Role of the United States in the Vietnam War the presidency unopposed. With the installation of the Thieu and Ky government (the Second Republic), the U.S. had a pliable, stable, and semi-legitimate government in Saigon with which to deal. With the advent of "Rolling Thunder", American airbases and facilities needed to be constructed and manned for the aerial effort. On March 8, 1965, 3,500 United States Marines came ashore at Da Nang as the first wave of U.S. combat troops into South Vietnam, adding to the 25,000 U.S. military advisers already in place. The US Government deployment of ground forces to Da Nang had not been consulted with the
1963 in the Vietnam War 25 percent more than the total killed in the previous year. North Vietnam had infiltrated about 40,000 cadres and fighters into South Vietnam over a period of several years. They made up about 50 percent of the Viet Cong army and 80 percent of political operatives and technical personnel. They consisted mostly of southerners who had migrated north in 1954–1955 to reside in a communist state rather than remain in South Vietnam. Units of the North Vietnamese army had not yet been dispatched to South Vietnam. 1963 in the Vietnam War The defeat of the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) in