The United States and the ARVN

United States intervention in Vietnam began after the French were defeated by the Vietnamese in 1954 under Ho Chi Minh at Dien Bien Phu through the use of guerilla tactics, and the United States began training the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) in 1955. In an effort to prevent direct military conflict between the United States and North Vietnam, the US planned to simply aid the Southern Vietnamese, such as advising them on strategy or training troops; this did not work unfortunately. The soldiers in the ARVN were lazy, cared little about the conflict and found little battlefield success, leading to eventual deployment of US forces to combat the "domino effect" of communism in Vietnam.