The Things They Carried | Historical Context
The War in Vietnam
Historians often refer to the Vietnam War as America's longest war because it can be dated from President Harry Truman's commitment of $15 million to aid the French forces in Indochina in 1950 to the fall of Saigon in 1975. The reasons the U.S. became involved in Vietnam are complex. Briefly, American policy makers beginning with the Truman administration believed that the spread of Chinese Communism in Southeast Asia threatened the world balance of power as construed by the cold war. The socalled ''domino theory'' held that the entire region would "fall"...
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