EDUCATION
Educational History
In partnership with Bellevue University, we offer educational resources to further enhance your experience around the Nebraska Vietnam Veterans Memorial, its veterans, and related events of the Vietnam War. The resources include educational history dates of major activity in Vietnam and the United States from 1959 to 1974.
Vietnam & US Activity
1959 - 1964









The Geneva Accords 1954
- The disengagement, partition and military regroupment of each country’s armed forces.
- Civil regroupment and administration.
- Arms Control.
- International supervision and control.
- Procedural matters.

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was the beginning of the United States’ formal involvement in the Vietnam War. It authorized the President of the United States, Lyndon Johnson to “take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression” by the communist government of North Vietnam.

Ho Chi Minh Trail
Ho Chi Minh Trail, elaborate system of mountain and jungle paths and trails used by North Vietnam to infiltrate troops and supplies into South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos during the Vietnam War. A map showing bases and supply routes during the Vietnam War. The trail was put into operation beginning in 1959, after the North Vietnamese leadership decided to use revolutionary warfare to reunify South with North Vietnam.

Major Dale R. Buis
Army Major Dale R. Buis was born in Pender, Thurston County, Nebraska. His is the first name on the Vietnam Wall in Washington, DC. He was a military advisor assigned to Vietnam to train South Vietnamese troops, and was killed during what is characterized as non-hostile action, by Vietcong guerrillas with small arms fire and a satchel charge at Bienhoa.

Red Cross
During the eight years of American combat activity in the war (1965-1972), the Red Cross handled more than 2,168,000 emergency communications between servicemen and their families. Red Cross field directors and chapter staff at home assisted an average of 27,800 servicemen each month with personal and family problems. An average of over 280,000 servicemen a month participated in recreation activities at Red Cross centers and in SRAO programs in Vietnam and neighboring countries.

Viet Cong
The Viet Cong was an armed communist revolutionary organization in South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. It fought under the direction of North Vietnam, against the South Vietnamese and United States governments during the Vietnam War, eventually emerging on the winning side. It had both guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized peasants in the territory the Viet Cong controlled.
During the war, communist fighters and anti-war activists claimed that the Viet Cong was an insurgency indigenous to the South, while the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments portrayed the group as a tool of North Vietnam. According to Trần Văn Trà, the Viet Cong’s top commander, and the post-war Vietnamese government’s official history, the Viet Cong followed orders from Hanoi and were part of the People’s Army of Vietnam, or North Vietnamese army.

Domino Theory
In a press conference on April 7, U.S. President D. Eisenhower described the situation in Vietnam as a “falling domino” whose loss would lead to rapid and widespread communist victories in neighboring countries. This concept was referred to as the domino effect. Eisenhower’s speech laid the foundation for U.S. steady involvement in Vietnam as part of its containment policy implemented throughout the world.
Successive U.S. Presidents would use the domino theory to justify their escalation of U.S. intervention in Vietnam. President Kennedy, in his inauguration speech, stated that U.S. security may be lost piece by piece, country by country as a result of the domino effect. As a response, he decided to increase aid and military advisers in South Vietnam. By November 1963, the number of military advisers reached approximately 16,000.
President Johnson eventually sent troops to Vietnam in 1965, and President Nixon escalated the conflict further to Laos and Cambodia.

President John Kennedy
Elected in 1960, John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) became the 35th president of the United States. He served from 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. Despite the warnings of Eisenhower about Laos and Vietnam, the opinion of J.F. Kennedy about Europe and Latin America was much more important than that in Asia. The administration of Kennedy remained crucially devoted to the Cold War foreign policy which was inherited from the administrations of Truman and Eisenhower.
In 1961, Kennedy had to cope with a series of challenges, including the failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the construction of the Berlin Wall, and the ongoing negotiation between the Pathet Lao communist movement and the pro-Western Lao government. This convergence of crises was seen as a significant challenge for Kennedy’s administration.
John F. Kennedy believed that another failure to control and prevent the expansion of communism would seriously damage the U.S.’ credibility with allies and his own reputation. Consequently, he made the decision to “draw a line in the sand” and take action to halt the spread of communism in Vietnam.
1965










Battle of Ia Drang Valley
The Battle of Ia Drang was the first major battle between the United States Army and the People’s Army of Vietnam, also referred to as the North Vietnamese Army. It was part of the Pleiku Campaign conducted early in the Vietnam War.
The battle comprised two main engagements, centered on two previously scouted helicopter landing zones. The first engagement, known as LZ X-Ray, took place from November 14–16, 1965. It involved the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment and supporting units under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore. LZ X-Ray was located at the eastern foot of the Chu Pong Massif in the central highlands of Vietnam.
The second engagement, known as LZ Albany, took place on November 17. It involved the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, and supporting units under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Robert McDade. LZ Albany was located farther north in the Ia Drang Valley.
The Battle of Ia Drang is notable for several reasons. It was the first large-scale helicopter air assault in the Vietnam War and marked the first use of Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers in a tactical support role.

Operation ARC LIGHT
Operation ARC LIGHT was the 1965 deployment of B-52D Stratofortresses as conventional bombers from bases in the US to Guam to support ground combat operations in Vietnam. By extension, ARC LIGHT, and sometimes Arclight, is the code name and general term for the use of B-52 Stratofortress as a close air support (CAS) platform to support ground tactical operations assisted by ground-control-radar.

Operation MARKET TIME
The Navy established Operation MARKET TIME (March 1965-1972) with the aim of preventing North Vietnamese ships from supplying enemy forces in South Vietnam by sea.
The Coastal Surveillance Force, known as Task Force 115, implemented a system of three barriers to patrol the South Vietnamese coast. The outermost barrier was covered by patrol aircraft, responsible for identifying, photographing, and reporting suspicious vessels. The middle barrier, located forty miles off the coast, involved U.S. Coast Guard cutters that stopped and searched cargo vessels. The inner barriers were patrolled by the South Vietnamese Navy, the Junk Force, and U.S. Navy Patrol Craft Fast (PCF) Swift boats, which cruised the coastal waters.
By 1968, these combined forces had effectively halted almost all seaborne infiltration from North Vietnam to South Vietnam. The blockade forced the North Vietnamese to rely on the Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville for transporting supplies to the Viet Cong.

Operation ROLLING THUNDER
Operation ROLLING THUNDER was a frequently interrupted bombing campaign that began on 24 February 1965 and lasted until the end of October 1968. During this period U.S. Air Force and Navy aircraft engaged in a bombing campaign designed to force Ho Chi Minh to abandon his ambition to take over South Vietnam. The operation began primarily as a diplomatic signal to impress Hanoi with America’s determination, essentially a warning that the violence would escalate until Ho Chi Minh “blinked,” and secondly it was intended to bolster the sagging morale of the South Vietnamese.

Operation STARLITE
Operation STARLITE was the first offensive military action conducted by a purely U.S.military unit during the Vietnam War. The operation was launched based on intelligence provided by Major General Nguyen Chanh Thi, the commander of the South Vietnamese forces in northern I Corps area. Lieutenant General Lewis W. Walt devised a plan to launch a pre-emptive strike against the Viet Cong regiment to nullify the threat on the vital Chu Lai base and ensure its powerful communication tower remained intact.

Anti-War Protests
Protests against the Vietnam War did not start when America declared her open involvement in the war in 1964. America rallied to the call of the commander-in-chief and after the Gulf of Tonkin incident it became very apparent that few would raise protests against the decision to militarily support South Vietnam. America had been through nearly twenty years of the Cold War and they were told by the government that what was happening in South Vietnam would happen elsewhere (the Domino Theory) unless America used her military might to stop it. Involvement in the Vietnam War was very much sold as a patriotic venture so few were prepared to protest. If there was to be a political protest, it never became apparent in Congress where the entire House voted to support Johnson and only two Senators voted against US involvement.
The first protests came in October 1965 when the draft was increased. In February 1965, it had only been 3,000 a month but in October it was increased to 33,000 a month.

Selma March
The Selma to Montgomery march was part of a series of civil rights protests that occurred in 1965 in Alabama, a Southern state with deeply entrenched racist policies. In March of that year, in an effort to register Black voters in the South, protesters marching the 54-mile route from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery were confronted with deadly violence from local authorities and white vigilante groups. As the world watched, the protesters—under the protection of federalized National Guard troops—finally achieved their goal, walking around the clock for three days to reach Montgomery, Alabama. The historic march, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s participation in it, raised awareness of the difficulties faced by Black voters, and the need for a national Voting Rights Act.

