The Vietnam war.

The war went from 1955-1975. During the Vietnam war, only about ⅓ of soldiers in America were hand picked to fight, and about ⅔ volunteered. The average age of soldiers were only 21. Over 3,000 New Zealanders military and civilian people served in Vietnam between 1963 and 1975. About 3 million people died in this war. the Vietnam War started because of the U.S.’s way of “containment” during the Cold War, which aimed to stop the spread of communism throughout the world. This was the first war that New Zealand did not fight with its traditional ally, England. In the end, it turned out that it was nearly completely useless and no one really won. You can thank the former President John F. Kennedy for that. President Kennedy approves sending 400 Special Forces troops and 100 other U.S. military advisers to South Vietnam. This war was also known as the second Indochina war. The US never really declared war against Vietnam, it should really be called the Vietnam conflict instead of the Vietnam war. During world war 2, there were reportedly 40 days of combat in 4 years, though in the Vietnam war, there were 240 days of combat in one year on average.