This document provides an overview of the escalating U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War under President Johnson. It describes how in 1965, Johnson increased air strikes and ground troops in an attempt to Americanize the war effort. However, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong proved to be difficult enemies who used guerilla tactics. By 1968, there were over 500,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam and 30,000 had been killed, straining the American economy and public support for the war.

1. U.S. Involvement
Grows
Unit 6, Section 2, Lesson 2

2. Objectives
• Identify the factors that caused President
Johnson to increase American troop strength
in Vietnam.
• Assess the nature of the war in Vietnam and
the difficulties faced by both sides.
• Evaluate the effects of low morale on
American troops and on the home front.

3. Terms and People
• William Westmoreland − the American military
commander in South Vietnam
• napalm − jellied gasoline that was dropped in
canisters and exploded on impact, setting fire to
large areas
• hawk − a supporter of Johnson’s war policies
• dove − an opponent Johnson’s war policies

4. What were the causes and effects of
America’s growing involvement in the
Vietnam War?
As the war escalated, America’s leaders and
soldiers found themselves in a quagmire.
Eventually the war weakened the American
economy, divided the people, and eroded the
nation’s morale.

5.  Vietnam war was different:
◦ No Front Lines
“You carried 50 to 70
 Enemy was everywhere pounds of equipment,
◦ Terrain was difficult and littered and it was tough going,
with mines and traps.
◦ Men, drenched in sweat, would particularly in forested
wade through flooded rice areas. Often you’d have
paddies and tangled paths. to pull yourself along
◦ Occasionally had to stop to pick
leeches out of their boots. from one tree branch to
the next, or we’d have to
help each other by
gripping hands. And you
 What thoughts and feelings couldn’t see anything, so
might a soldier have had in
the conditions described by you didn’t know what
Sergeant Ehrhart? was there around you.”
Sergeant William Ehrhart,
United States Marines

6. In 1965,
Johnson
escalated air
strikes against
North Vietnam
and increased
the number of
ground troops.

7. The U.S. plan, called Operation Rolling
Thunder, was to Americanize the war effort.
The U.S. would use its superior war technology to
win the conflict quickly.
Johnson’s advisers, including William
Westmoreland, the American commander in
Vietnam, supported the increased military
presence.

8. The North Vietnamese and Vietcong fighters proved
a difficult enemy.
Ho Chi Minh’s military strategy was to fight only when
victory was certain.
He exhorted his troops to
be like a tiger fighting an
elephant — the tiger keeps
moving and takes bites out
of the elephant.

9. The Vietcong and North Vietnamese dug a complex series
of tunnels, from which they mounted surprise attacks.
The U.S. dropped napalm to burn these jungle hideouts.

10. The Vietcong and North Vietnamese soldiers:
• traveled quickly and
quietly with little gear
• attacked suddenly and
then faded into the jungle
• set booby traps around
U.S. encampments

11. The war grew increasingly
difficult and frustrating.
• Many American soldiers had been drafted and
did not see how the war helped U.S. interests.
• The lack of progress toward victory in Vietnam
increased doubt about the war.
• The war strained America’s economy.

12. By 1968, there
were more than half
a million U.S. troops
in Vietnam, and
30,000 had died.

13. Doves Hawks supported
questioned Johnson’s war
the war. They policies. They
included liberal were mostly
politicians and conservatives
students who who believed the
saw the conflict war was crucial to
as a localized a U.S. Cold War
civil war. victory.