OzOne wrote:
OK, I went hunting....found this.

http://www.historyplace.com/unitedst...nam/index.html

Thanks Oz1, that's a pretty good link.

A slightly different perspective is that of the Vietnamese people... in
their opinion, the Viet Nam War started in the 1790s when the first
French military officers intervened on behalf of rench missionaries.
Armed resistnace against the foreigners began immediately and didn't
stop until the Americans left 220 years later.

A historical parallel is their heroic wars of independence against the
Chinese, which were quite protracted... hundreds of years. It is this
tradition that Ho Chi Mihn capitalized on to inspire people to join his
party... of course, he concealed his intention to form a repressive &
dictatorial gov't from all but a chosen few.

Originally, Viet Nam was two or three different countries, with
different ethnicities, different folk ways, even different languages in
the beginning (google up "Champa"). In partitioning Viet Nam, the Geneva
Convention was really following a good historical precedent.

BTW the Viet Nam War is really ancient history. My wife & I eat dinner
in a great Vietnamese restaurant; a while ago we were discussing food &
culture & language with the waitress and she enthusiastically told us
about their New Year holiday traditions. My wife said, "I've never heard
of that" and I teasingly said, "Yes, you have, I'll explain later." When
we were driving home she asked about it, and I said one word... Tet.

Regards
Doug King