Space Race
“First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”
That proclamation by President John F. Kennedy before a joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961, set the stage for an astounding time in our nation’s emerging space program. The goal — fueled by competition with the Soviet Union dubbed the “space race” — took what was to become Kennedy Space Center from a testing ground for new rockets to a center successful at launching humans to the moon.
Throughout the course of two years, Project Mercury had six successful launches of solo astronauts aboard Redstone and Atlas rockets. Following closely behind were Project Gemini’s 10 missions, with crews of two, aboard Atlas and Titan launch vehicles. The first crew flew aboard Gemini 3 on March 23, 1965, lifting off on a Titan rocket from Launch Complex 19. The Gemini missions established their own astounding set of firsts, introducing pioneering spacewalks and spacecraft dockings — revolutionary new feats as astronauts were quickly learning to live and work, and even troubleshoot, in space.

Voting Rights Act
Civil rights activists met with fierce resistance to their campaign, which attracted national attention on 7 March 1965, when civil rights workers were brutally attacked by white law enforcement officers on a march from Selma to Montgomery.
Johnson introduced the Voting Rights Act that same month, “with the outrage of Selma still fresh”. In just over four months, Congress passed the bill. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 abolished literacy tests and poll taxes designed to disenfranchise African American voters and gave the federal government the authority to take over voter registration in counties with a pattern of persistent discrimination. “This law covers many pages,” Johnson said before signing the bill, “but the heart of the act is plain. Wherever, by clear and objective standards, States and counties are using regulations, or laws, or tests to deny the right to vote, then they will be struck down”.
1966














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.Reference

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.Reference

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.Reference

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.Reference

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.Reference

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.Reference

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.Reference

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.Reference

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.Reference

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.Reference

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.Reference

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.Reference

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.Reference
1967













Battle of Dak To
In accounts of the November 1967 battle of Dak To, one of the largest and longest battles of the Vietnam War, the center of attention is often the elite 503rd Infantry Regiment (Airborne) of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, assigned prior to the battle to the 4th Infantry Division. Seemingly forgotten is the fight waged by the division’s “leg” (non-airborne infantry), engineer and artillery units. That’s a sore spot for some veterans who were at Dak To.Reference

Battle of Tam Quan
The afternoon of 6 December, the 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division received intelligence on the location of the headquarters of the PAVN 22nd Regiment near the village of Dai Dong and aero-scout helicopters from A Troop, 1st Battalion, 9th Cavalry Regiment (1/9th) were sent to investigate. The helicopters saw a radio antenna and were fired on and at 16:30 aero-rifle troops were landed nearby, but were quickly pinned down by enemy fire. At 16:55 D Troop was landed to support A Troop, but they were also pinned down.Reference

Napalm
Napalm, which was considered as one of the most successful weapons, was quickly employed in the Vietnam War in 1963. 388,000 tons of napalm was dropped in Vietnam during 1963 -1973 period – more than ten times the amount of napalm used in Korea. At the beginning, napalm was used in flamethrowers for U.S. and ARVN ground forces and soon became an effective weapon in clearing bunkers. Even if the flame could not penetrate into the entire bunker, it still consumed all the oxygen and suffocated those inside. Flamethrowers were also used to destroy enemy’s villages.Reference

Operation Buffalo
At 10 am on the 2nd of July, Company B from 1/9 was on patrol about a mile and a half northeast of Con Thien when they encountered what they initially believed to be a small, well-entrenched enemy unit. However, this contact quickly escalated into a major attack by 5 NVA (North Vietnamese Army) battalions. The NVA employed mass artillery, coordinated ground attack forces, mortars, and flamethrowers. The rest of 1/9 attempted to join the battle, both by air and on the ground, while substantial supporting fire from Army artillery, air support, and naval forces targeted the NVA ground forces. In an effort to disrupt the reinforcement of the Marines, the NVA unleashed over a thousand artillery and mortar rounds on Gio Linh and Con Thien. Approximately 700 of these rounds fell on 1/9 alone. By mid-afternoon, 3/9 arrived by helicopter from Dong Ha and attacked from the enemy’s left flank, leading to the NVA breaking contact and retreating to the DMZ. Although the NVA suffered an estimated 55 killed in action (conf.) and 88 (prob.), the Marines incurred significant losses with 84 killed in action, 1 missing in action, and 190 wounded in action. It was undoubtedly a very challenging day for 1/9.Reference

Operation Cedar Falls
Operation Cedar Falls, named for the hometown of 1st Division Medal of Honor recipient Robert John Hibbs, who had been killed in March 1966, would involve a massive sweep of the Triangle by two brigades of Major General William DePuy’s division, plus an airborne brigade, elements of a cavalry regiment, and an Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) Ranger battalion. Meanwhile, Major General Fred Weyand, employing two brigades, would sweep through wooded areas west of the Saigon River and block any enemy escape attempt to avoid DePuy’s assault. Units on the sweeps were given a “VC Installations List” detailing the location, unit or office designations of all facilities, depots, communications centers, and expected positions of three local force VC battalions and two separate companies. No enemy main force units were expected to be in the Iron Triangle. All of the estimated 6,000 inhabitants of the Triangle’s one village and several outlying hamlets would be assembled, screened, and relocated. The plan called for the destruction of all enemy installations within a two-week period, after which the Triangle would be publicly designated a free-fire zone—where any inhabitant would be considered hostile.Reference

Operation Junction City
Operation Junction City, conducted from 22 February to 15 April 1967, was the largest single allied operation in the Vietnam War. By the time it ended, the operation involved twenty-two US infantry battalions, four ARVN infantry battalions, seventeen artillery battalions, 4,000 Air Force sorties, and 249 helicopters, making it the largest air assault operation in history. Once all units were positioned for Operation Junction City, they formed a giant horseshoe around the target area.Reference

Operation Kingfisher
Operation Kingfisher lasted from 28–30 July 1967. The 2/9 Marines, supported by a platoon of M-48s, 3 M50 Ontos and 3 LVTEs moved north along Provincial Route 606 to make a spoiling attack into the DMZ. The unit made no contact with the NVA and set up a night defensive position near the Ben Hai River. The following morning as the unit was returning along the same route a command detonated mine exploded wounding 5 Marines. The NVA then opened fire with small arms and mortar fire and attacked the armored vehicles with RPGs. The NVA attempted to hug the US column negating the use of air support and the column broke up into several separate firefights. The isolated Marine Companies set up night defensive positions and were eventually relieved by 3/4 Marines on the morning of 30 July. Marine casualties for the operation were 23 dead and 251 wounded, while the NVA suffered 32 killed and a further 175 believed killed.Reference

Charles Hagemeister
Hagemeister was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, on August 21, 1946. He was the youngest of four siblings in his family. He attended Lincoln Southeast High School, before studying at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Hagemeister was drafted into the United States Army from his birth city of Lincoln, Nebraska, in May 1966, during a break from his university studies. By March 20 of the following year, he was serving as a specialist four in Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division (Air mobile). He was previously serving as a medic. During a firefight on that day, in Binh Dinh Province, Republic of Vietnam, Hagemeister repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire in order to aid wounded comrades. He was subsequently promoted to specialist five and awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions.Reference

Conscientious Objector
Today, all conscientious objectors are required to register with the Selective Service System. A conscientious objector is one who is opposed to serving in the armed forces and/or bearing arms on the grounds of moral or religious principles. Beliefs which qualify a registrant for CO status may be religious in nature, but don’t have to be. Beliefs may be moral or ethical; however, a man’s reasons for not wanting to participate in a war must not be based on politics, expediency, or self-interest. In general, the man’s lifestyle prior to making his claim must reflect his current claims.Reference

First Heart Transplant
On December 3, 1967, 53-year-old Louis Washkansky received the first human heart transplant at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa. Washkansky, a South African grocer dying from chronic heart disease, received the transplant from Denise Darvall, a 25-year-old woman who was fatally injured in a car accident. Surgeon Christiaan Barnard, who trained at the University of Cape Town and in the United States, performed the revolutionary medical operation. The technique Barnard employed had been initially developed by a group of American researchers in the 1950s. American surgeon Norman Shumway achieved the first successful heart transplant, in a dog, at Stanford University in California in 1958.Reference

Gerald O. Young
Gerald Young was born on May 19, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy on May 24, 1947, and was trained as an Aviation Electrician’s Mate. Young received an honorable discharge from the Navy in 1952. He re-enlisted in the Navy serving until July 1956, when he was accepted into the U.S. Air Force Aviation Cadet program. Young was commissioned a 2Lt and awarded his pilot wings on January 18, 1958. Shortly before midnight on Nov. 8, 1967, Captain Young, the commander of a HH-3E rescue helicopter, was dispatched to evacuate the survivors of a U.S. Army reconnaissance team in Laos. Captain Young and his crew were flying as backup for another helicopter on this night operation. The first aircraft managed to pick up three members of the team before extensive battle damage forced it to withdraw. Captain Young’s helicopter was shot down and the remaining members of the reconnaissance team did not survive. He and an enlisted member of his crew were able to evade the enemy and were rescued 17 hours later. He was presented the Medal of Honor by President Johnson in 1968.Reference

