Vietnam: A look back at the war after 50 years

The body of a child is held by his father as South Vietnamese Army Rangers look down from a tank, March 19, 1964, in Vietnam. The child was killed as government forces pursued guerrillas into a village near the Cambodian border.

Phan Thi Kim Phuc, center, with her clothes torn off, flees with other South Vietnamese children after a misdirected aerial napalm attack on suspected Viet Cong hiding places on June 8, 1972. A South Vietnamese plane mistakenly dropped its flaming napalm on South Vietnamese troops and civilians. Kim Phuc became a symbol of the civilian suffering of the Vietnam War, and the Pulitzer-winning photo became one of its most iconic images.

South Vietnamese National Police Chief Brig Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan executes a Viet Cong officer with a single pistol shot in the head in Saigon, Vietnam on Feb. 1, 1968. This photo won Eddie Adams of the AP a Pulitzer Prize.

A young girl kneels over the body of Jeffrey Miller, killed during anti-war demonstrations at Kent State University May 4, 1970. John Paul Filo, a Kent student and summer intern at the Daily Dispatch of New Kensington, won the Pulitzer Prize for spot photography for this photo. By the time it was published, public opinion in the U.S. was turning against the war.

Released prisoner of war Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm is greeted by his family at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, Calif., as he returns home from the Vietnam War, March 17, 1973. In the lead is Stirm's daughter Lori, 15; followed by son Robert, 14; daughter Cynthia, 11; wife Loretta and son Roger, 12.

An unidentified U.S. Army personnel wears a hand lettered "War Is Hell" slogan on his helmet, June 18, 1965, during the Vietnam War. He was with the 173rd Airborne Brigade Battalion on defense duty at Phouc Vinh airstrip in South Vietnam.

Injured Vietnamese receive aid as they lie on the street after a bomb explosion outside the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, March 30, 1965.

Freshly landed U.S. Marines make their way through the sands of Red Beach at Da Nang, April 10, 1965. They were on their way to reinforce the air base as South Vietnamese Rangers battled guerrillas about three miles south of the beach. After years in an ostensibly advisory role, the U.S. committed its first combat troops ion Feb. 9, 1965.

U.S. advisers use a poncho tied to a pole to carry a wounded South Vietnamese soldier to a U.S. helicopter for evacuation to Saigon, September 1965.

Actress Carroll Baker snaps her fingers at sailors cheering from bridge of aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga as Bob Hope leads her across stage set up on flight deck. More than 2,500 sailors saw the Hope troupe's show on the carrier off the coast of Vietnam December 27, 1965.

Flag-draped coffins of eight American servicemen killed in Viet Cong attacks at Pleiku, South Vietnam, are placed aboard a plane in Saigon before transport to the U.S. February 1965. Vietnamese and U.S. medals were awarded to the soldiers posthumously and are pinned to the flags.

A Viet Cong patrol moves along a canal in sampans at an unidentified location in South Vietnam in 1966. The Viet Cong were guerrillas fighting against the South Vietnamese government in alliance with the communist North Vietnamese led by Ho Chi Minh.

Pfc . Lacey Skinner of Birmingham, Alabama, crawls alongside a rice paddy dike near An Thi, Vietnam, while under fire from Viet Cong troops trying to repel an assault of the U.S. 1st Air Cavalry Division, Jan. 28 and Jan. 29, 1966.

Women and children crouch in a muddy canal as they take cover from intense Viet Cong fire at Bao Trai, about 20 miles west of Saigon, Jan. 1, 1966. Paratroopers, background, of the U.S. 173rd Airborne Brigade escorted the South Vietnamese civilians through a series of firefights during the U.S. assault on a Viet Cong stronghold.

Faces contorted, clothing ripped, U.S. 1st Cavalry Division troops dash through battlefield under Viet Cong fire to reach evacuation helicopters, Jan. 31, 1966, as helicopters left the site near Hoai Chau graveyard. Heavy mistaken friendly forces pinned those that stayed in a deadly crossfire.

Pfc. John Stanaback of East Paterson, New Jersey, carries a Viet Cong soldier on his back to a first aid station near Bau Bang, 30 miles north of Saigon, March 5, 1966. Soldiers of the U.S. 2nd Battalion, 28th Infantry fought off a multi-battalion Viet Cong attack, and found this man left behind, bloodied, barefoot and unarmed.

PFC Richie sniffs at the delicate perfume of a girl far away as he opens a letter April 12, 1966 from his girlfriend in Jay, Oklahoma. Mail call is held daily and letters are a welcome interlude in the daily grind of events in Vietnam.

U.S. Army helicopters providing support for U.S. ground troops fly into a staging area fifty miles northeast of Saigon, Vietnam, August 28, 1966. Helicopter fuel is stored in the large rubber tanks, foreground.

U.S. machine gunner Spc. 4 James R. Pointer, left, of Cedartown, Georgia, and Pfc. Herald Spracklen of Effingham, Illinois, peer from the brush of an overgrown rubber plantation near the Special Forces camp at Bu Dop during a half hour firefight, Dec. 5, 1967. Their company-size patrol avoided an ambush when a patrol dog alerted the unit to the presence of enemy forces.

Soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division carry a wounded buddy through the jungle in May 1966.

