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In May of 1961 John F Kennedy approved the deployment of 500 special forces and advisors to South Vietnam. The advisors were green berets that were training South Vietnamese soldiers to fight in a guerrilla war. -
Lyndon B Johnson becomes president following the assassination of JFK -
A small naval skirmish breaks out where the USS Maddox and 3 small North Vietnamese torpedo boats trade shots in the Gulf of Tonkin -
The Gulf of Tonkin resolution affirmed the idea that congress would support whatever decisions Lyndon B Johnson chose to make in the outlook of the war -
Operation Rolling Thunder ends with the dropping of 864000 tons of bombs and the loss of 922 Aircraft, with the loss of 92000 casualties -
March of 1965 sparked the first combat troops to enter South Vietnam. They landed at the beach near Da Nang -
American Soldiers in Charlie company walk into a rural Vietnamese village and kill 300 civilians -
Rolling thunder was commenced, rolling thunder was an airforce campaign where they bombed military targets to weaken the industrial power of the North Vietnamese -
RIchard Nixon wins the election and takes office on January 20th 1969 -
This date marks the first draft lottery used to conscript soldiers in America since WW2 in 1942. -
On April 30th 1975 the last US soldiers leave their combat positions in South Vietnam. -
On April 30th 1975 the capital of South Vietnam, Saigon fell to communist insurgents leading to the Southern government capitulating to the Northern communists.