“Our country is like an ill person who has suffered for a long time. The countries around us made a lot of progress. We were at war.” (General Vo Nguyen Giap) Decades prior to the Vietnam war the French held the Vietnamese people in chains. While other nations progressed economically with advancements in industry and agriculture, Vietnam was left in the dust under a tyrannical rule. June 1954 marked Vietnam's independence from France after the Viet Minh won the battle of Dien Bien Phu. Immediately the country was split in half, the Northerners becoming a one-state communist party, and the Southerners (sponsored by the Americans) forming a democratic system. Civil war erupted within Vietnam as the North attacked the South to unify their country
