How did the United States get involved?
President Dwight Eisenhower was the first to meddle in Vietnam, sending a military mission to help the new South Vietnamese government build an army able to prevent a North Vietnamese invasion across the 17th parallel, Korea-style. The first American soldier killed by hostile action in Vietnam was Captain Harry Cramer, part of a group of U.S. Army Special Forces (“Green Berets”) who were training the Vietnamese in guerrilla warfare. At the graduation ceremony on October 21, 1957, communist guerrillas dropped mortar shells on the training site near Nha Trang. Cramer was killed, an American sergeant lost an arm, and there were several Vietnamese casualties as well. Because the United States didn’t recognize a combat situation in Vietnam, Cramer’s death was officially listed as the result of a accidental explosion, and his name wasn’t entered on the Vietnam Wall war memorial until 1983. John Kennedy became president in 1961, promising to “pay any price, bear any burden” to defend the free