Thurgood Marshall
On October 2, 1967, Thurgood Marshall took the judicial oath of the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming the first Black person to serve on the Court. Marshall’s paternal grandfather had been enslaved, and systemic racism remained widespread when Marshall was born. A segregationist admissions policy kept him from attending law school at the University of Maryland, near where he grew up. He instead attended Howard University, and soon after graduating, he filed a lawsuit that forced the integration of the University of Maryland. As a civil rights lawyer and later U.S. solicitor general, Marshall argued dozens of cases in front of the Supreme Court, winning a majority of them. His arguments in the 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education led the court to strike down the “separate but equal” doctrine, requiring public schools across the U.S. to desegregate. In his 24-year tenure on the high court, Marshall promoted First Amendment rights, defended affirmative action programs, and vigorously opposed the death penalty.Reference
1968













Battle of Hue
The Battle of Huế (31 January 1968 – 2 March 1968), also called the Siege of Huế, was a major military engagement in the Tết Offensive launched by North Vietnam and the Việt Cộng during the Vietnam War. After initially losing control of most of Huế and its surroundings, the combined South Vietnamese and American forces gradually recaptured the city over one month of intense fighting. The battle was one of the longest and bloodiest of the war, and the battle negatively affected American public perception of the war. By the beginning of the North Vietnamese Tet Offensive on 30 January 1968, which coincided with the Vietnamese Tết Lunar New Year, large conventional American forces had been committed to combat operations on Vietnamese soil for almost three years. Highway 1, passing through the city of Huế, was an important supply line for Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and United States forces from the coastal city of Da Nang to the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the de facto border between North and South Vietnam only 50 kilometers (31 mi) to the north of Huế. The highway also provided access to the Perfume River (Vietnamese: Sông Hương or Hương Giang) at the point where the river ran through Huế, dividing the city into northern and southern parts. Huế was also a base for United States Navy supply boats. Due to the Tết holidays, large numbers of ARVN forces were on leave and the city was poorly defended.Reference

Battle of Saigon
The timing of the General Offensive was set for Tet January 30, 1968, the beginning of the Lunar New Year: The Year of the Monkey. Tet is by far and away the most important holiday of the Vietnamese year. It is almost impossible for a Westerner to understand its significance. It’s like Christmas, Thanksgiving, the Fourth of July, and your birthday, all rolled into one. The Communist military leadership used the 1967 Christmas cease-fire to good advantage. Senior commanders used the truce to reconnoiter their assigned objectives. On Christmas Day, Colonel Nam Truyen, commander of the 9th VC Division, slipped into Saigon with forged papers identifying him as a student returning home for the holiday. Once inside the city, he made a thorough tour around the perimeter of Tan Son Nhut Air Base, one of his primary targets. By December 15, 1967, the U.S. command had turned over sole responsibility for the defense of Saigon to the South Vietnamese military, a gesture of confidence in the growing reliability of the ARVN. The main task of securing Saigon was assigned to the 5th ARVN Ranger Group, supported in turn by the 2nd Battalion, 13th Artillery, the only U.S. combat unit remaining inside the city itself. Lieutenant General Fredrick C. Weyand, commander of 11 Field Forces, didn’t like the pattern he was seeing. His troops in the border regions were experiencing too few contacts, and enemy radio traffic around Saigon was getting heavier. On January 10, 1968, Weyand (a former intelligence officer and future chief of staff of the U.S. Army) went to see his boss, General William C. Westmoreland, with his concerns. He convinced Westmoreland to allow a shift of some of 11 Field Forces’ combat power back inside the Saigon Circle. (When the attacks did come, 27 maneuver battalions were back inside the Circle. Weyand’s call on Westmoreland may well have been the single most decisive decision of the entire battle.)Reference

Khe Sanh
The Battle of Khe Sanh began on January 21, 1968, when forces from the People’s Army of North Vietnam (PAVN) carried out a massive artillery bombardment on the U.S. Marine garrison at Khe Sanh, located in South Vietnam near the border with Laos. For the next 77 days, U.S. Marines and their South Vietnamese allies fought off an intense siege of the garrison, one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War. The attack finally came on January 21, 1968, when PAVN forces began a massive artillery bombardment of Khe Sanh, hitting the base’s main store of ammunition and destroying 90 percent of its artillery and mortar rounds. President Lyndon B. Johnson agreed with Westmoreland’s argument that the base should be held at all costs, and U.S. and South Vietnamese forces launched Operation Niagara, a major artillery bombardment of suspected locations of North Vietnamese artillery in the hills surrounding Khe Sanh. As Johnson, Westmoreland, and other officials considered Khe Sanh to be the primary target of the North Vietnamese, they largely ignored signs of a Communist buildup in more urban areas of South Vietnam. This proved to be a mistake, as on January 31, 1968—a date celebrated as the lunar new year, or Tet—some 70,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched a coordinated series of fierce attacks on more than 100 cities and towns in South Vietnam. Known as the Tet Offensive, this aggressive operation aimed to break Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) forces, inspire rebellion among the South Vietnamese population against the regime in Saigon, and drive a wedge between South Vietnam and its powerful ally, the United States. Suddenly, the long and bitter struggle at Khe Sanh began to look like a diversionary tactic meant to tie up U.S. and South Vietnamese resources leading up to the Tet Offensive. News reports of the Battle of Khe Sanh consistently referred to the struggle as another Dien Bien Phu, but in reality, the U.S. and South Vietnamese enjoyed a much stronger position than had the French. In addition to a fleet of helicopters and cargo planes that could resupply and reinforce the besieged Marines, they could rely on the heavy bombing capacity of the B-52 fighter planes, which dropped close to 100,000 explosives on the hills surrounding Khe Sanh over the course of the battle. Though U.S. officials expected a full-scale attack by North Vietnamese forces on the base, it never came, and in March Westmoreland ordered Operation Pegasus, a joint Army, Marine, and ARVN ground advance that relieved the base and ended the siege by mid-April, after some 77 days.Reference

My Lai
The small village of My Lai is located in Quang Ngai province, which was believed to be a stronghold of the communist National Liberation Front (NLF) or Viet Cong (VC) during the Vietnam War. Quang Ngai province was therefore a frequent target of U.S. and South Vietnamese bombing attacks, and the entire region was heavily strafed with Agent Orange, the deadly herbicide. In March 1968, Charlie Company—part of the Americal Division’s 11th Infantry Brigade—received word that VC guerrillas had taken control of the neighboring village of Son My. Charlie Company was sent to the area on March 16 for a search-and-destroy mission. The My Lai massacre was one of the most horrific incidents of violence committed against unarmed civilians during the Vietnam War. A company of American soldiers brutally killed most of the people—women, children and old men—in the village of My Lai on March 16, 1968. More than 500 people were slaughtered in the My Lai massacre.Reference

Operation Pegasus
On March 30, 1968, the operational control of the 26th Marine Regiment at Khe Sanh passed to the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) which initiated Operation Pegasus. Elsewhere in northern I Corps Tactical Zone, it became apparent during late March that the enemy was continuing to build his base areas along Route 547 and had constructed an alternate route, 547A, from the A Shau Valley east towards Hue. These routes provided the enemy with a major artery for the movement of troops, supplies, and equipment out of the valley and into the dense jungle area between the valley and Hue. Reconnaissance of the area revealed a sophisticated communications system using wire lines and the presence of heavy automatic and anti-aircraft weapons.Reference

The Tet Offensive
On January 30, 1968, communist-affiliated troops from North Vietnam and the Viet Cong (a distinct political organization) launched what became known as the Tet Offensive against South Vietnam and its American allies. The Tet Offensive was one of the largest military operations of the Vietnam War, and became a key turning point in the conflict. The Tet Offensive was a surprise series of attacks launched during Tet, the Vietnamese New Year festival. Many South Vietnamese troops were on holiday when the attacks began, and the military was caught off guard. The campaign initially targeted more than 100 cities and towns, including the strategic southern capitol of Saigon, now named Ho Chi Minh City. The Tet Offensive was a catastrophic military failure for the communists. Historians estimate as many as 50,000 communist troops died in the effort to gain control of the southern part of the country. The South Vietnamese and American losses totaled a fraction of that number.Reference

Democratic National Convention
By the time delegates arrived for the convention in Chicago, protests had been set in motion by members of the Youth International Party (yippies) and the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (MOBE), whose organizers included Rennie Davis and Tom Hayden. But Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daley had no intention of letting his city or the convention be overrun by protesters. The stage was set for an explosive face-off. The Democratic Party in 1968 was in crisis. President Johnson—despite being elected with a huge majority in 1964—was soon loathed by many of his peers and constituents due to his pro-Vietnam War policies.Reference

James W. Fous
While on reconnaissance mission in Vietnam May 14, 1968, James Fous leapt on a grenade intended for the members of his unit. By absorbing the blast with his body, he sacrificed his life to save the lives of the three comrades with him on patrol. For this act of conspicuous galentry and extraordinary heroism, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration. While at Omaha Central High School, James participated in baseball, football, O-club, and the Outdoorsman Club. He attended Omaha University where he majored in business and was active in Tau Kappa Epsilon before joining the U.S. Army in 1967. James passed away in 1968 at the age of 21.Reference

