Witness, not a participant, to Tet, 1968
So, a few days before Tet. As I recall, Allen’s parents were vacationing in Thailand and Allen was on a week or two leave to visit them in the Bangkok area. I always thought Ms. Hallmark had intelligence operatives that were somewhat better than the CIA’s and managed to get her oldest son out Vietnam for Tet, but je ne sais quoi! I could, quite easily, be misremembering this whole thing and I’ll rely on Allen to set the record straight.
We did work really hard in those days: translating, putting things together, sending reports out whenever some little VC sitting somewhere in the South sent a message indicating that his unit was ready for the forthcoming great and glorious offensive and general uprising. We heard rumors that the Pleiku Provincial Chief and his family had left for Saigon for classier Tet parties than could be found on a provincial backwater like Pleiku…but those were just rumors. As it was, Pleiku had a rather exciting Tet party of its own…not, however, rivaling that held in either Saigon or the imperial city of Hue.
The night of the Eve of Tet, 1968, the 330th was on alert as everyone in all of South Vietnam really, really, really should have been. I recall starting out in the bunker (might as well be safe) and drinking a few '33' beers before migrating to the berm. A few VC units had jumped the gun, so to speak, and started their offensive a little early, but I suspect that had just caused MACV to think their attack was the whole thing, easily overcome.
I still recall how creepy it all seemed that night. Remember: our company was between the Cambodia border and the town of Pleiku, 4th Division HQ was on the other side of the town. To get to the city, the VC had to march around us. That night I listened carefully, tried to hear any sign of thousands of enemy troops marching past us but could never hear anything. They must have stayed a klick or two north and south of the areas our floodlights highlighted.
Finally, I hear the sounds of a huge firefight, see tracers—green for the bad guys, red for us good guys. I see flashes, hear explosions from down in the city, dark night, flashing lights. Amber flares shoot up in an explosion of artillery and drift down beneath white parachutes. The rest of the 330th races to the berm, poised to return fire that never comes. The Tet Offensive of 1968 is not about American bases; it is, instead, an attempt to take control of all the major town and cities in the South. In direct disobedience to General William C. Westmoreland, the VC demonstrate that they can, indeed, wage war all over the country on the same freaking night!
The VC hold out, stay in Pleiku for two days. They kill a number of people; we kill a number of people. That’s what this war is all about: numbers, not territory taken and held, not old-style war. They keep control of Hue and its Citadel much longer. Marines and ARVN fight street to street in that city before they regain control. The best description I have read of the Hue fighting is in Michael Herr’s Dispatches and in Gustav Hasford's great novel, The Short-Timers (Full Metal Jacket was made from that book).
Our indigenous native personnel? The ones who work for us at the 330th? They had not come in to work the day before. I wonder why? Xuans 1 and 2? Our very own bar girls? MIA for three days. No one reports to work in the Mess Hall. The men who burn our shit? They had some compelling reason not to come to work that day before. Who needed intel? We could tell by the number of Vietnamese locals who showed up for work or who failed to show up.
The big news: Yes, we did win the Tet Offensive. The North and their southern minions failed to achieve any of their stated objectives. There was no general uprising. Well, they did manage to occupy a few towns for a few days. A few things spoiled that major victory for us: 1. the false notion that our embassy had been over-run, 2) television images of the fighting including General Loan’s execution of the VC soldier in civilian clothes, 3) General Westmoreland’s statements about enemy strength in the weeks prior to Tet.
The so-called “fog of war” was at its foggiest in those days during and after Tet, 1968. The VC ,after Tet, were closer to what the General had described before Tet: unable to mount another major battle. As a fighting force, they were wasted, destroyed during Tet. From Tet on, most of the fighting would be done by the North Vietnamese Army. We did win Tet, but we lost the war that week…even though we would continue to fight for five long years afterwards.
Showing posts with label Tet Offensive. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tet Offensive. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
Just a Few Notes About Vietnam (Part 25)
Interim: a Visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
I was in Washington last week and, as I usually do when I am in that city, took time to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Wall. And, as usual, I found myself tearing up. I visit out of respect for all those young men and a few women who gave their lives in our war. It does not really matter whether we approve of the country’s wars or not, the sacrifice deserves respect. Still, though, I had been reviewing Vivian Shipley’s recent collection of poems, All Your Memories Have Been Erased, just before I left for D.C. and could not help remembering her poem for the students killed at Virginia Tech and the haunting line about how they were cut off “mid-song.” The human beings represented by the names carved into that black wall were also only part way through singing their own songs when their voices were lost to us all.
