vietnam_049

Helicopters on the background of the jungle of Vietnam. Vietnam war.

The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. In essence, the Vietnam War was a postcolonial war of national liberation, a significant theater in the global Cold War, and, simultaneously, a civil war, with civil warfare as a defining feature from the outset.  Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until its withdrawal in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian Civil Wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.