Life Magazine June 27, 1969
In June 1969, LIFE magazine published a feature that remains as moving and, in some quarters, as controversial as it was when it intensified a nation’s soul-searching 45 years ago. On the cover was the image of a young man and 11 stark words: “The Faces of the American Dead in Vietnam: One Week’s Toll.” Inside, across 10 funereal pages, LIFE published picture after picture and name after name of 242 young men killed in seven days halfway around the world “in connection with the conflict in Vietnam.”Reference

Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. was a social activist and Baptist minister who played a key role in the American civil rights movement from the mid-1950s until his assassination in 1968. King sought equality and human rights for African Americans, the economically disadvantaged and all victims of injustice through peaceful protest.Reference

Senator Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis Kennedy, (born November 20, 1925, Brookline, Massachusetts, U.S.—died June 6, 1968, Los Angeles, California), U.S. Attorney General and adviser during the administration of his brother President John F. Kennedy (1961–63) and later a U.S. Senator (1965–68). He was assassinated while campaigning for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 1968.Reference

Walter L. Cronkite Jr.
Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist who served as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years (1962–1981). During the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as “the most trusted man in America” after being so named in an opinion poll. Cronkite reported many events from 1937 to 1981, including bombings in World War II; the Nuremberg trials; combat in the Vietnam War; the Dawson’s Field hijackings; Watergate; the Iran Hostage Crisis; and the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, civil rights pioneer Martin Luther King Jr., and Beatles musician John Lennon. He was also known for his extensive coverage of the U.S. space program, from Project Mercury to the Moon landings to the Space Shuttle. He was the only non-NASA recipient of an Ambassador of Exploration award. Cronkite is known for his departing catchphrase, “And that’s the way it is”, followed by the date of the broadcast. Cronkite died at his home on July 17, 2009, at age 92 from cerebrovascular disease.Reference
1969














USS Frank E. Evans DD-754
At around 0300 on 3 June 1969, Frank E. Evans was operating in darkness in the South China Sea between Vietnam and Spratly Island in a formation with ships of the Royal Navy, Royal Australian Navy, and Royal New Zealand Navy. All ships in the formation were running without lights. The Royal Australian Navy aircraft carrier Melbourne was in the process of going to flying stations and radioed Frank E. Evans, then to port of her, to take up station as the rescue destroyer. This required Frank E. Evans to reduce speed and take up station on Melbourne′s port quarter. The commanding officer of Frank E. Evans was asleep in his quarters, having left instructions to be awakened if there were to be any changes in the formation. Neither the officer of the deck nor the junior officer of the deck notified him when the station change was ordered. The bridge crew also did not contact the combat information center to request clarification of the positions and movements of the surrounding ships. The conning officer on Frank E. Evans misunderstood the formation’s base course and believed Frank E. Evans was to starboard of Melbourne. Frank E. Evans therefore turned to starboard, cutting across Melbourne′s bow twice in the process. Melbourne struck Frank E. Evans at a point about 92 feet (28 m) from her bow on her port side and cut her in two at: 8°59.2′N 110°47.7′E. After the collision, Frank E. Evans′ bow drifted off to the port side of Melbourne and sank in less than five minutes, taking 73 of her crew with it. One body was recovered from the water, making a total of 74 dead. Her stern scraped along the starboard side of Melbourne, and Melbourne′s crew attached lines to it. It remained afloat. Around 60 to 100 men were rescued from the water. The three Sage brothers of Niobrara, NE, were among the men lost: Gary, 22; Gregory, 21; and Kelly, 19. “It was their wish that they serve together,” Linda Sage, wife of Gregory Sage, reflected. “That’s the way they wanted it and that’s the way we accepted it.” A fourth Nebraskan was also lost when the USS Evans went down. His name was Garry Bradbury Hodgson, he was from Beatrice, NE and he was the second oldest of the lost at 32.Reference

Battle of Ben Het
By early 1969, there were 12 Special Forces advisers and three companies of Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) numbering 400 men in total, with two M42A1 Duster self-propelled anti-aircraft guns and an artillery battery of M107 self-propelled guns. To counter a buildup of PAVN forces in the area, a unit of the 1st Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment, equipped with four M48 Patton tanks was sent to reinforce the camp. Three of the four tanks took up dug-in positions on a hill facing west towards Cambodia, while the last tank occupied a firing position in the main camp overlooking the resupply route. Throughout February the PAVN attacked the camp by fire. The shelling decreased at the beginning of March, but at 21:00 on 3 March the PAVN shelling began again and men of the 1/69th Armor heard the sound of tank engines coming from the west. A PT-76 of the PAVN 16th Company, 4th Battalion, 202nd Armored Regiment detonated an antitank mine 1,100 meters to the southwest of the base, which alerted the camp and lit up the other PT-76s attacking the base. Flares were sent up, exposing the attacking tanks, but by sighting in on muzzle flashes, one PT-76 scored a direct hit on the turret of an M-48, killing two crewmen and wounding the other two. Another M-48, using the same technique, destroyed a PT-76 with their second shot. At daybreak, the battlefield revealed the wreckage of two PT-76s and one BTR-50 armored personnel carrier but no PAVN dead. Intelligence later revealed that the main object of the attack was to destroy the M107 guns.Reference

Hamburger Hill
Hamburger Hill was the scene of an intense and controversial 10 day battle during the Vietnam War. Known to military planners as Hill 937 (a reference to its height in meters), the solitary peak is located in the dense jungles of the A Shau Valley of Vietnam, about a mile from the border with Laos. An estimated 630 North Vietnamese were killed. U.S. casualties were listed as 72 killed and 372 wounded. The Vietnamese referred to the hill as Dong Ap Bia (or Ap Bia Mountain, “the mountain of the crouching beast”). Though the hill had no real tactical significance, taking the hill was part of Operation Apache Snow, a U.S. military sweep of the A Shau Valley. The purpose of the operation was to cut off North Vietnamese infiltration from Laos and enemy threats to the cities of Hue and Da Nang.Reference

Hanoi Hilton
During the Vietnam War, the first U.S. prisoner to be sent to Hoa Lo was Lieutenant, Junior Grade Everett Alvarez Jr., who was shot down on August 5, 1964. From the beginning, U.S. POWs endured miserable conditions, including poor food and unsanitary conditions. The prison complex was sarcastically nicknamed the “Hanoi Hilton” by the American POWs, in reference to the well-known Hilton Hotel chain. There is some disagreement among the first group of POWs who coined the name but F8D pilot Bob Shumaker was the first to write it down, carving “Welcome to the Hanoi Hilton” on the handle of a pail to greet the arrival of Air Force Lieutenant Robert Peel. Regarding treatment at Hoa Lo and other prisons, Communists countered by stating that prisoners were treated well and in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. During 1969, they broadcast a series of coerced statements from American prisoners that purported to support this notion. The North Vietnamese would also maintain that their prisons were no worse than prisons for POWs and political prisoners in South Vietnam, such as the one on Con Son Island. Mistreatment of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese prisoners and South Vietnamese dissidents in South Vietnam’s prisons was indeed frequent, as was North Vietnamese treatment of South Vietnamese prisoners and their own dissidents.Reference

Operation Bold Mariner
Marine operation on Batangan Peninsula southeast of Chu Lai. (12 Jan-7 Feb). On 12 January the Marines conducted a feint against Mộ Đức District approximately 20 km south of the operation area. At 07:00 on 13 January the Marines landed on the peninsula meeting negligible resistance. Once ashore the Marines linked up with Task Force Cooksey and then pushed east forcing the VC towards the sea. While encounters with the VC were minimal, the Marines encountered extensive networks of mines, booby-traps and fortifications. On 19 January 2/26 Marines captured 56 Vietnamese of military age. Under interrogation they were found to be members of the C-95th Sapper Company. The Marines evacuated numerous civilians for screening, eventually totaling some 11,900 people. On 24 January 2/26 Marines returned to their amphibious assault ships. Following the conclusion of the assault phase, Operation Russell Beach continued with Marine combined action teams, the 46th Infantry Regiment and the ARVN 6th Regiment operating to cleanse the peninsula of VC/People’s Army of Vietnam forces.Reference

Operation MENU
Operation MENU was a code name for the secret bombing campaign by the United States performed in eastern Cambodia and Laos. Operation Menu was a covert United States Strategic Air Command (SAC) tactical bombing campaign. The bombings lasted from March of 1969 to May of 1970 and targeted military bases of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), along with Viet Cong forces. The United States began bombing rural areas of Cambodia in 1965 under president Lyndon Johnson. Nixon then allowed the technique of carpet bombing, which is a large aerial bombing done in a progressive manner to cause damage in every part of a selected area of land. The attacks did not prevent further North Vietnamese advances.Reference

