My fellow American.

American.

August 1964.

President Linden Johnson announces to the world that the United States will engage in military action against North Vietnam.

As president and commander-in-chief,

it is my duty to the American people to report that renewed hostile actions against United States ships on the high seas and

the Gulf of Tonkin have today required me to order the military forces of the United States

to take action and reply.

Privately, Johnson doubts that the inciting attack by

Vietnamese forces had happened at all.

And I just say that you want to be sure before you tell me that we were fired upon and we were fired because you just came in

a few weeks ago and said it's that damn they're launching an attack on us. They're firing on us.

And we got through all the firing which included baby that hadn't fired at all.

March 1969, in order to strike at so-called

sanctuaries of Vietnamese forces,

National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, and President Richard Nixon inaugurate a

secret bombing campaign in Cambodia.

Spring 1970, the United States begins an air and ground invasion of Cambodia

after a right-wing coup against the country's ruler.

The next morning, Bravo Company has hardly moved more than a few hundred yards

when it runs into an enemy ambush. April 1975, communist insurgents known as the Khmer Rouge take over Cambodia.

They institute a nationwide program of forced labor, mass executions, and extermination of ethnic minorities.

...