Vietnam War History and Information on the Vietnam Veterans of America

The Vietnam War was a military conflict that took place in present day Vietnam from 1959 to 30 April 1975. During this conflict the US deployed large numbers of Vietnam war military personnel to South Vietnam between 1954 and 1973. But in fact they US military had advisors who were involved in Vietnam as far back as 1950 when they were assisting the French colonial forces already there. In 1956 they assumed full responsibility for training the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). Between 1965 and 1972 large numbers of American combat troops were sent to fit in this conflict.

The Vietnam war finally concluded on the 30 April 1975 when the South Vietnamese capital Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese forces. During the time of the conflict between 2 and 5.7 million Southeast Asian lives were lost and a large number of these were civilians.

In the US following the Vietnam war, the Vietnam Veterans of America Inc (VVA) was founded in 1978 as a non profit corporation. This organization is funded without any contributions from the US Government and is the only one chartered by Congress that is dedicated to helping Vietnam veterans and their families.

Its aim is to campaign on issues that are important to Vietnam veterans and in order to help create an identity for them as well as improve the public's perception of these veterans. The main efforts of this organization are concerned with the following:

1. Health care for veterans including those that are disabled.

2. Setting up of a national task force for dealing with homeless veterans.

3. Issues that pertain to women and minority veterans who took part in the Vietnam war.

4. Assisting veterans who are looking for benefits and services from the US Government.

Today the VVA has organizing councils in 43 states of the US with 525 local chapters spread across these states and over 50,000 members.

Because of the Vietnam war and people's attitudes towards it, the VVA has become the voice of many of those Vietnam war military veterans who would otherwise not be heard.