Operation PHOENIX
The Phoenix Program (Vietnamese: Chiến dịch Phụng Hoàng) was designed and initially coordinated by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Vietnam War, involving the American, Australian, and South Vietnamese militaries. In 1969, CIA responsibility was phased out, and the program was put under the authority of the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS). The program, which lasted from 1967 to 1972, was designed to identify and destroy the Viet Cong (VC) via infiltration, torture, capture, counter-terrorism, interrogation, and assassination. The CIA described it as “a set of programs that sought to attack and destroy the political infrastructure of the Viet Cong.” The Phoenix Program was premised on the idea that North Vietnamese infiltration had required local support within noncombat civilian populations, which were referred to as the “VC infrastructure” and “political branch” that had purportedly coordinated the insurgency.Reference

Joseph Robert Kerrey (Bob Kerrey)
Born: 1943 Lincoln, NE (USA) Vietnam Veteran, Navy SEAL officer, Kerrey was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for combat in which he was severely wounded. He was Governor of Nebraska 1983-1987, United States Senator from Nebraska, 1989-2001. From 2001 to 2010, Kerrey was President of the New School in New York. Kerrey earned a reputation as an incisive critic of political clichés and obfuscation. As Governor, he had the Nebraska National Guard park a tank on railroad tracks at the state border when the federal government failed to notify him of a rail shipment of nuclear waste. He was a very successful, though at the end of his tenure a controversial leader of the New School in New York City. He left New School after 94% of the faculty recorded a ‘vote of no confidence’ in him.Reference

March on Washington
While hundreds of thousands of demonstrators converged on Washington in November 1969 to show their growing disdain for America’s involvement in Vietnam, Sgt. Grant Coates was bunkered in the Commerce Department with his fellow soldiers, peeking out windows to catch glimpses at the activity outside. Coates was a squad leader with the 6th Armored Cavalry Regiment out of Fort Meade, Md., one of the units assigned to riot duty during the weekend of Nov. 15, 1969, when about 500,000 people gathered in the capitol for what’s believed to be the largest antiwar protest in U.S. history, called the Moratorium March. The weekend of the march, Coates was one of the only service members on riot duty who had served in Vietnam.Reference

Moon Landing
On July 20, 1969, American astronauts Neil Armstrong (1930-2012) and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin (1930-) became the first humans ever to land on the moon. About six-and-a-half hours later, Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon. As he took his first step, Armstrong famously said, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” The Apollo 11 mission occurred eight years after President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) announced a national goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s.Reference

Ronald L. Coker
Ronald L. Coker, who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism in Vietnam in March 1969, was born 9 August 1947, in Alliance, Nebraska. He attended District 78 Rural Elementary School in Alliance, Alliance High School, and Denver Colorado Automotive School. PFC Coker lost his life in Vietnam while attempting to save a wounded marine in his unit. During the rescue, Coker was also wounded by small arms fire and several grenades. He succumbed to his wounds after he had drug his comrade to safety.Reference

Vietnamization
Vietnamization was a strategy that aimed to reduce American involvement in the Vietnam War by transferring all military responsibilities to South Vietnam. The increasingly unpopular war had created deep rifts in American society. President Nixon believed his Vietnamization strategy, which involved building up South Vietnam’s armed forces and withdrawing U.S. troops, would prepare the South Vietnamese to act in their own defense against a North Vietnamese takeover and allow the United States to leave Vietnam with its honor intact. But the Vietnamization process was deeply flawed from the beginning. In his final report before leaving office that month, Melvin Laird the creator of the Vietnamization strategy, declared the process completed: “As a consequence of the success of the military aspects of Vietnamization, the South Vietnamese people today, in my view, are fully capable of providing for their own in-country security against the North Vietnamese.” However, later events proved that the Laird’s confidence was completely unfounded, as South Vietnam fell to North Vietnamese communist forces in 1975.Reference

Woodstock Music Festival
The Woodstock Music Festival began on August 15, 1969, as half a million people waited on a dairy farm in Bethel, New York, for the three-day music festival to start. Billed as “An Aquarian Experience: 3 Days of Peace and Music,” the epic event would later be known simply as Woodstock and become synonymous with the counterculture movement of the 1960s. Woodstock was a success, but the massive concert didn’t come off without a hitch: Last-minute venue changes, bad weather and the hordes of attendees caused major headaches. Still, despite—or because of—a lot of sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll and rain, Woodstock was a peaceful celebration and earned its hallowed place in pop culture history.Reference
1970












Cambodian Incursion
The Cambodian campaign (also known as the Cambodian Incursion and the Cambodian Invasion) was a series of military operations conducted in eastern Cambodia, a neutral country, during 1970 by the United States and the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) as an extension of the Vietnam War and the Cambodian Civil War.Reference

Firebase Illingworth
April was the deadliest month of 1970 for U.S. troops in Vietnam with 730 deaths. On the first day alone, North Vietnamese Army (NVA) units shelled some 115 targets throughout the country and launched 13 ground assaults. April 1 turned out to be the single deadliest day of the year when 70 GIs perished. At the center of that day’s carnage stood Fire Support Base (FSB) Illingworth, where 36 percent of the Americans killed died in a matter of two hours. FSB Illingworth was a hastily constructed firebase built in a dry pond bed only five miles from the Cambodian border in Tay Ninh province. Its 219-yardwide perimeter was protected by Claymore mines dug into a low earthen berm surrounding the base and a few bunkers. No concertina or barbed wire was in place.Reference

Fire Support Base Ripcord
The Battle of Fire Support Base Ripcord was a 23-day battle between elements of the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division and two reinforced divisions of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) that took place from 1 to 23 July 1970. It was the last major confrontation between United States ground forces and the PAVN during the Vietnam War. Three Medals of Honor and six Distinguished Service Crosses were awarded to participants for actions during the operations.Reference

Operation Ivory Coast
Operation Ivory Coast was a joint special operations mission executed on November 21, 1970, to liberate American prisoners of war (POW) held at Son Tay, near Hanoi, North Vietnam. The rescue effort, launched from allied air bases in Thailand, was a “mission of mercy,” according to President Richard M. Nixon. If the plan succeeded, Nixon planned to possibly have the freed POWs at the White House for Thanksgiving dinner. A successful raid might also bring hope to the other POWs in North Vietnam and their families back in the U.S. Operation Ivory Coast did not succeed; however, the raid demonstrated that well-trained and rehearsed joint special operations forces could conduct missions deep inside denied areas. American POWs continued to languish in inhumane conditions until the last prisoner was released in April of 1973.Reference

Operation Jefferson Glenn
Operation Jefferson Glenn was the last major operation in which U.S. ground forces participated in Vietnam. This was a joint military operation combining forces of the US 101st Airborne and the 1st Infantry Division of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). The purpose of this operation was to shield critical installations in Huế and Da Nang by patrolling communist rocket belts along the edge of the mountains. During the 399 days of operations the Allied troops established multiple firebases throughout Thừa Thiên Province and regularly encountered People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and Viet Cong (VC) troops.Reference

Operation Texas Star
This operation exploited the success of Operation Randolph Glen by incorporating the lessons learned during that operation and continuing the cooperation development among all allied elements in the province. The significant difference between the operations was that only one brigade of the 101st ABN DIV had the responsibility for pacification and development support throughout the province, while the other two brigades conducted offensive operations against enemy units in the western portions of Quang Tri and Thua Thien. The division made a smooth transfer of pacification and development tasks to the 2d BDE while the 1st BDE and 3d BDE increased combat support and assistance in combined operations with the 1st INF DIV (ARVN) in locating and defeating the enemy and his logistical support. A large number of casualties during the operation were caused from booby traps and a failure to maintain proper dispersion. The enemy also frequently established ambush positions 20-100 meters from US defensive positions and attacked the units as they were departing night defensive positions.Reference

Apollo 13
At 9:00 p.m. EST on April 13, Apollo 13 was over 200,000 miles from Earth. The crew had just completed a television broadcast and was inspecting Aquarius, the Landing Module (LM). The next day, Apollo 13 was to enter the moon’s orbit. Lovell and Haise were set to become the fifth and sixth men to walk on the moon. It was not to be. At 9:08 p.m.—about 56 hours into the flight—an explosion rocked the spacecraft. Oxygen tank No. 2 had blown up, disabling the regular supply of oxygen, electricity, light and water. Lovell reported to mission control: “Houston, we’ve had a problem here.” The Command Module (CM) was leaking oxygen and rapidly losing fuel cells. The moon landing mission was aborted.Reference

Doonesbury
Garry Trudeau’s iconic comic strip, Doonesbury, was born in 1968, during the height of the Vietnam War, when Trudeau was a student at Yale. From the start, that war and its legacy was a part of the comic strip, mainly in the form of two of the main characters, B.D., the Yale football player who had fought in Vietnam, and Mark Slackmeyer, one-time campus radical. The strip, which began in the Yale student newspaper and then was syndicated in 1970, still appears in tons of newspapers, and Trudeau contributes daily to his web site, www.doonesbury.comReference