I was rushed on this visit and took a taxi from the conference hotel to the memorial. The cabbie seemed used to Vietnam veterans rushing to the Wall and asked if I had been there, meaning Vietnam. When I said yes, he said he'd wait for me on the other side of the Lincoln Memorial. The area was totally under repair, reflecting pool drained, walkways rerouted, but the Wall...it still called out to people. The last time I was there a few kids were racing around and their parents were shushing them, asking them to behave. I remember telling them that the people represented by the names would not have minded, that that kind of happiness and joy was okay with them. This time, though, only a few of us, no cherry trees in bloom, no laughing children.
The first few times I visited The Wall, I did not feel that sense of healing some veterans have mentioned, instead. . . Well, I’ve written a few poems, none recently, about how the memorial makes me feel. The first was originally published in Valparaiso Poetry Review and was about a trip I took to the memorial with my friend Pat Valdata. Pat’s a glider pilot and writer and she was a good companion on that walk up the reflection pond to the Lincoln Memorial before we turned right to visit Maya Lin’s tribute:
New Names
1
Cherry blossoms blow along the ground
and green buds promise leaves to come,
closed walkways send us west and nothing's
mirrored in the murky pond.
She notes that gulls soar much as she does
when the clouds build just this way.
She paces me, stride for stride, sees
mallards, heads buried in the slime.
She seems entranced with winged things.
2
Here, the cherries blossom still—a little
north and east of where we stand.
The path leads down beside a polished wall
that sprouts the names of one war's dead.
New faces blossom, new letters grow
from black wings struggling to rise, but
anchored in the hill and in our minds.
New names to link old remains—men
and women who will not grow old.
The wings reflect, although the pond does not,
cherry blossoms in the April sun.
I have returned to the place many times in the intervening years and, each time, the memorial affects me in a different way. The image of “wings,” though: that is constant. When I last wrote about the memorial, I was thinking of the young man named Bao who reported on the camp at Dak To and about what was, surely, his own death after we had pinpointed his locations:
Not All the Names Are There
I said I would not write about the Wall,
two wings of black marble with 58,000 names.
I knew not all the names were there, not all.
They said the Wall brings healing, peace,
understanding. They never mentioned rage.
I knew I should not write about the Wall.
A boy named Bao lay dying on a hill,
his body burned with napalm, his death my call.
I knew not all the names were there, I could not
see his name and face behind the marble sheen
neither on the west nor on the east, no trace.
No one wrote his name upon the Wall.
No one ever mentioned tears could fall and rage
could dominate between those wings of black carved names.
I said I would not write about the Wall;
not all the names can fit there, hardly all.
This time, the visit brought regret. I think the truth about the Wall is that it does not simply reflect our faces against the carved names of the dead in the black mirror polish of its exterior, but also reflects the baggage we bring with us. This is Maya Lin’s real achievement: that the memorial is different for each man or woman who sees it, just as our war was different for each person who fought in it. We do not simply see their names, but see our whole lives since theirs were lost.
January 30, 1968, was neither warm nor cold in the area around Pleiku, but it was a day many new names would become eligible for the stone carver’s art. Allen, Jim, Will, all of us who worked in the linguist hootch at the 330th and all the cryppies, reporters, diddy-boppers, mechanics, cooks, all of us, knew the morning would change the course of the war and would, simultaneously, change dramatically, the way we would live out the remainder of our tour in Vietnam.
I was in Washington last week and, as I usually do when I am in that city, took time to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Wall. And, as usual, I found myself tearing up. I visit out of respect for all those young men and a few women who gave their lives in our war. It does not really matter whether we approve of the country’s wars or not, the sacrifice deserves respect. Still, though, I had been reviewing Vivian Shipley’s recent collection of poems, All Your Memories Have Been Erased, just before I left for D.C. and could not help remembering her poem for the students killed at Virginia Tech and the haunting line about how they were cut off “mid-song.” The human beings represented by the names carved into that black wall were also only part way through singing their own songs when their voices were lost to us all.
I was rushed on this visit and took a taxi from the conference hotel to the memorial. The cabbie seemed used to Vietnam veterans rushing to the Wall and asked if I had been there, meaning Vietnam. When I said yes, he said he'd wait for me on the other side of the Lincoln Memorial. The area was totally under repair, reflecting pool drained, walkways rerouted, but the Wall...it still called out to people. The last time I was there a few kids were racing around and their parents were shushing them, asking them to behave. I remember telling them that the people represented by the names would not have minded, that that kind of happiness and joy was okay with them. This time, though, only a few of us, no cherry trees in bloom, no laughing children.
