"take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the U.S. and to prevent further aggression" (qtd. in Detzer 75).The Tonkin Gulf Resolution pulled the U.S. further into the Vietnam War. In February 1965 the ARVN was dissolving because of the Vietcong's spring offensive and Saigon probably would have soon fallen if the U.S. did not send in combat troops (Detzer 104). The U.S. had over 20,000 American soldiers, most military advisers, stationed in Vietnam by March 1965 (Detzer 85). In March 1965, Rolling Thunder, a program of regular bombings on North Vietnam, began and continued for three years (Detzer 86). According to the Pentagon, more than twice the bomb tonnage dropped on Japan and Germany in Word War II was dropped on Laos' jungles by the end of the war (Detzer 82). By the end of 1966 there were already 383,000 American troops in Vietnam, with another 42,000 scheduled to be deployed by mid-1967 (Dougan 88). In 1968, at its peak, about 540,000 troops were in Vietnam.Since there were so many people in Vietnam, there were also a lot of deaths. 5,000 Americans were killed in Vietnam in 1966, 9,000 in 1967, 14,314 in 1968, 9,414 in 1969, 4,211 in 1970, 1,380 in 1971, and 312 in 1972 (Detzer 150-152). By the end of the war over 58,000 Americans were killed. The return of dead Americans from Vietnam began to make Americans question "Why?" (Dougan 90).American protests made the government realize they should start to let the Vietnamese fight their own war. This process was called Vietnamization of the war. The U.S. gradually started to pull out in January 1969 (Detzer 124). Nixon withdrew 25,000 troops that year (Detzer 151). During the late spring and summer of 1969, the 1st Infantry Division "devoted an ever-growing share of its time, energy, and resources to the task of preparing the ARVN for the eventual departure of U.S. combat troops" (Casey 24). The 1st Infantry Division "began to send out m...
