when did the us begin to fight in vietnam
Role of the United States in the Vietnam War With the advent of Rolling Thunder, American airbases and facilities needed to be constructed and manned for the aerial effort. The defense of those bases would not be entrusted to the South Vietnamese. So, on March 8, 1965, 3,500 United States Marines came ashore at Da Nang as the first wave of U.S. combat troops into South Vietnam, adding to the 25,000 U.S. military advisers already in place. On May 5 the U.S. 173rd Airborne Brigade became the first U.S. Army ground unit committed to the conflict in South Vietnam. On August 18, Operation Starlite began as the first major U.S. ground operation, destroying an NLF stronghold in Quảng Ngãi Province. The NLF learned from their defeat and subsequently tried to avoid fighting an American-style ground war by reverting to small-unit guerrilla operations.