Conditions in South Vietnam grew steadily worse and the country was near collapse. By the spring of 1965, the North Vietnamese were destroying the equivalent of a South Vietnamese battalion every week. Desperate, General Westmoreland requested tens of thousands more American troops right away. But neither the continued bombing, nor the growing likelihood of full-scale American intervention, seemed to intimidate Hanoi.

NOTE: This video is part of a lesson plan titled 1965 Troop Escalations.