At a press conference with the national media, Democratic (socialist/fascist) President Lyndon Johnson says of the Vietnamese-American War:

       Three times in my lifetime, in two world wars and in Korea, Americans have gone to far lands to fight for freedom.  We have learned at a terrible and brutal cost that retreat does not bring safety and weakness does not bring peace.

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       It is this lesson that has brought us to Viet-Nam.  This is a different kind of war.  There are no marching armies or solemn declarations.  Some citizens of South Viet-Nam, at times with understandable grievances, have joined in the attack on their own government.

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       Our power, therefore, is a very vital shield.  If we are driven from the field in Viet-Nam, then no nation can ever again have the same confidence in American protection.

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       We did not choose to be the guardians at the gate, but there is no one else.

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       [T]he people of South Viet-Nam have fought for many long years.  Thousands of them have died.  Thousands more have been crippled and scarred by war.  We just cannot now dishonor our word, or abandon our commitment, or leave those who believed us and who trusted us to the terror and repression and murder that would follow.

       I have today ordered to Viet-Nam the Air Mobile Division and certain other forces which will raise our fighting strength from 75,000 to 125,000 men almost immediately.  Additional forces will be needed later, and they will be sent as requested.  This will make it necessary to increase our active fighting forces by raising the monthly draft call from 17,000 over a period of time to 35,000 per month, and for us to step up our campaign for voluntary enlistments.

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        [W]e will always insist that the people of South Viet-Nam shall have the right of choice, the right to shape their own destiny in free elections in the South. …

This was the purpose of the 1954 agreements which the Communists have now cruelly shattered. 

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       … We will stand in Viet-Nam.

       [added 6/19/2025]

Subsequent Events:

References:

Stanley A. Karnow, Vietnam: A History, (1983; New York: Penguin, 1997), 441.

We Will Stand in Viet-Nam
www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/w/we-will-stand-in-vietnam.html

Current U.s. National Debt:

$38,857,671,304,563

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