when did the last american combat troops leave vietnam
Vietnam War Vietnamization was again tested by the Easter Offensive of 1972, a massive conventional NVA invasion of South Vietnam. The NVA and Viet Cong quickly overran the northern provinces and in coordination with other forces attacked from Cambodia, threatening to cut the country in half. U.S. troop withdrawals continued. American airpower responded, beginning Operation Linebacker, and the offensive was halted. However, it became clear that without American airpower South Vietnam could not survive. The last remaining American ground troops were withdrawn by the end of March 1973; U.S. naval and air forces remained in the Gulf of Tonkin, as well as Thailand and Guam.[255]
Robert R. Garwood Often cited as the last verified American POW from the Vietnam War, Garwood was taken to North Vietnam in 1969, and reportedly was released in 1973 along with the other American POWs. However, he did not return to the United States until March 22, 1979.[1]
Vietnam War There are several competing views on the conflict, with some on the North Vietnamese and National Liberation Front side viewing the struggle against US forces as a colonial war and a continuation of the First Indochina War against forces from France and later on the United States[79] especially the light of the failed Geneva Conference calls for elections. Other interpretations of the North Vietnamese side include viewing it as a civil war especially in the early and later phases following the U.S interlude between 1965 and 1970[80] as well as a war of liberation.[79] The perspective of some Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam, the successor to the Viet Cong were motivated in part by significant social changes in the post-WW2 Vietnam, and had initially saw it as a revolutionary war supported by Hanoi[81][82] The pro-government side in South Vietnam viewed it as a civil war, a defensive war against communism[80][83] or were motivated to fight to defend their homes and families.[84] The U.S. government viewed its involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam. This was part of the domino theory of a wider containment policy, with the stated aim of stopping the spread of communism.[85]
Vietnam War Beginning in 1950, American military advisors arrived in what was then French Indochina.[63][A 3] Most of the funding for the French war effort was provided by the U.S.[64] U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with troop levels tripling in 1961 and again in 1962.[65] U.S. involvement escalated further following the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which a U.S. destroyer clashed with North Vietnamese fast attack craft, which was followed by the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave the U.S. president authorization to increase U.S. military presence. Regular U.S. combat units were deployed beginning in 1965. Operations crossed international borders: bordering areas of Laos and Cambodia were heavily bombed by U.S. forces as American involvement in the war peaked in 1968, the same year that the communist side launched the Tet Offensive. The Tet Offensive failed in its goal of overthrowing the South Vietnamese government, but became the turning point in the war, as it persuaded a large segment of the U.S. population that its government's claims of progress toward winning the war were illusory despite many years of massive U.S. military aid to South Vietnam.