Earth Day
Earth Day, an event to increase public awareness of the world’s environmental problems, was celebrated in the United States for the first time on April 22, 1970. Millions of Americans, including students from thousands of colleges and universities, participated in rallies, marches and educational programs across the country. Earth Day was the brainchild of Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, a staunch environmentalist who hoped to provide unity to the grassroots environmental movement and increase ecological awareness. “The objective was to get a nationwide demonstration of concern for the environment so large that it would shake the political establishment out of its lethargy,” Senator Nelson said, “and, finally, force this issue permanently onto the national political agenda.”Reference

Kent State
Four Kent State University students were killed and nine were injured on May 4, 1970, when members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire on a crowd gathered to protest the Vietnam War. The tragedy was a watershed moment for a nation divided by the conflict in Southeast Asia. In its immediate aftermath, a student-led strike forced the temporary closure of colleges and universities across the country. Some political observers believe the events of that day in northeast Ohio tilted public opinion against the war.Reference

Miguel Keith
Miguel Keith (June 2, 1951 – May 8, 1970) was a United States Marine who posthumously received the United States’s highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor for heroism in Vietnam in May 1970. Despite being severely wounded, he advanced on enemy attackers, allowing his platoon to rout the attack of a numerically superior enemy force. A Mexican-American, he was born on June 2, 1951, in San Antonio, Texas. He left North High School in Omaha, Nebraska in December 1968, and enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve at Omaha on January 21, 1969. He was discharged from the Reserves on April 30, 1969, and the following day, on May 1, 1969, he enlisted in the regular Marine Corps. On November 6, 1969, he arrived in the Republic of Vietnam and was assigned as a rifleman with the 1st Combined Action Group, III Marine Amphibious Force. While participating in combat in Quảng Ngãi Province on May 8, 1970, he was mortally wounded in the action for which he received the Medal of Honor.Reference
1971







Battle of Firebase Mary Ann
The Battle of FSB Mary Ann occurred when Viet Cong (VC) sappers attacked the U.S. firebase located in Quảng Tín Province, South Vietnam early on the morning of 28 March 1971. Fire support base (FSB) Mary Ann was located to interdict movement of enemy troops and materiel down the K-7 Corridor and Dak Rose Trail (branches of the Ho Chi Minh trail running from Laos to the coast of South Vietnam). Originally intended to be a temporary base, it evolved into a more permanent location garrisoned by at least one U.S. Army company. The base was manned by 231 American soldiers at the time of the attack. Death toll was 33 Americans killed and 83 wounded. Charges were brought against six officers, including the 23rd Division Commander and Assistant Commander.Reference

Operation Dewey Canyon II
Any offensive planning by the U.S. was limited by the passage on 29 December 1970 of the Cooper-Church Amendment, which prohibited U.S. ground forces and advisors from entering Laos. Dewey Canyon II would, therefore, be conducted within territorial South Vietnam in order to reopen Route 9 all the way to the old Khe Sanh Combat Base, which had been abandoned by U.S. forces in 1968. The base would be reopened and would then serve as the logistical hub and airhead of the ARVN incursion. U.S. combat engineers were tasked with clearing Route 9 and rehabilitating Khe Sanh while infantry and mechanized units secured a line of communications along the length of the road. American artillery units would support the ARVN effort within Laos from the South Vietnamese side of the border while Army logisticians coordinated the entire supply effort for the South Vietnamese. Air support for the incursion would be provided by the aircraft of the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps, and U.S. Army aviation units were tasked with providing complete helicopter support for the ARVN operation. U.S. forces earmarked for these missions included: four battalions of the 108th Artillery Group; two battalions of the 45th Engineer Group; the 101st Airborne Division; six battalions of the 101st Aviation Group; the 1st Brigade of the 5th Infantry Division (reinforced by two mechanized, one cavalry, one tank, and one airmobile infantry battalions; and the two battalions of the 11th Infantry Brigade of the 23rd Infantry Division.Reference

Operation Proud Deep Alpha
Operation Proud Deep Alpha was a limited aerial bombardment campaign conducted by the United States (U.S.) Seventh Air Force and U.S. Navy against North Vietnam from 26 to 30 December 1971, during the Vietnam War.- Destruction of MiGs on the ground and attainment of a level of damage of Bái Thượng and Quang Lang Air Bases sufficient to inhibit further use of these bases by the VPAF for MiG operations against B-52s and gunships in Laos.
- Destruction of logistical and other military targets in North Vietnam south of the 18th parallel north, with priority on targets of greatest importance to the enemy, such as storage and supply for his logistics system in Laos.

Cooper-Church Amendment
The Cooper–Church Amendment was introduced in the United States Senate during the Vietnam War. The amendment sought to cut off all funding to American war efforts in Cambodia. Its proposal was the first time that Congress had restricted the deployment of troops during a war against the wishes of the president.- End funding to retain U.S. ground troops and military advisors in Cambodia and Laos after 30 June 1970
- Bar air operations in Cambodian airspace in direct support of Cambodian forces without congressional approval
- End American support for Republic of Vietnam forces outside territorial South Vietnam.

May Day Protests
May Day 1971: 40,000 Shut Down DC to Protest Vietnam War and Largest Mass-Arrest in US History GJEP Founding Board Member Will Miller was with his Vermont-based affinity group in Washington, DC on May 1, 1971 as part of a national call to shut down Washington in protest of the war in Vietnam. By its end it was the largest mass-arrest in US history. GJEP co-founder Orin Langelle, who was part of the Youth International Party, was also present at this mass action in DC with his affinity group from St. Louis, MO. He described watching troops in helicopters land in front of the Washington Monument to help put down the protests. Will, who was a veteran and a member of Veterans for Peace, told the story of his affinity group blockading one of the bridges into DC. They were met with National Guard troops fresh back from Vietnam. Their commander told them to fix bayonets and force the protesters off of the bridge. The soldiers looked at the protesters, and at their commander, put down their weapons and joined the protest.Reference

Pentagon Papers
The Pentagon Papers was the name given to a top-secret Department of Defense study of U.S. political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. As the Vietnam War dragged on, with more than 500,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam by 1968, military analyst Daniel Ellsberg—who had worked on the study—came to oppose the war, and decided that the information contained in the Pentagon Papers should be available to the American public. He photocopied the report and in March 1971 gave the copy to The New York Times, which then published a series of scathing articles based on the report’s most damning secrets.Reference
1972










Christmas Bombing
Of the many controversies that swirl around the American role in the Vietnam War, one of the most contentious centers on the Christmas bombing of Hanoi in December 1972. This event followed Henry A. Kissinger’s October news conference in which he said, “Peace is at hand,” and President Richard Nixon’s triumphant reelection in November. It preceded the signing of the armistice in January 1973 and the release of the American POWs. According to Nixon and his supporters, the Christmas bombing forced the North Vietnamese to make concessions, accept an armistice, and release American POWs. It was a great U.S. victory that brought peace with honor. According to Nixon’s critics, the armistice agreement signed in January 1973 was identical to the one reached in October 1972. The bombing brought no concessions from the enemy, nor was it intended to; its purpose was to persuade the South Vietnamese to go along with an armistice to which they were violently opposed. The bombing ended not because the enemy cried “enough” but because American losses of B-52s were becoming intolerable. In addition, conservative critics called the bombing an American defeat that brought a temporary cease-fire at the cost of a free and independent South Vietnam.Reference

Eastertide Offensive
By 1972 American in-country strength had fallen from a peak of 550,000 to some 75,000. The only U.S. Army ground combat units left in Vietnam were the 196th Light Infantry Brigade and the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). U.S. Air Force and naval units had been drawn down as well. It appeared that a classic center of gravity had been created — the relationship between South Vietnam and its American ally. Not only had the majority of U.S. military forces been withdrawn but American congressional and public opinion had shifted dramatically against the war, and the chance of U.S. reintervention appeared to be nil. All that remained was for the NVA to administer the coup de grace. And that’s what their Operation Nguyen Hue was designed to do. Better known as the ‘Eastertide Offensive,’ it dropped all pretense of guerrilla war.Reference

Operation Enhance
Operations Enhance and Enhance Plus in the Vietnam War transferred large quantities of United States military equipment and bases to the South Vietnamese government in advance of the Paris Peace Accords which ended American involvement in the war. The two operations were conducted between May and December 1972.Reference

Operation Linebacker
Operation Linebacker took place from May 9 to October 23, 1972 during the Vietnam War (1955-1975). In March 1972, with the United States working to transfer responsibility for fighting on the ground to the South Vietnamese, the North Vietnamese launched a major offensive. With South Vietnamese forces under pressure and giving ground, Operation Linebacker was launched with the goal of slowing the enemy advance by striking transportation and logistical targets. These air attacks proved effective and by June, North Vietnamese units were reporting that only 30% of supplies were reaching the front. An effective campaign, Operation Linebacker helped halt the Easter Offensive and aided in restarting peace talks. Operations Enhance and Enhance Plus in the Vietnam War transferred large quantities of United States military equipment and bases to the South Vietnamese government in advance of the Paris Peace Accords which ended American involvement in the war. The two operations were conducted between May and December 1972.Reference

