1969+Vietnam+War

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=**__VIETNAM WAR 1969__**=  In January 20, 1969 - Richard M. Nixon - the 37th U.S. President of America declares "...the greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker. This honor now beckons America..." He is the fifth President coping with Vietnam and had successfully campaigned on a pledge of "peace with honor." It is the beginning of the end for America in Vietnam as Washington now orders MACV Commander Gen. Creighton Abrams to avoid such encounters in the future. 'Hamburger Hill' is the last major search and destroy mission by U.S. troops during the war. By year's end, America's fighting strength in Vietnam has been reduced by 115,000 men. 40,024 Americans have now been killed in Vietnam. In the year 1969, the US begins a secret bombing in Cambodia. The US and South Vietnamese troops were fighting in AP BIA Mountain. The ten-day battle is one of the fiercest of the war. After 56 Americans are killed and 420 are wounded, the troops capture the hill and kill 597 Vietnamese. The hill is recorded in history as ‘Hamburger Hill’, and the actions there’re widely criticized in the US. The battle is one of the last major actions of its type in the war. A fierce battle breaks out in the Que Son Valley, 30 miles south of DaNang. More than 60 Americans are killed in the fighting. Thirty-five B-52s drop more than one thousand tons of bombs on North Vietnamese targets near the DMZ (demilitarized zone) between North and South Vietnam. More than 250,000 protesters gather in Washington, D.C., in the largest antiwar demonstration to occur during the Vietnam War. In 1969, the US attempts to reduce casualties and prepare for disengagement, led to the emphasis in operations changing to 'pacification' - the enhancement of the security of the populated areas of the RVN, combined with the upgrading of the effectiveness of RVN forces. At its peak strength in **1969**, the **Australian** Army in **Vietnam** totaled more than 7000 personnel. By 1969 anti-war protests were gathering momentum in Australia. Opposition to conscription mounted, as more people came to believe the war could not be won. The US government began to implement a policy of "Vietnamisation'', the term coined for a gradual withdrawal of US forces that would leave the war in the hands of the South Vietnamese. Later in June 1969, [|5RAR] fought one of the last large-scale actions of the Australian war, during the [|Battle of Binh Ba], five kilometers north of Nui Dat in Phuoc Tuy province. The battle was unusual in the Australian experience, involving close-quarter house-to-house fighting through the village of Binh Ba against a combined force of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army. For the loss of one Australian killed at least 91 VC/NVA were killed and 11 captured in a hard fought but one-sided engagement. Such large-scale battles were not the norm in Phuoc Tuy. Looking back on ten years of reporting the war in Vietnam and Cambodia, journalist [|Neil Davis] said in 1983; "I was very proud of the Australian troops. They were very professional, very well trained and they fought the people they were sent to fight—the Viet Cong. They tried not to involve civilians and generally there were fewer casualties inflicted by the Australians." Age..1251160444