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The Vietnam War (1955-1975) was a military conflict between North Vietnam (supported by China and the Soviet Union) and South Vietnam (supported by the United States, South Korea, Australia, and several other US allies). It is often described as a proxy war of the Cold War era. It ended with the capture of Saigon, the country’s capital, by the North Vietnamese Army in April 1975. The Vietnam War claimed millions of lives. It resulted in the reunification of Vietnam under a communist government and communist prevalence in neighboring Laos and Cambodia. In the United States, which lost more than 50,000 soldiers in the war, mass anti-war protests broke out during the last stage of the conflict.
 


 

WATER LILIES

PHILANTHROPY

LEAVING?

 
 

VIETNAM VICTORY

GENERAL SNOOPY

VIETNAM DISASTER

 
 

HIDDEN DEALS

OFF COURSE

Flag-draped coffins of eight American Servicemen killed in attacks on U.S. military installations in South Vietnam, on February 7, are placed in transport plane at Saigon, February 9, 1965, for return flight to the United States. Funeral services were held at the Saigon Airport with U.S. Ambassador Maxwell D. Taylor and Vietnamese officials attending.

COFFIN

 
 

Four “Ranch Hand” C-123 aircraft spray liquid defoliant on a suspected Viet Cong position in South Vietnam in September of 1965. The four specially equipped planes covered a 1,000-foot-wide swath in each pass over the dense vegetation.

PLANES

In Berkeley-Oakland City, California, demonstrators march against the war in Vietnam in December of 1965.

DEMONSTRATORS

A GI gets a closeup photo as President Nixon meets with troops of the 1st Infantry Division at Di An, 12 miles northeast of Saigon, on his eighth visit to South Vietnam and his first as president, on July 30, 1969.

NIXON

 
 

A beheaded statue of an American soldier stands next to a bombed-out theater near the district town of Cu Chi, northwest of Saigon, on December 13, 1972. The statue was placed by troops of the U.S. 25th Infantry Division before they were withdrawn from Vietnam two years earlier. Its head was lost in the explosion that destroyed the theater in background.

BEHEADED STATUE

The Ohio National Guard moves in on rioting students at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, on May 4, 1970. Four persons were killed and eleven wounded when National Guardsmen opened fire.

KENT STATE

Fourteen-year-old Mary Ann Vecchio screams over the body of 20-year-old Kent State student Jeffrey Miller after he was shot by the Ohio National Guard during a protest against the U.S. invasion of Cambodia during the Vietnam War on May 4, 1970.

DEAD STUDENT

APOCALYPSE NOW

BANANAS

SOLO VOYAGE