January 20, 1969 - Richard M. Nixon is inaugurated as the 37Th U.S. President and declares "...the greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker. This honor now beckons America..." He is the fifth President coping with Vietnam and had successfully campaigned on a pledge of "peace with honor."
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html
To me this means allot seeing as he was V.P. under Eisenhower who was the President who got the U.S. into Vietnam. His promise of ending the war while making sure the warriors left with honor would mean alot to people who wanted to go to war, and those with family that has servied in prior wars.
February 23, 1969 - Viet Cong attack 110 targets throughout South Vietnam including Saigon.
This would play a "mind fuck" type of warfare on U.S. troops in South Vietnam. If they could get 110 targets in one day... they could get me.
February 25, 1969 - 36 U.S. Marines are killed by NVA who raid their base camp near the Demilitarized Zone.
If the NVA can kill 36 Marines, they can kill anyone.
Operation Menu was the codename of a covert United States Strategic Air Command (SAC) bombing campaign conducted in eastern Cambodia from 18 March 1969 until 26 May 1970, during the Vietnam War. The supposed targets of these attacks were sanctuaries and Base Areas of the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and forces of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF or Viet Cong), which utilized them for resupply, training, and resting between campaigns across the border in the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). However, in practice much of the bombing was indiscriminate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Menu
This is a good bit of information here. As a infantryman who has been told that the war is in Vietnam and ONLY Vietnam I would really start to question things if I know the Air Force was bombing the hell out of another country, where they "thought" the enemy was hiding out. This would kill my moral in a heart beat.
May 10-May 20 - Forty-six men of the 101st Airborne die during a fierce ten-day battle at 'Hamburger Hill' in the A Shau Valley near Hue. 400 others are wounded. After the hill is taken, the troops are then ordered to abandon it by their commander. NVA then move in and take back the hill unopposed.
This fight and the casualty's of it begin the hard core calls by most people in America to end U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
A long period of decline in morale and discipline begins among American draftees serving in Vietnam involuntarily. Drug usage becomes rampant as nearly 50 percent experiment with marijuana, opium, or heroin which are easy to obtain on the streets of Saigon. U.S. military hospitals later become deluged with drug related cases as drug abuse causalities far outnumber causalities of war.
With the draft in effect the quality of members of the military drop. Also drugs are plentiful in Vietnam. With people in country of a year or more wanting to "escape" from their life's, it make way to much sense.
April 29, 1970 South Vietnamese troops attack into Cambodia, pushing toward Vietcong bases. Two days later, a U.S. force of 30,000 -- including three U.S. divisions -- mount a second attack. Operations in Cambodia last for 60 days, and uncover vast North Vietnamese jungle supply depots. They capture 28,500 weapons, as well as over 16 million rounds of small arms ammunition, and 14 million pounds of rice. Although most Vietcong manage to escape across the Mekong, there are over 10,000 casualties.
http://www.vietnam-war.info/timeline/timeline4.phpOnce again. As a grunt now knowing that the enemy is using another country as a staging area, and per the rules of land warfare we are kind of sort of invading another country hunting down our enemy, I would have to really become disillusioned about what the hell I was doing. Hell at least in Iraq we had post along the boarders of Iraq and Syria/Iran and would interdict hostile forces trying to cross over into Iraq.
July 8, 1969- The very first U.S. troop withdrawal occurs as 800 men from the 9th Infantry Division are sent home. The phased troop withdrawal will occur in 14 stages from July 1969 through November 1972.
As a war veteran who was apart of "The Surge" in Iraq I understand how much 800 men can do. Granted the total troop level was in the hundreds of thousands, this to me shows that Pres. Nixon was delivering on his promise to end the war. Also at the same time this draw down will make the remaining "boots on the ground" have to work that much harder against the counterinsurgency.
September 2, 1969 - Ho Chi Minh dies of a heart attack at age 79. He is succeeded by Le Duan, who publicly reads the last will of Ho Chi Minh urging the North Vietnamese to fight on "until the last Yankee has gone."
This almost hark ins back to World War Two Japan where the emperor preached to all Japanese citizens that true honor was in dying for your country, and never surrendering. This also sounds like Osama bin Ladin's videos messages in which he preaches in Jihad against America. How can you will in a battle with warriors who don't want to be there that are against a people with ideological beliefs that will carry them to the gates of hell?
September 16 1969- President Nixon orders the withdrawal of 35,000 soldiers from Vietnam and a reduction in draft calls.
As before 35,000 bodies is alot to pull out of country when you are knee deep in a counter-insugancy. I can understand trying to make the army of South Vietnam work for their money... but they will fail in almost every fight.
, 1969
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