Get Building Vocabulary The Vietnam War Years

Collectively the United States often called them the Viet Cong. It was commonly shortened to VC, which in military alphabet code was spoken as Victor Charlie. It was further shortened to just Charlie. American soldiers called them Charlie, they called themselves liberators.

On April 30, 1975, NVA tanks rolled through the gate of the Presidential Palace in Saigon, effectively ending the war.

These authors tell readers that “Viet Cong” — meaning “Vietnamese communist” — was a pejorative term invented by officers of the United States Information Agency.

The Vietnam War was an extremely long conflict that roughly started in 1954 and eventually ended in 1976, causing a lot of controversy along the way. It pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and it's a principal anti-communist ally, the United States.

America's direct eight-year intervention in the Vietnam War was at an end. In Saigon, some 7,000 U.S. Department of Defense civilian employees remained behind to aid South Vietnam in conducting what looked to be a fierce and ongoing war with communist North Vietnam.

Vietnam War, (1954–75), a protracted conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam and its allies in South Vietnam, known as the Viet Cong, against the government of South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States.