The Two Thousand Year War in Vietnam

Many Americans fought and died in Vietnam in a war hardly anyone understood and many protested. In this book, the roots of the war are explored up to thousands of years before America joined the battle. It is necessary to look at these roots to gain insight on what happened later on during the war.

Two thousand years ago, to be exact, China invaded Vietnam for the first time. For centuries the Chinese and the Vietnamese fought over control of the land. During the short periods of freedom from the Chinese, the Vietnamese often fought among themselves to see who would be able to rule that section of Indochina.

When the Vietnamese were finally free of Chinese rule and had some neutrality among themselves, the French arrived to take over the nation as a colony for almost century. During World War II, the Japanese conquered Vietnam and took it from the French for four years. At France's return at the end of the war, a section of the Vietnamese people rebelled to free themselves from foreign rulers. The French-Vietnamese War ended in 1954 with a divided country.

During this time, the United States became more and more involved in the struggle, until Americans discovered their country was in for the long run. Ten painful years passed before the American portion of the war ended. This story is about of the two-thousand year war in Vietnam. By looking deep into this past, we can gain a better understanding of what happened to the Vietnamese, French, and Americans who lived and died in Vietnam.

The word “Vietnam” means multiple things to many people today. To many, it means a conflict that was highly payed attention to for eight years of American life. To others, who fought in it, it entails the friendships and sorrows of combat, or ...

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...o be able to understand fully what occurred in Vietnam.
 The war in Vietnam is not simply something to draw information from. It’s a story too. It was a battle between Western technology and Eastern tolerance; between two different social systems; between the New World and the Third World. Within these battles are countless gruesome stories. The stories of political struggle, soldiers in war, and hometown protests of the actions of the government in both the United States and Vietnam.
 In World War II, most of the major events took place on the battlefield with thousands of witnesses including soldiers and citizens. In Vietnam, these events either took place in the President’s office in Washington or Ho Chi Minh’s office in Vietnam. We know a great deal about what happened in Washington and little to nothing about the thinking process in the city of Hanoi in Vietnam.