Friend or Foe?
Viet Cong Suspect Questioned
One of the most difficult of the many challenges confronting U.S. and South Vietnamese forces during the Vietnam War (1964–1975) was identifying the enemy. In guerrilla warfare, it is often difficult to discern friend from foe. Here, U.S. soldiers grill a terrified guerrilla suspect. U.S. troops often showed little patience with suspected insurgents, whom they dubbed the Viet Cong, or just “VC.”
Source: Gale in Context, U.S. History
Ho Chi Minh Trail, elaborate system of mountain and jungle paths and trails used by North Vietnam to infiltrate troops and supplies into South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos during the Vietnam War.
The trail was put into operation beginning in 1959, after the North Vietnamese leadership decided to use revolutionary warfare to reunify South with North Vietnam.
The network of trails and volume of traffic expanded significantly beginning in the 1960s, but it still took more than one month’s march to travel from North to South Vietnam using it. Traffic on the trail was little affected by repeated American bombing raids. Efforts were gradually made to improve the trail, which by the late 1960s could accommodate heavy trucks in some sections and was supplying the needs of several hundred thousand regular North Vietnamese troops active in South Vietnam. By 1974, the trail was a well-marked series of jungle roads (some of them paved) and underground support facilities such as hospitals, fuel-storage tanks, and weapons and supply caches. The Ho Chi Minh Trail was the major supply route for the North Vietnamese forces that successfully invaded and overran South Vietnam in 1975.
"Ho Chi Minh Trail." Britannica School, Encyclopædia Britannica, 15 Sep. 2017. school.eb.com/levels/high/article/Ho-Chi-Minh-Trail/40631#gallery-container. Accessed 2 May. 2025.
