On 21 January 1977, U.S. President Jimmy Carter pardoned nearly all Vietnam War draft evaders.

The end of U.S. involvement

On 15 January 1973, citing progress in peace negotiations, President Nixon announced the suspension of offensive action in North Vietnam which was later followed by a unilateral withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam. The Paris Peace Accords were later signed on 27 January 1973, which officially ended U.S. involvement in the Vietnam conflict. This won the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for Kissinger and North Vietnamese Politburo member and lead negotiator Le Duc Tho while fighting continued, leading songwriter Tom Lehrer to declare that 'irony had died'. However, five days before the peace accords were signed, Lyndon Johnson, whose presidency was marred by the war, died. The mood during his state funeral was one of intense recrimination because the war's wounds were still raw. However, there was relief that not only U.S. involvement in Vietnam ended, but also the chapter on one of the most tragic and divisive eras in America came to a close.

A precise timeline of the Vietnam War is difficult to determine. Some consider the Vietnam War to have been a continuous conflict beginning with the French attempt to reestablish colonial control in 1946 and continuing until the fall of Saigon in 1975. Others divide the conflict into two separate wars, the First Indochina War between the French and the Viet Minh and the Second Indochina War between North Vietnam on the one side and South Vietnam and its allies, most importantly the United States, on the other. Many experts consider the Vietnam War to have just been one front in the larger Cold War.

The VIETNAM WAR

1957-1975

The Second Indochina War, 1954-1975, grew out of the long conflict between France and Vietnam. In July 1954, after one hundred years of colonial rule, France was forced to leave Vietnam. Communist forces under the direction of General Vo Nguyen Giap defeated the allied French troops at Dien Bien Phu, a remote mountain outpost in the northwest corner of Vietnam. This decisive battle convinced the French that they could no longer maintain their Indochinese colonies and Paris quickly sued for peace. As the two sides came together to discuss the terms of the peace in Geneva, Switzerland, international events were already shaping the future of Indochina.

Gotta get out of this place...

Carrying a guitar and a M16 rifle, a Marine waits at a landing strip for a flight out of Khe Sanh, February 25th, 1968

It was the era of Rock & Roll and more people turned up for James Brown at the yearly USO extravaganza, than for Bob Hope. The AFRVN radio networking was grooving from the Delta to the DMZ. Accompanying the music of the era was a new mood towards the war and a lack of faith in the objectives became more common among the servicemen than ever before.

2 tours of duty veteran Jack Stoddard (one tour with the 11th) was kind to contribute the following information:

"I was to say the least, very proud to have served in the 11th ACR. Our ACAVs were special because they had a four man crew, one commander, a driver and two side gunners. That meant that there was one 50cal, and two M60s for fire power. Each gun also had it's own metal protective shield. they carried no other troops, but had plenty of ammo on board, as our motto stated, "Find The Bastards, Then Pile On!" The 11th would attack in full force with anywhere from 20 to 60 ACAVs, plus up to three companies of M48 Tanks."

CW2 Jack Stoddard USA Ret.

In the 1950's the United States began to send troops to Vietnam. During the following 25-years the ensuing war would create some of the strongest tensions in US history. Almost 3 million US men and women were sent thousands of miles to fight for what was a questionable cause. In total, it is estimated that over 2,5 million people on both sides were killed.

This site does not try to document the entire history of the Vietnam War, but is intended as a picture essay illustrating some of the incredible conditions under which soldiers from both sides lived, fought, played and ultimately died. The legendary combat photographer, Tim Page, took almost all of the images shown on this site and they are nothing short of stunning.

Please be advised that strict copyright laws protect this site and under no circumstances may any images be copied or used. Copyright use of the images are handled by Corbis. Please see the acknowledgment section for more details about the pictures and this site. And finally, NO!, I cannot give anyone permission to use the images, they are the property of the photographers or their publishers.

Finally, if you have come here to ONLY look at blood and gore you have come to the wrong place, a soldiers facial expression can be just as terrifying.

The Vietnam War or Second Indochina War (also known colloquially as Vietnam or Nam as well as the American War to the Vietnamese) ¹ was a conflict between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN, or North Vietnam), allied with the Communist World, namely the Soviet Union and China against the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, or South Vietnam), and its allies — notably the United States military in support of the South, with US combat troops involved from 1965 until the official withdrawal in 1973.