Today in History: The First U.S. Combat Troops land in Vietnam

Today marks the fifty-seventh anniversary of the arrival of the first American combat troops in Vietnam. On March 8, 1965, 3,500 U.S. Marines arrived in Da Nang to protect the U.S. airbase there from Northern Vietnam attacks.

The Vietnam War was a long, costly and hostile conflict between the communist government of North Vietnam and the Democratic Republic of South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. The conflict was intensified by the ongoing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.

In the end, North Vietnamese gathered their forces and rolled their tanks into Southern Vietnam territories, effectively ending the war in their favor.

The U.S. lost 58,220 of its men in this conflict.

Photo: Flickr