Ten years before the Vietnam War ended there was huge need for the U.S. to send in 280,000 more troops into Vietnam. The Pentagon came to an agreement about this on November 27, 1965, and they told President Johnson that if they were going to win this war, they needed to send 280,00 more troops over. On this same day, the Viet Cong handed over 2 U.S. special forces soldiers who had been captured 2 years earlier at the battle of Hiep Hoa. The battle of Hiep Hoa was 40 miles southwest of Saigon. These 2 American soldiers, Sgt. George Smith and Specialist 5th Class Claude McClure, talked at a news conference in Phnom Penh three days later, saying that they were against what the U.S. was doing in Vietnam. Both of the soldiers also said that they were going to run campaigns for taking U.S. troops out of Vietnam.
South Vietnam had asked the U.S. to help them to keep the North Vietnam communism out of South Vietnam. However, many people were against all U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, so while the Pentagon was making its decision to send more troops into Vietnam, almost 35,000 war protestors surrounded the White House. They had been organized by the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE), but the National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam, the SDS, and Women Strike for Peace also played a part in bringing this protest about. They protested around the White House for two hours before going on to the Washington Monument.
