Vietnam War or Second Indochina War
The start of the Vietnam War followed soon after the First Indochina War and some people just choose to group both wars together. For the Vietnamese, the war is known as the Resistance War Against America. Following the end of the First Indochina War, the country went through a period of transition where about 1 million people fled to the North Vietnam out of fear of being prosecuted by the communist Viet Minh. Another 2 million would have fled if they had not been prevented by the Viet Minh. From 1953 until 1956 the Viet Minh put forth a number of reforms which included massive political oppression that ended in thousands of executions. South Vietnam followed a regime of political oppression and blamed any problems within the country on the communists. Fighting broke out in South Vietnam due to the strict regime and in the 1960s the United States continued supporting South Vietnam on the belief they would be able to suppress the guerrilla movement.
The guerrilla warfare intensified, however, and President Kennedy decided to send in more than 16,000 military troops in 1963. By 1964 the number of Viet Cong had grown to 100,000 and the number of members of the South Vietnam army rose to nearly 1 million. However, the number of American troops remained at less than 20,000. But by the end of 1965, nearly 200,000 U.S. Marines were deployed in South Vietnam in order to provide defense against the Viet Cong and North Vietnam. The war continued to escalate on all sides as the Viet Cong got support from communist countries and the U.S. under President Johnson refused to lose the fight against communism.
By 1970, the American public had grown tired of the disastrous war in which no progress was made and too many American lives were lost. So Nixon moved to remove troops from Vietnam and work toward peace between North and South Vietnam. The war officially ended on April 30th, 1975. More than 2 million soldiers died and as many as 2 million civilians lost over the course of the nearly 2 decades of war.