Vo Nguyen Giap

March 13 – May 7, 1954 · 22,000 total casualties

Ended 80 years of French colonial rule in Indochina. The Geneva Accords that followed temporarily divided Vietnam at the 17th parallel — North Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh, South Vietnam under US-backed Ngo Dinh Diem. Eisenhower, fearing a communist 'domino effect,' began sending military advisors to South Vietnam. American involvement had begun.

January 21 – July 9, 1968 · 15,000 total casualties

The siege fixed American attention while Tet unfolded. The decision to later abandon Khe Sanh — after holding it at enormous cost — was a propaganda disaster. 'If we're not in Khe Sanh to stay, why did so many men die there?' It became a symbol of the war's strategic incoherence.

January 30 – September 23, 1968 · 85,000 total casualties

The most consequential battle of the war — not militarily, but psychologically. Walter Cronkite, 'the most trusted man in America,' declared the war a stalemate on national television. Johnson's approval ratings collapsed. He announced he would not seek re-election. Tet destroyed the 'credibility gap' — the chasm between official optimism and reality — and turned American public opinion against the war.

March 30 – October 22, 1972 · 200,000 total casualties

Proved South Vietnam could not survive a conventional invasion without massive US air support — the central flaw in Vietnamization. Nixon's response, including bombing within miles of Hanoi, led to the Paris Peace Accords of January 1973. The Accords allowed North Vietnamese troops already in South Vietnam to remain — effectively guaranteeing the war's eventual outcome.