Kennedy kept getting more and more involved (militarily) to the point of no return. Then Johnson and McNamara lied about an incident in the Gulf of Tonkin to give him an excuse to send in combat troops. We all know the result of that operation. Kennedy didn't send in combat troops but he went right up to that line before he took a bullet.That doesn't sound like much of a war. Things didn't really get hot until Johnson was President, then it was a war.Eisenhower maintained between 750 to 1,500 troops in Vietnam as advisors between 1955 and 1960 when JFK added another 500. The first Americans to be lost in combat were lost during the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. They were air dropping supplies to French troops when their cargo aircraft was hit and crashed.No it didn't, it started under JFK.Well, if you are going to play that game, the Vietnam War began under Republican Eisenhower.No, the Civil War began during the Presidency of James Buchanan.