When did the Vietnam War start offically?

Question

doing a homework assignment, and the internet is being stupid, so asking all of you.

Answer 1

I am assuming you are referring to the fighting between the US backed ARVN government and the National Liberation Front of Southern Vietnam (NLF) of which the Viet Cong ( a derogatory abbreviated version of a term meaning Vietnamese Communist were a part. This is the Second Indochina War. The third was between Cambodia (the Khmer Rouge) and Vietnam (1975-79).

There are three " Vietnam Wars" of the 20th Century. The First was the War of Liberation against the French where the Viet Ming, led by Ho Chi Minh, fought. That was between 1947 and 1954 and ended when the Viet Ming defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu, west of Hanoi near the Laotian border. The 1954 Geneva Agreements were signed and the country was TEMPORALLY divided into two temporary military demarcation areas with the Viet Ming to go North and the French to go South.

There are several dates historians give for the start of the "Second Indochina (Vietnam) War".
The first -- 1954 when the US violated the terms of the Geneva Agreements by sending CIA operatives into the North to destroy the basis infrastructure -- Coal depots, Oil Depots and Railway lines etc. The CIA also started a "Scare campaign", stating that the Viet Ming would start persecuting the Catholics. That caused a large migration of Catholics towards the South.
The US also installed a Right-wing Catholic former theology student, Ngo Dinh Diem into power in the South, created a separate country in violation of the agreements and started arming and training the police and military of the new government. They also refused to allow elections in the south as part of the "nationwide elections" that were supposed to occur no later than June 1956.

The Second Date -- late 1956 following the failure of the elections taking place along with an increase in the persecution of the Buddhists Monks (80% of Vietnam is Mahayana Buddhist).

The third date --- Around February 1960. This follows a conference held just outside of Saigon, in December 1959, by a number of groups, Lawyers, Trade Union officials, Buddhists, Communists and others, all unhappy with the Diem government and its violation of human rights etc. The conference founded the NLF of SV.

The fourth date, and the one used by the US Military --- Was February 1961 when the first death of a US soldier occurred. That was Lt. Dewey. (In fact 3 others had been killed prior to 1961, as early as 1957).