The sixties was known as the decade that had the best of times and the worst of times. There is no better example of the confusion and unrest that took place during this decade than the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War was an everyday issue during sixties, and affected the lives of most Americans.
Unfortunately Vietnam has historically been under attack or control from outside countries, and such was the case at the end of World War 2, when the French refused to leave. However, the people would not stand for this, and the Vietminh, led by Ho Chi Mon, declared themselves free from French control. With two headstrong countries there was no other alternative but to fight for the control, and by 1954 the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu. After the French were defeated The Geneva Accords was called to decide who would govern the country. Here it was decided that Vietnam would be divided into two zones, north and south, and the 17th parallel would be the boundary. It was decided that North Vietnam would be governed by Ho Chi Mon and would be a communist society, and South Vietnam would be an anti-communist government run by the corrupt President Diem. Finally, an election date was set for 2 years and it was decided that the winner of the election would have total control of the country. However, Diem had no confidence in winning this proposed election and the United States knew this. Not wanting another country to be apart of the domino effect, the U.S. began to get involved in 1956. North Vietnamese could sense the situation starting to escalade and many them started to recruit people from the South to help them rid the foreigners from their country. The first attacks by the Viet Cong on South Vietnam took place in 1957. In 1961 the U.S. started sending more and more military advisors and supplies over to calm the situation down.
In 1964 the not yet war in Vietnam took an ugly turn for the worse in the Gulf of Tokin incident.