Operation Rolling Thunder: The Vietnam War

The events that occurred in Vietnam remain a debate which continues to threaten our country’s politics. I will not deny our country was left with a scar which the years have shown us may very possibly never heal. I write from Washington as one who witnessed the politics that landed us in Vietnam, as one who supported the United States ' decision to get involved in this fight which could only have been described as taking place worlds away. The war may have been bloody, as all wars are, and the results may not have been the favored ones we had intended, but I stand by our decision. My intentions are not to paint over the events that took place in Vietnam as the ideal pathway, not to justify but to explain. I will attempt, to the best of my recollection, to recreate a sort of journal to help explain the reasoning behind some of the

With Ngo Dihn Diem gone, communist forces pushed further south into Vietnam, pulling the United States forces deeper into the war. For President Lyndon B Johnson, pulling out of the war was not an option: we were too deeply involved, but this had gone on for long enough, we needed to put an end to this. "Operation Rolling Thunder" (1965-1968) would be the final push against communism in Vietnam: overall, the plan was a series of violent air/ground strikes that would block off communist access to southern Vietnam, instill fear and desperation, and cause such immense infrastructural damage that northern Vietnam could no longer function as a state. "The purpose of Rolling Thunder was to send a message to north Vietnam" (Bia) but whether the message was that of producing peace talks or forcing the cut-off of communists to southern Vietnam was largely debated: we could have allowed the space to produce peace talks, but the result could have been of North Vietnam reciprocating the attacks in force, we could not risk the time in allowing the possibility of communist production of aerial warfare, our only choice was to act fiercely