Agent Orange

Agent Orange was a powerful herbicide used by U.S. military forces during the Vietnam War to eliminate forest cover and crops for North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops. The U.S. program, codenamed Operation Ranch Hand, sprayed more than 20 million gallons of various herbicides over Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos from 1961 to 1971.

Huey Helicopters

From 1965 to 1973, the Bell UH-1, officially named “Iroquois” was the most common utility helicopter used in Vietnam. The “Huey” nickname stuck thanks to her early “HU-1” designation (it was later redesignated to UH-1 with the normalization of 1962). This particular helicopter is a “Slick”, used for troop carrying. It is not fitted with external weapons to save weight and is only armed with the M60s used by the door gunners. These aircraft operated in the hostile environment of Vietnam for almost a decade.

Operation Attleboro

In mid-September 1966, the newly-arrived 196th Infantry Brigade initiated Operation Attleboro to conduct sweeps around its Tay Ninh base camp as a training effort. On 2 November, the brigade conducted a complicated S&D sweep to the northwest of Dau Tieng and bumped into the 101st PAVN Regiment, which was apparently en route to attack the Soui Da Special Forces camp. The situation went sour when the commander of the 9th PLAF Division ordered all his units to attack the 196th Brigade.

Operation Game Warden

In 1965, the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) recognized that the enemy was supplying Viet Cong units via the Ho Chi Minh Trail and Cambodia. In December of that year, the Navy established the River Patrol Force (Task Force 116) to keep shipping channels open, search river craft, disrupt enemy troop movements, and support special operations and ground forces. Operation Game Warden limited the enemy’s use of South Vietnam’s larger rivers.

Operation Hastings

Operation Hastings was an American military operation in the Vietnam War. The operation was a qualified success in that it pushed the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) forces back across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). As the PAVN clearly did not feel constrained by the “demilitarized” nature of the DMZ, US military leadership ordered a steady build-up of U.S. Marines near the DMZ from 1966 to 1968.

Operation Masher

Operation Masher/White Wing was a 41-day campaign, from January to March 1966, led by the United States Army 1st Cavalry Division. It was designed to eliminate the 3rd People’s Army of Vietnam, or PAVN, Division as well as members of the National Liberation Front, or NLF, within the Bong Son Plain located in the Binh Dinh province.

Operation Prairie

On August 3, 1966, the US launched a six-month offensive known as Operation Prairie in Vietnam. The operation consisted of a series of battles primarily in the Con Thien and Gio Linh regions along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separated North and South Vietnam. The objective of the US was to prevent the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) from crossing the DMZ and invading the Quang Tri Province. The operation came on the heels of Operation Hastings, a previous operation that lasted from mid-July to early August along the DMZ and was deemed a strategic success.

Operation Utah

Early in March, 1966, in Quang Ngai Province, South Vietnam, rifle companies from three under-strength Marine Corps battalions engaged elements of the 36th Infantry Regiment of the People’s Vietnam Army. At first, the operation didn’t even have a name. It became known as Operation Utah. The Marines prevailed (with units of the Army of South Vietnam), but at great cost.

General Westmoreland

President Lyndon Johnson chose William Westmoreland, a distinguished veteran of World War II and the Korean War, to command the U.S. Military Assistance Command in Vietnam (MACV) in June 1964. Over the next four years, the general directed much of U.S. military strategy during the Vietnam War, spearheading the buildup of American troops in the region from 16,000 to more than 500,000. His strategy of attrition aimed to inflict heavy losses on North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces.

Pacification

The Vietnam War was one of the most challenging and complex conflicts of the Cold War era. As the conflict wore on, casualties rose and the American public became increasingly opposed to the war. With no end in sight, the U.S. government knew a unique approach would be needed to win the war. For this reason, the government created the CORDS pacification program in 1967.

Robert J. Hibbs

Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Hibbs joined the Army from Des Moines, Iowa in August 1964, and by March 5, 1966 was serving as a second lieutenant in Company B, 2nd Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division. He had earned his commission thru the US Army Officer Candidate School OCS, Fort Benning, Ga. On 5 March 1966 during Operation Cocoa Beach, at Don Dien Lo Ke in the Republic of Vietnam, his patrol spotted a Viet Cong force approaching the 2nd Battalion’s position. Hibbs led his small group in an attack on the enemy force and, with another soldier, volunteered to rescue a wounded comrade. After reaching the wounded man, Hibbs stayed behind to provide covering fire and was mortally wounded while attacking an enemy machine gun emplacement. For his actions during the battle, he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor a year later on February 24, 1967.

Hibbs, aged 22 at his death, was buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Cedar Falls, Iowa.

2LT Hibbs was honored by having a section of the UNI campus renamed in his honor, and a flagpole and monument erected with his name on it, just east of the West Gym.

Star Trek

Star Trek is an American science-fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry that follows the adventures of the starship USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) and its crew. It later acquired the retronym of Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS) to distinguish the show within the media franchise that it began.

The show is set in the Milky Way galaxy, circa 2266–2269. The ship and crew are led by Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), First Officer and Science Officer Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and Chief Medical Officer Leonard H. “Bones” McCoy (DeForest Kelley). Shatner’s voice-over introduction during each episode’s opening credits stated the starship’s purpose:

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

Norway Productions and Desilu Productions produced the series from September 1966 to December 1967.

Senator Fullbright

The Constitution makes the president commander in chief of the armed forces, but gives Congress the power to declare war, sometimes creating tension between the two branches. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman J. William Fulbright was an early supporter of America’s efforts against the spread of Communism in Southeast Asia. He supported the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964, authorizing American military retaliation against North Vietnamese attacks. When President Lyndon Johnson used the resolution as the equivalent of a declaration of war, Senator Fulbright launched a series of hearings to explore the reasons for America’s escalating participation in the conflict. Both supporters and critics of the Vietnam War testified in hearings that continued until 1972. The often-televised investigation promoted a national debate over the Vietnam War and gave encouragement to the growing antiwar movement.