Bachman, Albert Carl, Jr., HM2

Fallen

Service Photo

Service Details

Last Rank
Hospital Corpsman Second Class Petty Officer

Last Primary MOS
HM-8404-Field Medical Service Technician

Last MOSGroup
Miscellaneous Requirements

Primary Unit
1970-1970, HM-8404, H&S Co, 3rd Bn, 5th Marine Regiment (3/5)

Service Years
1967 - 1970

Hospital Corpsman Second Class Petty Officer

Last Photo

Personal Details

Home State

Pennsylvania

Year of Birth
1948

This Military Service Page was created/owned by HM3 Neale Turner (DocT) to remember Marine HM2 Albert Carl Bachman, Jr..

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Casualty Info

Home Town Turtlepoint, PA	Last Address Turtlepoint, PA

Casualty Date Jun 08, 1970
Cause Hostile, Died	Reason Other Explosive Device
Location Quang Nam (Vietnam)	Conflict Vietnam War
Location of Interment Grimes District Cemetery - McKean County, Pennsylvania	Wall/Plot Coordinates Panel 09W Line 026

Official Badges

Unofficial Badges

Military Associations and Other Affiliations


	2013, Vietnam Veterans Memorial [Verified]
	2015, United States Navy Memorial
	2015, The National Gold Star Family Registry

Vietnam War

From Month/Year
January / 1955

To Month/Year
December / 1975

Description

Overview of the Vietnam War

Vietnam was the longest war in American history and the most unpopular American war of the 20th century. It resulted in nearly 60,000 American deaths and in an estimated 2 million Vietnamese deaths. Even today, many Americans still ask whether the American effort in Vietnam was a sin, a blunder, a necessary war, or whether it was a noble cause, or an idealistic, if failed, effort to protect the South Vietnamese from totalitarian government.

Summary:

Between 1945 and 1954, the Vietnamese waged an anti-colonial war against France, which received $2.6 billion in financial support from the United States. The French defeat at the Dien Bien Phu was followed by a peace conference in Geneva. As a result of the conference, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam received their independence, and Vietnam was temporarily divided between an anti-Communist South and a Communist North. In 1956, South Vietnam, with American backing, refused to hold unification elections. By 1958, Communist-led guerrillas, known as the Viet Cong, had begun to battle the South Vietnamese government.

To support the South's government, the United States sent in 2,000 military advisors--a number that grew to 16,300 in 1963. The military condition deteriorated, and by 1963, South Vietnam had lost the fertile Mekong Delta to the Viet Cong. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson escalated the war, commencing air strikes on North Vietnam and committing ground forces--which numbered 536,000 in 1968. The 1968 Tet Offensive by the North Vietnamese turned many Americans against the war.

The next president, Richard Nixon, advocated Vietnamization, withdrawing American troops and giving South Vietnam greater responsibility for fighting the war. In 1970, Nixon attempted to slow the flow of North Vietnamese soldiers and supplies into South Vietnam by sending American forces to destroy Communist supply bases in Cambodia. This act violated Cambodian neutrality and provoked antiwar protests on the nation's college campuses.

From 1968 to 1973, efforts were made to end the conflict through diplomacy. In January 1973, an agreement was reached; U.S. forces were withdrawn from Vietnam, and U.S. prisoners of war were released. In April 1975, South Vietnam surrendered to the North, and Vietnam was reunited.

Consequences

1. The Vietnam War cost the United States 58,000 lives and 350,000 casualties. It also resulted in between one and two million Vietnamese deaths.

2. Congress enacted the War Powers Act in 1973, requiring the president to receive explicit Congressional approval before committing American forces overseas.