Debate of the Length of the Vietnam War

[erpowers]

USA Today online has a graph that shows the Vietnam War lasted 8 years, 5 months, and 20 days. A few weeks ago a news reporter seemed to claim that the war in Afghanistan had become the longest war in American history. In both cases I questions the reporting concerning the Vietnam War and the Afghanistan War in that I thought the Vietnam War had lasted at least 16 years. As a result of the information on the USA Today website I looked up information on the Vietnam War in order to see how long the war lasted. According to Wikipedia (I know Wikipedia is not the most reliable source) the war/conflict spanned from 1959-1975. So, why is the media's length of the Vietnam War so much shorter than Wikipedia's length? Is the media only reporting the part of the war/conflict that occurred after Lyndon Johnson's escalation of troops, or the moment combat troops were actually sent into Vietnam?

[onenote]

1. without looking it up, I'm guessing the Vietnam War is being measured from Gulf of Tonkin

Resolution in 1964 to the Paris Peace Accords in 1973.

[damntexdem]

5. But Eisenhower got us involved, and Kennedy kept us involved.

True, it was Johnson who escalated it to a major war, relying on a made-up rationale. But we should not let the media get away with obscuring the fact that it started as a Republican war.

[onenote]

7. agreed. I wasn't defending the description, just offering an explanation

[Pyrzqxgl]

2. Why do we always measure wars by when we got into them?

Before us it was the French in that part of the world that
caused the conflict & I do believe some American troops
went a long for the ride as early as the early 5o's.

[old mark]

3. The US supported the Fench in then Indo China fighting the Viet Minh

since the '50s. We gave them equipment, including uniforms, aircraft and tanks, and we sent "observers", but no combat troops per se. We had "advisors" in the South after the French left to assist the ARVN which later merged into Special Forces teams training the ARVN and the Hmong/Montaniards. We were trying to fight a war using other countries soldiers, eventually just couldn't resist sending combat troops of our own.

mark

[Winterblues]

8. It was all a result of WW II

The USA was committed by Eisenhower to maintain Vietnam as a Free State. We had troops in there from the late fifties on..

[Cirque du So-What]

4. 11-15-61 is commonly cited as when it started

The Vietnam Service Medal is presented to any service member who served on temporary duty for more than thirty consecutive days, or 60 non-consecutive days, attached to or regularly serving for one, or more, days with an organization participating in or directly supporting ground (military) operations or attached to or regularly serving for one, or more, days aboard a naval vessel directly supporting military operations in the Republic of Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos within the defined combat zone (DoD 1348 C6.6.1.1.5. revised September 1996) between the dates of 1961-11-15 and 1973-03-28, and from 29 April, 1975 to 30 April, 1975.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_Service_Medal

President John F. Kennedy ordered more help for the South Vietnamese government in its war against the Vietcong guerrillas in late 1961. This included new equipment plus more than 3,000 military advisors and support personnel.

[damntexdem]

6. Which obscures the fact that it was the Republican Eisenhower who got us involved.