Vietnam War

Vietnam War. Concord Township American Hero Memorial. , (1956-1973) The Geneva Agreement of 1954 dictated that Vietnam would be divided into two countries at the 17th parallel, creating a communist-backed North Vietnam and a US-backed South Vietnam. American military aid and advisors started arriving in South Vietnam two years later., President John F. Kennedy sent the first American combat troops to Vietnam, but it was President Lyndon Johnson who escalated US involvement to the level of a war. A total of 25,000 American soldiers committed in Southeast Asia in 1965 became 543,000 US troops in country by 1968. The communist Tet Offensive in 1968 offset any advantages gained and the tide turned against the south., US intervention in Vietnam became the focal point of protests across America and the world in the late-1960s. President Richard Nixon was elected in 1968 on the platform that he would withdraw American troops from Vietnam. Nixon kept his promise by 1973, claiming "Peace with Honor," when the last US troops departed from Saigon by helicopter, under a temporary cease-fire agreement., Without American combat support, South Vietnam was eventually overrun by northern forces, leading to the fall of Saigon in 1975, and an official end to the Vietnam War. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , In honor of those individuals who willfully accept the , responsibility to serve and defend this nation, Dedicated November 14, 2004.