Kennedy’s decision in the spring of 1961 to increase the American commitment greatly expanded the Army’s advisory effort. Although the Army had been sending advisors to Vietnam since the early 1950s, President John F. Provisional agreements reached at Geneva, Switzerland, prevented this, divided the country at the seventeenth parallel, and scheduled reunification to come through a general election in July 1956.įearing that the communists would eventually gain power, the United States began pouring in economic and military aid to buttress South Vietnam against subversion by the Viet Cong, a con- traction of Vietnamese Communists, and the threat of invasion by North Vietnam. This along with communist rhetoric about picking up the banner of nationalism by supporting wars of liberation influenced the United States to consider sending troops. After eight years of fighting to preserve its colonial empire, France finally suffered defeat at the hands of Ho Chi Minh, an ardent Vietnamese nationalist and communist, when Dien Bien Phu fell in March 1954. While the Army modernized its field artillery, a crisis in Southeast Asia attracted American attention. Photographer: SP5 Glenn Ramussen, Pictorial A-V Platoon, 69th Signal Battalion (A). Operation Battlecreek – Formation flying – UH-1B helicopters airlift members of the 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division, to the landing zone.
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