Ord Elliott, 72: Princeton, 1966, Platoon Leadership Course, rifle platoon commander in Vietnam 1967, left Marine Corps 1972. Earned a PhD at Purdue University in 1974, associate professor and professor 1973-1982, management consultant and business strategic adviser, founder of two companies.

Mike Wholley, 71: Navy ROTC at Harvard University, flight school 1968, flew F-4 Phantom jets in Vietnam 1960-70. Thirty-year Marine Corps career, law degree and two master’s degrees. Chief judge and staff judge advocate of the Marine Corps. Retired as brigadier general, was executive director of the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation, appointed general counsel for NASA. Retired in 2014 and loves to ride his motorcycle.

John Sullivan, 71: University of Southern California, Platoon Leaders Course 1963, comissioned 1966, flight school 1966-68. Flew Huey gunships with Marine Observation Squadron-6 in Vietnam 1968-69, retired as colonel, 1994, became associate business professor and college athletics director and founded a leadership teaching ministry in Africa

The resilience, professionalism and bravery of our 214th Combat Aviation Brigade aviation crews. The most dangerous MOS in Southeast Asia was not combat infantry. It was flying a low and slow fixed wing or rotary aircraft.

Medal of Honor recipients in 1966

It was the year of the reality check, when Americans and their own government began to realize just what they faced in Vietnam — a resourceful and tenacious enemy, quarrelsome allies and an Asian society whose complexity they could barely understand.

Viewed through the prism of time, the years after World War II can seem like an idyllic era, with U.S. power supreme, the middle class thriving and families living stable “Ozzie and Harriet” lives after decades of war and economic depression. In reality, those years were also a time of legal racial discrimination, marginalization of women and an ever-present fear of nuclear annihilation at the hands of the Soviet Union.

Taking a look at the events that shaped the early days of the Vietnam War.

A collection of photos taken by Stars and Stripes staffers in Vietnam in 1965

Four U.S. ships of Amphibious Task Force 76 appeared off Da Nang, Vietnam, on March 8, 1965. Intermittent rain and up to 4-foot waves delayed the landing at Red Beach 2 for about an hour. With the arrival of the Marines and the escalation of the air campaign, America’s military role in Vietnam crossed the line from advise and assist to offensive warfare.