Operation Thunderhead
As Written by: Timothy Carlson The mission was so highly classified that the world didn’t know about Operation Thunderhead until 36 years after Moki Martin and a small group of SEAL teams set out for the North Vietnam coast on June 3, 1972. His military ID read “Philip L. Martin,” but his SEAL team and all his friends knew him as Moki, a nickname given to him when he was a skinny kid in Maui. He was an accomplished free diver, swimmer and surfer with a taste for adventure that led him to the Navy — and eventually to play a significant role in the early days of triathlon. The mission was to rescue American prisoners of war attempting to escape a North Vietnamese prison in Hanoi. The initial thrust called for several four-man SEAL teams to embark in darkness in mini-subs to a small island 4,000 yards offshore to await a rendezvous with the escapees. Warrant Officer Martin and Lt. Dry, members of an Underwater Demolition Team element of the SEALs, led one of the teams that embarked from the submarine USS Grayback. Their 20-foot-long Swimmer Delivery Vehicle (SDV) fought strong surface and tidal currents, and ran out of battery power which left them unable to reach shore or return to the Grayback. Dry and Martin and the rest of their team swam the SDV out to sea to prevent it from falling in enemy hands. When a Navy rescue helicopter arrived 7 hours later, they sank the damaged SDV and were ferried to the cruiser Long Beach. Immediately, Martin and his team decided to return to the Grayback to warn the other SEAL teams about the currents.Reference

Ballistic Missile Treaty
Negotiated between the United States and the Soviet Union as part of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, the now-defunct Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty was signed on May 26, 1972, and entered into force on October 3, 1972. The treaty, from which the United States withdrew on June 13, 2002, barred Washington and Moscow from deploying nationwide defenses against strategic ballistic missiles. In the treaty preamble, the two sides asserted that effective limits on anti-missile systems would be a “substantial factor in curbing the race in strategic offensive arms.”Reference

Henry Kissinger
Henry Kissinger’s record as a statesman is surely mixed. As national security adviser and then secretary of state he understood the need to adapt U.S. foreign policy to a more even distribution of global power, and he shared with his boss Richard Nixon an ability to think in broad conceptual terms about America’s place in the world. Some genuine diplomatic successes resulted, notably, in the miracle year of 1972, when remarkable summit meetings in Beijing and Moscow were followed by a preliminary peace settlement in Vietnam. (By Fredrik Logevall, Laurence D. Belfer professor of international affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School and author of Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam)Reference

Space Shuttle Program
NASA Administrator James Fletcher and NASA Deputy Administrator George Low met with President Nixon for 45 minutes at the “San Clemente White House” on January 5, 1972. A decision had already been made based on previous correspondences between NASA and the President. At 11:15 a.m. Pacific Time on January 5, 1972, President Nixon announced his commitment to fund the development of the Space Shuttle. Just 19 days later, his budget was presented to Congress. Necessary funding for the Space Shuttle was ultimately approved. NASA still lacked a firm design for the Space Shuttle. Mathematica reported that two options remained economically feasible for the Booster stage. Either a large solid rocket booster system or a high-pressure liquid fueled Booster system were considered feasible.Reference

Watergate
In the early morning hours of June 17, 1972, a night guard at a D.C. hotel and office complex was making his rounds when he noticed a suspiciously taped-open exit door. He quickly alerted authorities, setting off a series of events that would forever change the nation. More than 40 years later, the word Watergate is synonymous with political crime and corruption. In fact, it has become so ingrained in our country’s collective conscience that just adding “-gate” to the end of a word instantly signifies a scandal. On the day of the break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, Acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray was notified by teletype of the incident and that one of those arrested was the security officer for the Committee to Re-Elect the President.Reference
1973






Last American Combat Troops
The newly signed peace deal would not even last three months, as even before the last American troops left Vietnam on March 29, communist forces began to advance into South Vietnam. By 1974, full scale war would resume between North and South Vietnam and would not end until 1975.Reference

Paris Peace Accords
The Paris Peace Accords, officially titled the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet Nam, was a peace treaty signed on January 27, 1973, to establish peace in Vietnam and end the Vietnam War. The treaty included the governments of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the Republic of Vietnam, and the United States, as well as the Republic of South Vietnam that represented South Vietnamese communists.Reference

All Volunteer Service
In March 1969 Nixon established the Commission on an All-Volunteer Force (also known as the Gates Commission), which released a report in February 1970 recommending an end to the draft. On July 1, 1973, the draft law expired in the United States when Congress refused to extend it.Reference

Energy Crisis
Like many things related to oil, the 1973 Oil Crisis emerged from an interplay of forces in the Middle East. The United States supported Israel, and Israel was attacked from two sides on October 6 in what became known as the Yom Kippur War. Egyptian troops attempted to take the Sinai Peninsula while Syrian troops moved into the Golan Heights. Within the week the United States was deploying significant military aid to Israel. By October 20th, several countries in the Middle East had imposed a complete embargo of oil shipments to the United States. In short order, the price of oil quadrupled.Reference

Operation Homecoming
The Paris Peace Accords of 1973 included provisions for exchanging prisoners of war. The plan to bring American prisoners home was called Operation Homecoming. Prisoners were to be returned to U.S. control during February and March 1973, with the longest-held generally returning first. At Hanoi’s Gia Lam Airport, the men were thrilled to see USAF C-141A Starlifter aircraft landing to pick them up. The happiest moment came when the aircraft left the ground–and POWs knew for certain that they were free. Ex-POWs first stopped at Clark Air Base in the Philippines for medical exams, good meals and new uniforms. After stops in Hawaii and California, they finally returned to their families and their lives as free Americans. Operation Homecoming returned 591 POWs: 325 Air Force personnel, 77 Army, 138 Navy, 26 Marines and 25 civilians. Those who were not freed at Hanoi — POWs held in South Vietnam by the Viet Cong, mostly Army and civilians — left from Loc Ninh, the scene of the North Vietnam-South Vietnam prisoner exchange. A total of 660 American military POWs survived the war. About eighty percent of the military POWs who survived the war continued their military careers.Reference
1974 - 1975













Battle of Xuan Loc
The last major battle of the Vietnam War was fought at Xuan Loc, only 37 miles east by northeast of Saigon. In April 1975 the town was the eastern anchor of South Vietnam’s final line of defense against the North Vietnamese rush to the capital. That line ran west through Bien Hoa just north of Saigon, to Tay Ninh, near the Cambodian border. Once it broke, Saigon was doomed and with it the Republic of Vietnam itself.
When the North Vietnamese Army attacked Xuan Loc (pronounced Swan Lock) on April 9, the communists and almost everyone else expected the Army of the Republic of Vietnam’s 18th Division to collapse like a house of cards, as had so many other ARVN units during the NVA’s massive Spring Offensive of 1975. But ARVN forces under Brig. Gen. Le Minh Dao fought fiercely in a last-ditch effort to save their country. By the time Xuan Loc did fall 12 days later, most of the world was amazed at how well the ARVN had fought, and the NVA had paid a far steeper price than it expected. Indeed, the valiant stand at Xuan Loc by heavily outnumbered ARVN soldiers echoes the famed sacrifice of King Leonidas’ 300 Spartans facing Xerxes’ Persian masses at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. Greece. The Persians then marched south and captured Athens.

Fall of Saigon
The South Vietnamese stronghold of Saigon (now known as Ho Chi Minh City) falls to People’s Army of Vietnam and the Viet Cong on April 30, 1975. The South Vietnamese forces had collapsed under the rapid advancement of the North Vietnamese. The most recent fighting had begun in December 1974, when the North Vietnamese had launched a major attack against the lightly defended province of Phuoc Long, located due north of Saigon along the Cambodian border, overrunning the provincial capital at Phuoc Binh on January 6, 1975. Despite previous presidential promises to provide aid in such a scenario, the United States did nothing. By this time, Nixon had resigned from office and his successor, Gerald Ford, was unable to convince a hostile Congress to make good on Nixon’s earlier promises to rescue Saigon from communist takeover.
This situation emboldened the North Vietnamese, who launched a new campaign in March 1975. The South Vietnamese forces fell back in total disarray, and once again, the United States did nothing. The South Vietnamese abandoned Pleiku and Kontum in the Highlands with very little fighting. Then Quang Tri, Hue, and Da Nang fell to the communist onslaught. The North Vietnamese continued to attack south along the coast toward Saigon, defeating the South Vietnamese forces at each encounter.
The South Vietnamese 18th Division had fought a valiant battle at Xuan Loc, just to the east of Saigon, destroying three North Vietnamese divisions in the process. However, it proved to be the last battle in the defense of the Republic of South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese forces held out against the attackers until they ran out of tactical air support and weapons, finally abandoning Xuan Loc to the communists on April 21.
Having crushed the last major organized opposition before Saigon, the North Vietnamese got into position for the final assault. In Saigon, South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu resigned and transferred authority to Vice President Tran Van Huong before fleeing the city on April 25. By April 27, the North Vietnamese had completely encircled Saigon and began to maneuver for a complete takeover.
When they attacked at dawn on April 30, they met little resistance. North Vietnamese tanks crashed through the gates of the Presidential Palace and the war came to an end. North Vietnamese Col. Bui Tin accepted the surrender from Gen. Duong Van Minh, who had taken over after Tran Van Huong spent only one day in power. Tin explained to Minh, “You have nothing to fear. Between Vietnamese there are no victors and no vanquished. Only the Americans have been beaten. If you are patriots, consider this a moment of joy. The war for our country is over.”

