Joy had been attacked by the North Vietnamese and decided that the United States must react quickly. Around midnight on August 4, 1964 American aircrafts began sixty-four sorties (one plane attacks) over North Vietnamese patrol boat bases and a major oil storage depot. During the sorties more than twenty Vietnamese vessels were destroyed, while the oil depot became an inferno of flame and smoke. The events that took place in the Gulf of Tonkin added to years of tension between the United States and North Vietnam. United States Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy had spent millions of dollars to aid the non-communist South Vietnamese. Before 1964 thousands of American military advisers were training and assisting the South Vietnamese army. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s decision to bomb North Vietnam put the United States in the center of the longest war in the nations history. The Vietcong (North Vietnamese) grew more aggressive after the incident at the Gulf of Tonkin. On November 1964, they attacked the American base at Bien Hoa and destroyed five B-57 jets while damaging twenty more. Since the increase of tension with the Vietcong continued, draft calls had increased substantially in the United States and American casualties were being felt across the country. On Christmas Eve 1964 the Vietcong set off a bomb in the Brinks Hotel located in Saigon. Two American officers were killed and fifty-eight were injured. Then on February 7, 1965 the Vietcong attacked the American fort near the town of Pleiku located In the mountains of South Vietnam, within hours American jets rained bombs on the North Vietnamese camps at Dong Hoi. Shortly after the attacks from the Vietcong, the United States launched a massive series of air strikes, which was called Operation Rolling Thunder. On February 22, 1965 United States General William Westmoreland, who was in command of the U.S. military advisory forces, asked...