An American soldier, right, is positioned over his rifle as he protects his wounded buddy crouched in front of a log in the thick mud during battle against North Vietnamese in War Zone D near Phuoc Vinh, Vietnam, June 15, 1967. The B Company of the 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry, 1st Division fought a 30-minute battle and lost 6 men with 12 wounded. Another marine can be seen behind the log.

First Cavalry Division medic Thomas Cole, of Richmond, Virginia, right, with one of his own eyes bandaged, continues to treat wounded Staff Sgt. Harrison Pell, of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, during a Jan. 30, 1966 firefight at An Thi in the Central Highlands between U.S. troops and a combined North Vietnamese and Vietcong force.

A U.S. infantryman from A Company, 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry carries a crying child from Cam Xe village after dropping a phosphorous grenade into a bunker cleared of civilians during an operation near the Michelin rubber plantation northwest of Saigon, August 22, 1966. A platoon of the 1st Infantry Division raided the village, looking for snipers that had inflicted casualties on the platoon. GIs rushed about 40 civilians out of the village before artillery bombardment ensued.

A napalm strike erupts in a fireball near U.S. troops on patrol in South Vietnam, 1966 during the Vietnam War.

Berkeley and Oakland Calif., demonstrators march against the war in Vietnam, December 1965.

A South Vietnamese woman mourns over the body of her husband, found with 47 others in a mass grave near Hue, April 11, 1969. The victims were believed killed during the enemy occupation of Hue in 1968.

A wounded U.S. paratrooper grimaces in pain as he awaits medical evacuation at base camp in the A Shau Valley near the Laos border in South Vietnam on May 19, 1969. The 101st Airborne Division attacked the North Vietnamese Communist forces at the 3,000-foot Ap Bia Mountain, or Hill 937, in the 10-day battle known as Hamburger Hill by the GIs. 46 Americans were killed before the mountain was taken, and the death toll for North Vietnamese was around 517.

An unidentified trooper of the Americal Division takes a midday nap under the barrel of his tank, which is marked with the name of popular rock band Canned Heat, northwest of Da Nang, South Vietnam, June 18, 1970.

Demonstrators climbed atop the Peace Monument in front of the U.S. Capitol during a massive rally April 24, 1971, protesting the Vietnam war.

A peace demonstrator taunts military police during this demonstration in front of the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., October 21, 1967.

Two men and a Vietnamese woman, captured by Korean troops of the White Horse Division in a cave near a village in the Hon Be mountain (24 miles south of Tuy Hoa) on Nov. 30, 1966. The trio turned out to be the political and administrative cadre of a Viet Cong controlled village. After their capture they were blindfolded, bound and confined in this barbed wire enclosure till interrogations and imprisonment.

President Lyndon Johnson, in shirt sleeves and open collar, works on his speech in the White House Cabinet Room March 30, 1968. The following day the president announced to the nation that in order to devote himself to his duties, he would not seek or accept the nomination for re-election.

Poilice and anti-war demonstrators battle on Michigan Avenue in Chicago August 28, 1968 during the 1968 Democratic Convention.

A medic of the 101st Airborne Division attempts to save the life of a fellow medic seriously wounded during an assault against the North Vietnamese at Ap Bia Mountain, also known as Hamburger Hill, on the western edge of the A Shau Valley in Vietnam on May 19, 1969. The wounded medic later died.

Marines unloading and moving through tree and branch strewn landing zone on December 17, 1969.

Soldiers of the Americal Divison ride on armored personnel carriers toward Lang Vel Special Forces camp, half a mile from the Laotian border during the Vietnam War, 1971. The Americans had to clear Route 9 to the Laotian border for Operation Lam Son 719, the South Vietnamese invasion into Laos. The photo is from one of the last rolls of film before photographer Henri Huet was killed with three other photojournalists covering the operation.

American actress and activist Jane Fonda is surrounded by soldiers and reporters as she sings an anti-war song near Hanoi during the Vietnam War in July 1972. Fonda, seated on an anti-aircraft gun, is here to "encourage" North Vietnamese soldiers fighting against "American Imperialist air raiders." She is wearing a helmet and Vietnamese-made ao-dai pantaloon and blouse.

U.S. Marines debark as evacuees load the CH-53 helicopter, known as the Jolly Green Giant, at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, Vietnam, late afternoon on April 29, 1975. The Marines were initiating the final stage of evacuation by air after the communist victory in the Vietnam War.

People try to scale the 14-foot wall of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, trying to reach evacuation helicopters, as the last of the Americans depart from Vietnam. The war ended on April 30, 1975, with the fall of Saigon, now known as Ho Chi Minh City, to communist troops from the north.

Vietnamese try to scale the high U.S. Embassy wall in desperate attempts to get aboard the evacuation flights in Saigon, May 1, 1975.

U.S. Navy personnel aboard the USS Blue Ridge push a helicopter into the sea off the coast of Vietnam in order to make room for more evacuation flights from Saigon, Tuesday, April 29, 1975. The helicopter had carried Vietnamese fleeing Saigon as North Vietnamese forces closed in on the capital.

An American prisoner of war talks through a barred door port to fellow POWs at detention camp in Hanoi, March 14, 1973.

A Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) tank enters the gates of the Presidential Palace in Saigon on May 1, 1975 as the North Vietnamese win the city.