They were in a mess hall in Bien Hoa watching a movie entitled The Tattered Dress starring Jeanne Crane.  So interesting was the movie to the South Vietnamese that the men who were supposed to be guarding the perimeter fence of the camp, instead peered through a window to watch the movie.  When it came time to change the reels of the film, the lights were turned on and suddenly a hail of machine gun fire burst throughout the room.  Viet Cong guerrillas had penetrated the unattended camp and killed several men.  Among the men who were killed were Major Dale Buis from Pender, Nebraska and Master Sergeant Chester Ovnand from Copperas Cove, Texas.  The date was July 8, 1959 and they were the first two Americans killed in what was to become America’s longest war.

Dale Buis and Chester Ovnand were in Vietnam as advisers to the South Vietnamese army.  South Vietnam had been under attack from Communist guerrillas located throughout South Vietnam, as well as the military of North Vietnam.  The intent of the Communist forces was to reunify the country under one political system and leader, namely Communism and Ho Chi Minh.

To better understand why the Americans were in Vietnam and why the North Vietnamese were fighting for independence, it is important to briefly review the history of the Vietnamese people.

The Vietnamese people are a blend of Chinese, Thai, and Indonesians.  While government and technical matters were absorbed from the Chinese, the distinct Vietnamese culture has been influenced by countries all over Southeast Asia.  China conquered Vietnam in about 100 B.C and ruled it for a thousand years.  The Vietnamese people rebelled unsuccessfully from time to time until finally gaining their independence by pledging loyalty to China.  This “freedom” lasted until the mid-1860’s when France took control and made a colony of Vietnam and neighboring countries in what became known as French Indochina.  France wanted to protect Christian missionaries who had been converting the Vietnamese people for 250 years, and they were looking for more land and increased wealth.  France then ruled both oppressively and benevolently, as they made life difficult for peasants and decreased literacy levels, but they also introduced technical and cultural advancements.

During World War II, the Japanese overtook Vietnam but were eventually defeated by Allied forces in 1945.  During the war, the Vietnamese fought hard against the Japanese, and the Vietnamese forces even supplied the U.S. military with critical information and aid to help with the U.S. war effort.  Ho Chi Minh let it be known that he wanted Vietnam to be independent at the end of the war, but when the war ended, France wanted to reclaim Indochina, which included Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.  For a variety of reasons the United States supported France, even when war broke out.  The United States sent millions of dollars to aid the French in their fight against Vietnam, but after years of fighting, the  French lost a major battle at Dien Bien Phu, and Vietnam was about to be at peace.  However, the French still controlled large sections of Vietnam, mostly in the South and the people of the South did not want to live under Communist rule.  There were many wealthy land owners in the South who would have lost their land, money, and possibly their lives if the Communists took over.  Essentially, then, there was one country with two political beliefs.  There was large disagreement about who should live where and under what form of government.

Following the defeat of France at Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam was divided at the 17th parallel during the Geneva Peace Conference of 1954.  Country-wide elections were to be held in 1956 to reunify the country under either Communist or non-Communist rule.  However, the leaders of South Vietnam and the United States felt that the elections would be unfair and that Vietnam would surely fall into Communist hands.  The elections were never held and this infuriated the North.  Recognizing they could not achieve reunification through political means, Ho Chi Minh and the North Vietnamese set out to become a single independent Communist country through a military confrontation.

North Vietnam was being supported with advisers and materiel from the two super powers of Communism, China and the Soviet Union.  South Vietnam was being supported in the same manner by the United States. Vietnam, then, was about to become the battleground for a Cold War fight between the opposing super powers.  The Soviet Union was rapidly catching up with the United States in its development of nuclear weapons, and with neither side willing to use atomic or hydrogen bombs, Vietnam became a proving ground for a battle with conventional weapons.  The goals of the United States were to contain China, which had recently fallen to the Communists, to limit the influence of the Soviet Union, to halt the spread of Communism, and to bring peace to the people of South Vietnam.

The United States knew the South could not stand on her own, so we sent millions of dollars in aid to help the South Vietnamese fight the Communists forces.  Still, the South Vietnamese were not really fighters and didn’t know how to use much of the equipment we supplied, and they didn’t know the art of war as well as the North.  To further help the South Vietnamese, the United States sent military advisers to help train and guide the South.  As the war dragged on  the number of U.S. advisers grew from less than a hundred to over 20,000 in 1963 and 1964.

So, a small step backward explains why Dale Buis and Chester Ovnand were in South Vietnam on July 8, 1959.  Should they have been there?  Should they have been followed by another 2.7 million American men and women over the course of the war?  Well, that’s what we’re about to study and debate.
 

There is an old saying, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” and this was never more appropriately applied than in South Vietnam.  In order to achieve her goals and stop the spread of Communism, the United States was trapped into supporting the corrupt South Vietnamese regime of Ngo Dinh Diem.  Diem was an intense anti-Communist, but an oppressive leader himself who failed to win the popular support of his own people.  The corruption and oppression of the Diem regime is the main reason the South Vietnamese military did not fight with the desire and intensity of their northern counterparts.   In November of 1963, Diem was assassinated in a military coup.  Three weeks later President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.  Coup followed coup in South Vietnam, in essentially a leaderless and chaotic country.

Enter Lyndon Johnson.

The Gulf of Tonkin problem, the escalation of the war, and many other events will be recapped in future sections.