet people.
1700s
European colonization spreads across Southeast Asia.
1802
Emperor Nguyen Anh reunifies the country, calling it Viet Nam.
1858
France attacks the Vietnamese port of Da Nang in retaliation for the persecution of French Catholic priests.
1862
The French take control of Saigon through the Treaty of Saigon.
1890
Ho Chi Minh is born.
1893
The French divide Vietnam into three sectors, part of French Indochina.
1930
Ho Chi Minh founds the Vietnamese Communist Party.
1940
The Japanese invade Vietnam during World War II.
1941
Ho Chi Minh establishes the Viet Minh.
1945
The Viet Minh seize control of Hanoi from the Japanese. Ho Chi Minh declares Vietnam independent.
December 1946
The French-Indochina War begins.
July 1950
President Harry S. Truman authorizes sending $15 million to aid the French military.
1954
The Viet Minh overcome the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. The Geneva Accords are established, dividing Vietnam into North and South at the seventeenth parallel.
1955
Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem becomes president of South Vietnam. President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends hundreds of U.S. military advisors to South Vietnam to train and strengthen the South Vietnam military and government.
1959
Ho Chi Minh declares a People s War to unite all of Vietnam. North Vietnam begins widening the Ho Chi Minh Trail for sending supplies and troops to the South.
December 1960
The National Liberation Front is formed in South Vietnam. Members are unofficially called Vietcong.
January 1961
John F. Kennedy is inaugurated as the 35th U.S. president.
November 1963
President Diem is overthrown and killed. President Kennedy is assassinated. Lyndon B. Johnson becomes president of the United States.
August 1964
North Vietnam torpedo boats fire on the USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin. The U.S. Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, granting the president broad powers to use military force in Indochina.
November 1964-
February 1965
The Vietcong stage multiple guerrilla attacks on U.S. military bases and the South Vietnamese Army.
March 1965
The first U.S. combat troops arrive in South Vietnam. Protests begin at American universities.
August 1965
Operation Starlite provides the first decisive victory for U.S. troops in Vietnam.
November 1965
An antiwar rally of 35,000 people takes place in Washington, DC.
1967
Support for the war drops as 11,153 U.S. troops die in Vietnam.
January 1968
The North Vietnamese launch the Tet Offensive.
March 1968
President Johnson announces he won t run for reelection and starts negotiations with North Vietnam.
January 1969
Richard Nixon is sworn in as the 37th U.S. president.
August 1969
The United States begins to withdraw troops.
September 1969
Ho Chi Minh dies.
November 1969
The public learns of the My Lai Massacre. The largest antiwar protest to date occurs with 500,000 marching on Washington, DC.
February 1970
U.S. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger begins secret negotiations with diplomat Le Duc Tho of North Vietnam.
Spring 1970
President Nixon announces the Cambodia invasion. The Kent State shootings occur.
June 1971
Excerpts from the Pentagon Papers are published in The New York Times .
January 1973
The Paris Peace Accords is signed.
March 1973
U.S. prisoners of war are released and the last U.S. combat troops leave Vietnam.
July 1973
Congress votes to end all military activity in Indochina.
August 1974
Nixon resigns as president. Gerald Ford becomes president, the sixth to deal with the Vietnam conflict.
April 1975
Communist troops capture Saigon. South Vietnam surrenders. Saigon is renamed Ho Chi Minh City.
1977
President Jimmy Carter pardons all draft evaders.
1982
The Vietnam Memorial is unveiled in Washington, DC.
1994
President Bill Clinton restores diplomatic relations with Vietnam.
Introduction
What Was the Vietnam War?

Why did the United States get involved with a war between North and South Vietnam?


There were many reasons for the United States to enter a war so far from home, but mainly it was to contain the spread of communism and indirectly engage the Soviet Union.

The Vietnam War was a long and brutal conflict in which communist North Vietnam sought to bring South Vietnam under unified rule. The United States, fearing the spread of communism, stepped in to help South Vietnam resist. Beginning slowly in 1955, the war mushroomed into a conflict of startling proportions. More than 58,000 American troops died, along with an estimated 3 million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians.
Ultimately, after years of fruitless combat and escalating public opposition, the United States withdrew its troops from the conflict in 1973. South Vietnam fell to communism two years later. The war is considered to be a major defeat of the United States.
The Vietnam War stands out in American history for many reasons, but particularly because public opinion about the war was so sharply divided. It remains a controversial and emotional topic for many people even today.
The war left a shocked nation searching for answers to complicated and painful questions. Was the United States right to intervene in the war? Should it have stayed in Vietnam longer? Should it have gotten out sooner? How did the war go so wrong? Whose fault was it? Politicians? The military? The media? The American public?
People still hotly debate many of these questions today-there are no simple answers. The one thing most people agree on is that the Vietnam War was very different from almost any other conflict that the United States had experienced. In fact, for many Americans, the war was more than a military conflict. It was a symbol of an era in which America lost its innocence, and changed how Americans saw themselves and their place in the world.
AN UNCONVENTIONAL WAR
What, exactly, made the Vietnam War so unusual? A mind-bending number of things. It was the United States longest war at that time. It was the U.S. military s first significant experience with the ruthlessness of guerrilla warfare.
This was the first time Americans watched war unfold on their television sets. It was the first time the military had racially mixed battalions right from the outset. And it was the subject of a massive anti-war protest movement that defined a generation, created a deep rift in the nation, and profoundly impacted both the course of the war and American culture.

Primary Sources

Primary sources come from people who were eyewitnesses to events. They might write about the event, take pictures, post short messages to social media or blogs, or record the event for radio or video. The photographs in this book are primary sources, taken at the time of the event. Paintings of events are usually not primary sources, since they are often painted long after the event took place. What other primary sources can you find? Why are primary sources important? Do you learn differently from primary sources than from secondary sources, which come from people who did not directly experience the event?

Vocab Lab

There is a lot of new vocabulary in this book! Turn to the glossary in the back when you come to a word you don t understand. Practice your new vocabulary in the VOCAB LAB activities in each chapter.

An infantryman is lowered into a tunnel in Vietnam, 1967

credit: Howard C. Breedlove, SSG, Photographer; U.S. Army Signal Corps
The war was also the first to result in widespread erosion of the public s trust in the U.S. government and military. Unlike previous wars, such as World War