Viet Cong

Thousands of fighters formerly called the Viet Minh gathered in the South to form a new guerrilla force that they called the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam. Although he name sounded patriotic and connoted the concept of freedom, they were actual communist fighters. The Americans had a more apt name for them. They called them the Viet Cong which in Vietnamese was short for Vietnamese Communists. The Viet Cong were some of the most vicious fighters the South and the U.S. would face.

The Geneva Accords

The French were involved in an eight-year war in Vietnam which had been one of their colonies since the late nineteenth century. The war was ended in truce agreement called the Geneva Accords which created North and South Vietnam. The plan was for the division to be temporary but Ho Chi Minh grabbed power in the...