The story: If Americans are told anything about the French war in Vietnam preceding the American war there, we are told they are unrelated. Following Vietnam’s occupation by the Japanese during World War II, the story goes, the French tried to recolonize Vietnam. When they failed and Vietnam was partitioned into North and South, the story continues, the United States generously began to train the new South Vietnamese military with American military advisors. Escalation into hostilities between the (generous) United States and (antagonistic) North Vietnam occurred only in 1964, when the North Vietnamese are said to have provoked the American military with attacks on US destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. These attacks led the United States to having to protect itself and, in March of 1965, the replacement of advisors with full American combat units.
Damn, you know your stuff, SoldierGirl!