Ho Chi Minh Campaign
Despite the 1973 Paris Peace Accords cease fire, the fighting had continued between South Vietnamese forces and the North Vietnamese troops in South Vietnam. In December 1974, the North Vietnamese launched a major attack against the lightly defended province of Phuoc Long, located north of Saigon along the Cambodian border. They successfully overran the provincial capital at Phuoc Binh on January 6, 1975.

Iron Triangle Battle
The Battle of the Iron Triangle took place on May 16, 1974, when the 9th Division of the Vietnam People’s Army backed by a small contingent of tanks launched an attack on Rach Bap, took possession of An Dien and pushed south towards Phu Cuong.
The ARVN battled with NVA tanks on June 4 and inflicted heavy casualties on the NVA forces. Six weeks after the ARVN regrouped and reinforced they drove the NVA from its stronghold, Rach Bap. The ARVN retook Rach Bap on November 20 unopposed. No US ground forces took part in the 1974 Battle of the Iron Triangle, as most of them had already been withdrawn from the conflict-torn region due to the policy of Vietnamization undertaken by the Nixon Administration in 1969.

Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge was a brutal regime that ruled Cambodia, under the leadership of Marxist dictator Pol Pot, from 1975 to 1979. Pol Pot’s attempts to create a Cambodian “master race” through social engineering ultimately led to the deaths of more than 2 million people in the Southeast Asian country. Those killed were either executed as enemies of the regime, or died from starvation, disease or overwork. Historically, this period—as shown in the film The Killing Fields—has come to be known as the Cambodian Genocide.

Mayaguez
The Mayaguez incident took place between Kampuchea (now Cambodia) and the United States from 12 to 15 May 1975, less than a month after the Khmer Rouge took control of the capital Phnom Penh ousting the U.S.-backed Khmer Republic. After the Khmer Rouge seized the U.S. merchant vessel SS Mayaguez in a disputed maritime area, the U.S. mounted a hastily-prepared rescue operation. U.S. Marines recaptured the ship and attacked the island of Koh Tang where it was believed that the crew were being held as hostages.
Encountering stronger than expected defences on Koh Tang, three United States Air Force helicopters were destroyed during the initial assault and the Marines fought a desperate day-long battle with the Khmer Rouge before being evacuated. The Mayaguez’s crew were released unharmed by the Khmer Rouge shortly after the attack on Koh Tang began. It was the last battle of the Vietnam War and the names of the Americans killed, including three Marines left behind on Koh Tang after the battle and subsequently executed by the Khmer Rouge, are the last names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Military Women
In 1975, then-President Gerald R. Ford signed Public Law 94-106 for women to be admitted to the all-male military colleges. The freshman class began in the summer of 1976 and graduated in spring 1980.
Prior to this, the Womens’ Army Auxiliary Corps (Army), Women Accepted for Voluntary Military Service (Navy), WASP (Womens Airforce Service Pilots), Women Marines (WM), and SPARS (Coast Guard) were the military branches that women were accepted into. In 1975, women were integrated into the US Army, US Navy, US Marine Corps, US Air Force, and the Coast Guard.

Operation Babylift
Operation Babylift was the name given to the mass evacuation of children from South Vietnam to the United States and other western countries (including Australia, France, West Germany, and Canada) at the end of the Vietnam War, on April 3–26, 1975. By the final American flight out of South Vietnam, over 3,300 infants and children had been evacuated, although the actual number has been variously reported. Along with Operation New Life, over 110,000 refugees were evacuated from South Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War. Thousands of children were airlifted from Vietnam and adopted by families around the world.

Boat People
With the images of Vietnam still fresh on their minds, Americans in the mid-1970s were confronted with horrifying news footage of half-starved Vietnamese refugees reaching the shores of Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines on small, makeshift boats. Many of the men, women, and children who survived the perilous journey across the South China Sea were rescued by passing ships. Over one million boat people from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam were eventually granted asylum in the United States and several other countries. Most were lost at sea, thousands of others perished of disease, starvation, and dehydration, or were murdered by pirates. This final chapter in the history of the Vietnam War would live in the collective memory of an entire generation. Personal accounts of the refugees’ hardships and courage would inspire countless books, movies, websites, documentaries, magazine articles, and television news reports in the United States. For years to come, the boat people would serve as an enduring testimony to the tragic aftermath of America’s defeat in Vietnam.

President Nixon Resigns
In an evening televised address on August 8, 1974, President Richard M. Nixon announces his intention to become the first president in American history to resign. With impeachment proceedings underway against him for his involvement in the Watergate affair, Nixon was finally bowing to pressure from the public and Congress to leave the White House.
“By taking this action,” he said in a solemn address from the Oval Office, “I hope that I will have hastened the start of the process of healing which is so desperately needed in America.”

Remains Recovery
As of 22 August 2022, 1,854 Americans remain unaccounted for in Southeast Asia, many of them pilots believed lost on land or over the ocean. Some 600 of those are believed to be lost at sea are not expected to be recovered.
The task force was created in response to presidential, congressional and public interest, and made possible by increasing cooperation between the target countries, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, according to the program. The United States spends about $20 million annually on recovery operations in those countries.
The task force has more than 180 investigators, analysts, linguists and other specialists representing all four services and Department of Defense civilian employees. Teams of more than 90 visit Vietnam four or five times each year for monthlong operations. They do investigations, archival research, an oral history program and remains recovery operations.
“Often times you excavate a site, you know which airplane it is, you may even find a dog tag of the serviceman, but you do not find his remains,” says Greer. “So you keep looking, you move your excavation 20 yards to the south, or the west, or you find villagers who say, ‘yes, we pulled him out of the cockpit and buried him over here.'”
The task force’s operations are supported by casualty resolution specialists and anthropologists from the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii, representatives of the Defense POW/MIA office, and personnel from U.S. Pacific Command.
Task force teams also work with recovery officials from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Of the 2,583 American originally missing in 1975, most of the unaccounted-for, 1,923 of them, were lost in Vietnam, either on land or over water off the Vietnamese coast. Another 569 were lost in Laos, 81 in Cambodia and 10 in China.
Ordnance demolition specialists are important components of the teams, clearing recovery areas of land mines, bomblets from U.S. B-52s, and other unexploded ordnance. Other perils of the recovery missions include disease and wildlife, in particular a snake called the bamboo viper.

Skylab Space Station
1973 – Skylab By 1973, the MOL was little more than a memory to the few Americans who knew about it. But as the potential to sustain human life in space increased, so did the desire to develop a manned space station. A special advisory group to President Richard Nixon offered suggestions for such a station, which was to be occupied permanently, as part of a post-moon-landing plan for American space travel. Using some remaining hardware from the soon-to-be-cancelled Apollo program, NASA developed Skylab, which launched in May. Skylab remained in orbit for six years, and experiments conducted aboard the craft obtained vast amounts of scientific data and demonstrated that humans could live and work productively in space for months at a time.
1974 – Space weapons Illustrating the Cold War’s true potential dangers, both the United States and the Soviet Union made covert plans to bring weapons ranging from cannons to laser guns into space. In 1974, the Soviet Union launched the Salyut 3 space station, code-named Almaz, which secretly carried a 23-mm Nudelmann aircraft cannon. According to Soviet cosmonauts, tests run on this very first space gun were a success—the cannon even destroyed a target satellite. Although Almaz tracked several American spacecraft, including Skylab, the Soviets never attacked any of them. More benign Soviet stations such as the Salyut 4 were utilized in research and tests similar to those conducted on Skylab.
July 1975 – Apollo-Soyuz Marking a temporary thaw in the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union embarked on their first joint space venture in July 1975. Astronauts and cosmonauts docked the last Apollo spacecraft with the Soviet vessel Soyuz, and the crews visited each other’s craft and shared meals. At ground control centers in Moscow and Houston, scientists cooperated in tracking data and communications. Although tensions between the two nations remained—the 1980s saw President Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” plans to intercept Soviet missiles from space, for instance—Apollo-Soyuz set the stage for later collaborative space efforts, including the International Space Station. This research facility, currently being assembled in orbit, will be open to cosmonauts and astronauts worldwide.