The last of U.S. combat troops out of Vietnam, 50 years ago today

Vietnam Service Medal and ribbon. (Staff Sergeant Alexx Pons/US Air Force)

In January 1973, representatives from the United States, South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and the Vietcong met. They signed the peace agreement that ended the Vietnam War for the U.S. military. The peace treaty established a cease-fire and the withdrawal of the U.S. military. The treaty also required the release of U.S. POWs, and the eventual unification of Vietnam. On March 29, 1973, the last of the U.S. Combat troops left Vietnam.

From History.com:

During the next few years, the extended length of the war, the high number of U.S. casualties, and the exposure of U.S. involvement in war crimes, such as the massacre at My Lai, helped turn many in the United States against the Vietnam War. The communists’ Tet Offensive of 1968 crushed U.S. hopes of an imminent end to the conflict and galvanized U.S. opposition to the war. In response, Johnson announced in March 1968 that he would not seek reelection, citing what he perceived to be his responsibility in creating a perilous national division over Vietnam. He also authorized the beginning of peace talks.

In the spring of 1969, as protests against the war escalated in the United States, U.S. troop strength in the war-torn country reached its peak at nearly 550,000 men. Richard Nixon, the new U.S. president, began U.S. troop withdrawal and “Vietnamization” of the war effort that year, but he intensified bombing. Large U.S. troop withdrawals continued in the early 1970s as President Nixon expanded air and ground operations into Cambodia and Laos in attempts to block enemy supply routes along Vietnam’s borders. This expansion of the war, which accomplished few positive results, led to new waves of protests in the United States and elsewhere.

Finally, in January 1973, representatives of the United States, North and South Vietnam, and the Vietcong signed a peace agreement in Paris, ending the direct U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War. Its key provisions included a cease-fire throughout Vietnam, the withdrawal of U.S. forces, the release of prisoners of war, and the reunification of North and South Vietnam through peaceful means. The South Vietnamese government was to remain in place until new elections were held, and North Vietnamese forces in the South were not to advance further nor be reinforced.

History.com has the article here.

The article describes the peace treaty as a face-saving measure by the U.S. However, there was another factor at play. The U.S. was supposed to provide replacement military ammunition and equipment to South Vietnam in case of aggression from North Vietnam. However, the U.S. Congress did not do this part. Bruce Herschensohn, senior fellow with the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy at the time of this video, provided a missing piece of this history.

Category: Historical, Vietnam