On The Defensive

President Johnson had said that the United States was not seeking a wider war in Vietnam. We would only be advising the South Vietnamese army, training their soldiers and providing artillery and air support in their war not a war with the Communists in the north.
More and more American "advisers" were sent to Vietnam in 1964. They get killed no matter what we call them.
In January of 1965 President Johnson sent more American planes to Vietnam in order to help defend the South Vietnamese. Purely defensive the government tells us. We must prevent the Communists from toppling all the other nations of South-East Asia. If we don't they will fall like a row of dominoes.
Here in March of 1965 I watch United States Marines walking ashore in South Vietnam. Three thousand, five hundred United States Marines. They are touted as the first American combat troops to enter South Vietnam. I am confused by this. Aren't the Green Berets combat troops? The pilots and the soldiers and sailors who are protecting South Vietnam - aren't they combat troops. I guess not. I guess they are just teachers in this war not a war.
Ho-Chi Minh, leader of the Communists in North Vietnam asks us if we want to make war like the French, and if so he and the North Vietnamese will make war for twenty years or more if that's what we want. He says that he does not want to topple the other nations in South-East Asia like a row of dominoes, and if America would like to make peace he would make peace.
It is complicated, this war not a war. The North Vietnamese claim they just want to unify the country, and our government claims they want to take over the world just like all Communists want to do.
So we will send in the Marines, like we always do.
"Yeah," I think, the Marines.
This war won't last much longer now.