The Viet Nam "War" was a long and disastrous event that went on for decades
             upon decades with numerous European countries, as well as America and the
             France, for example, colonized Viet Nam at the end of the 19th
             century, but lost control during World War II and the German Invasion.
             After once again trying to gain a foothold, France called an end to its
             involvement with the Asian country in 1954. As a result, the Geneva Accords
             stated that Vietnam was to become an independent nation divided into the
             The U.S., however, paid the Accords lip service and continued the
             battle where the French left off. Soon, the Tonkin Golf Resolution gave
             President Lyndon Johnson carte blanche to build the amount of U.S. troops
             as he saw fit. American military personnel reached 16,000 during 1963; they
             increased further still in 1964 as the U.S. tried to prop up the Saigon
             government. Ground troops were continually enlarged. By early 1968, there
             were more than 500,000 Americans in Viet Nam, and both troop and civilian
             deaths were skyrocketing. The U.S. began declaring--mostly to combat
             negative P.R. back home--that the Communist forces were being weakened and
             the war would soon be won. Wishful thinking.
             On the night of January 31st 1968, 70,000 North Vietnamese soldiers
             launched the Tet offensive. It proved to be one of the greatest campaigns
             in military history, and a true turning point of the war. Vietcong
             guerrilla fighters violated the temporary truce they had pledged to observe
             around the lunar new year celebrations, and surged into more than one
             hundred towns and cities, including Saigonâ€"seizing the American Embassy. It
             may have been a huge loss of life for the North Vietnamese, but it was a
             media and public relations coup. Many Americans were becoming increasingly
             skeptical. Such atrocities as the infamous incident at Mylai in 1968,
             ...