Appropriately codenamed 'Operation Rolling Thunder', this relentless aerial bombing campaign lasted three years, and eventually spilled over into neighbouring, neutral Cambodia. Although in various forms since 1950 America's presence in Indochina -- Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam -- was well established if not generally well understood at the time, it was 1965 that ushered in its 'boots-on-the-ground' entry into what became the miasmic quagmire of the Vietnam War. This was followed by an even more rapid escalation topping out at around 200,000 by year's end.
At its peak in 1968, there would be over 535,000 troops serving in Vietnam, which by some accounts ran close to a million individual deployments on rotation throughout. Estimates of the cost in 2012 dollars of the Vietnam adventure run anywhere between $US700 billion to $US1 trillion.
(For additional perspective, readers may wish to note that the cost of the Iraq invasion and occupation is conservatively estimated to be around $3-4 trillion. Those curious to know what an actual 'trill' looks like can click here.)
That this decision proved to be one of America's most portentous Pandora's Box moments is now generally accepted by all but the most ideologically myopic. Ten years, 58,000 American lives, and 150,000 wounded later, in 1975 it was all over bar the humbling rush to the exits and subsequent post-mortems as to how it could have gone so horribly pear shaped. These figures do not include those casualties of other occupying nations with roughly around 6,000 KIAs, of which around 450 were Australian, with South Korean KIAs around 5,000.
Along with the 'deep-sixing' of dozens of US Army Huey choppers off of aircraft carriers into the South China Sea, this "rush" was best epitomised by the iconic scenes atop the US Embassy in the South Vietnamese capital Saigon, with hundreds of Americans and Vietnamese alike scrambling to get on one of the few seats left on the last chopper out of town. The Vietnam War (or as referred to by the Vietnamese, the "American War"), was no more.
For the majority of Americans it had come not a nanosecond too soon. The empire had endured a slow motion, humiliating, 'never-again' defeat. Yet from 1965-1975, the Vietnam engagement would dominate American foreign policy; it would also dictate the course of the Cold War politics, virtually defining the notion of the proxy war that characterised the decades long standoff with its Cold War opponent the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
Moreover, Vietnam would change the face of American society, culture and politics for generations to come. For those paying attention it still has implications for America's role in the world today not least in Iraq. As evidenced by the Pentagon's planned 'Viet-fest', its fallout continues to inform the collective political and military mindset, although many would argue in ways that reveal few lessons have been learned.
That these 'bookend' milestones might prompt some serious, genuine reflection on the country's 'groundhog day' foreign policy machinations should be a given. This is especially the case considering the US's more recent, imperially inspired escapades in Iraq and Afghanistan without even considering the prospects of future military involvement in and around Syria and (again), Iraq, and possibly even in Iran, not to mention in the Ukraine against nuclear 'powered' Russia.
It is not overstating the case to say that America's decision to wage war in this "piddling, piss-ant little country" -- with the resultant spill-over conflagration that raged in varying degrees in neighbouring Cambodia; more on this in Part Two -- unleashed nothing less than a holocaust. It culminated in the deaths of millions of people (conservative 'gook' body count estimates come in at 3-4 million.) And this does not even take into account that other 'forgotten war in Laos, a story for another time.
The only good 'Gook' is a dead 'Gook'
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