U.S. Military Global Expansion

American intervention in Vietnam sneaked up on most of us. We woke up one morning in 1964 and found ourselves at war. Our peers were being pulled from their jobs, their schools, their families and sent there by tens of thousands each month to “protect democracy.” Over 2.5 million were to go; over 55 thousand never returned. In those early years many of us supported the war, apathetically if not vocally. America had again become involved in a tragic but necessary war—a war we regretted, but knew must occur if freedom was to be protected.