Poras, Joseph.

The American military involvement in Vietnam, commonly referred to in the United States as the Vietnam War, was an attempt to prevent the spread of Communism in Southeast Asia and to support the South Vietnamese government’s opposition to the National Liberation Front and the Communist-allied North. North Vietnam received military and financial support from Communist allies China and the Soviet Union ; the anti-communist South Vietnam received military and financial support from the United States . 

Initially, there was public support for American involvement in Vietnam, with one poll suggesting an 80% approval rating for the war in February 1965. The number of troops deployed to Vietnam escalated in 1965, and by April 1965, one thousand tons of bombs had been dropped by Americans and South Vietnamese on the Viet Cong in the north. By July 1965, the number of draft calls from the United States was doubled to 35,000 new soldiers drafted each month, and in August of the same year, United States President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a law criminalizing the burning of a draft card. As the number of troops (and casualties) in Vietnam increased, anti-war demonstrations become more prevalent, occurring both in American cities as well as internationally. In October 1965, 25,000 Americans marched on Washington, D.C. in support of US intervention in Vietnam . The following month, 35,000 anti-war protestors circle the White House. By April 1967, anti-war protests in New York involved over 200,000 people. Meanwhile, public opinion about the war was still divided, with 70,000 people in New York marching in support of the war the following month.

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