The first few times I visited The Wall, I did not feel that sense of healing some veterans have mentioned, instead. . . Well, I’ve written a few poems, none recently, about how the memorial makes me feel. The first was originally published in Valparaiso Poetry Review and was about a trip I took to the memorial with my friend Pat Valdata. Pat’s a glider pilot and writer and she was a good companion on that walk up the reflection pond to the Lincoln Memorial before we turned right to visit Maya Lin’s tribute:
New Names
1
Cherry blossoms blow along the ground
and green buds promise leaves to come,
closed walkways send us west and nothing's
mirrored in the murky pond.
She notes that gulls soar much as she does
when the clouds build just this way.
She paces me, stride for stride, sees
mallards, heads buried in the slime.
She seems entranced with winged things.
2
Here, the cherries blossom still—a little
north and east of where we stand.
The path leads down beside a polished wall
that sprouts the names of one war's dead.
New faces blossom, new letters grow
from black wings struggling to rise, but
anchored in the hill and in our minds.
New names to link old remains—men
and women who will not grow old.
The wings reflect, although the pond does not,
cherry blossoms in the April sun.
I have returned to the place many times in the intervening years and, each time, the memorial affects me in a different way. The image of “wings,” though: that is constant. When I last wrote about the memorial, I was thinking of the young man named Bao who reported on the camp at Dak To and about what was, surely, his own death after we had pinpointed his locations:
Not All the Names Are There
I said I would not write about the Wall,
two wings of black marble with 58,000 names.
I knew not all the names were there, not all.
They said the Wall brings healing, peace,
understanding. They never mentioned rage.
I knew I should not write about the Wall.
A boy named Bao lay dying on a hill,
his body burned with napalm, his death my call.
I knew not all the names were there, I could not
see his name and face behind the marble sheen
neither on the west nor on the east, no trace.
No one wrote his name upon the Wall.
No one ever mentioned tears could fall and rage
could dominate between those wings of black carved names.
I said I would not write about the Wall;
not all the names can fit there, hardly all.
This time, the visit brought regret. I think the truth about the Wall is that it does not simply reflect our faces against the carved names of the dead in the black mirror polish of its exterior, but also reflects the baggage we bring with us. This is Maya Lin’s real achievement: that the memorial is different for each man or woman who sees it, just as our war was different for each person who fought in it. We do not simply see their names, but see our whole lives since theirs were lost.
January 30, 1968, was neither warm nor cold in the area around Pleiku, but it was a day many new names would become eligible for the stone carver’s art. Allen, Jim, Will, all of us who worked in the linguist hootch at the 330th and all the cryppies, reporters, diddy-boppers, mechanics, cooks, all of us, knew the morning would change the course of the war and would, simultaneously, change dramatically, the way we would live out the remainder of our tour in Vietnam.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Just a Few Notes About Vietnam (Part 24)
Approaching Tet
It’s amazing how often miss-truths or someone’s personal opinion gets printed in newspapers. On Friday, General Patrick Brady, who received the MOH in Vietnam and whose service I honor, did an Op-Ed in the San Antonio Express-News. Most of his facts are, basically, correct; his conclusions are suspect.
General Brady writes The American soldier was never defeated on the battlefield in Vietnam; our defeat came from the elite in the courtrooms, the classroom, the cloakrooms and the newsrooms, from cowardly media-phobic politicians and irresponsible, dishonest media and professors from Berkeley to Harvard. This is old, hackneyed warmed-over crap. To start with, no, we did not win every battle in Vietnam. Several outposts were totally over-run by the NVA and/or the VC. Ipso facto: we did not win those battles.
Hamburger Hill? Yes, the enemy quit fighting and left. We left. Dak To? The enemy quit fighting and melted back across the borders into Cambodia and Laos. They came back. Khe Sanh? We won by enduring a shitload of rocket and mortar fire without getting all the Marines there killed? And then, the enemy stopped and left. Not exactly a victory at Khe Sanh, Not a loss, I guess, but certainly not a victory. You can't declare victory unless you know what the people attacking you want and that you kept them from achieving it.
But General Brady is right. The Americans and most of the ARVN fought well during the Tet Offensive and the North did not achieve any of the objectives it set for itself. A clear American victory. BUT…
Why did the media react the way they did? And let’s be clear about this, not many people in the media ever called TET an American loss. What seems to have happened back when Patrick Brady was a young man is that the MACV generals led by General William C. Westmoreland, only a short while before Tet 1968, had been boasting in news briefings that the VC were on the run and could not mount a credible offensive anywhere. The media duly repeated that on television and in newsprint. Is it any wonder that Walter Cronkite said “I thought we were winning this thing” when the VC rose up all over the country, attacked most of the cities, occupying many of them, and stayed in Hue for weeks after Tet?
If anyone caused the media reaction to Tet, it was General Westmoreland and his cadre of sycophantic, yesman generals.
And the assertion that history professors call Tet a military loss is patently absurd. They do, frequently, call it a public relations loss. That's absolutely correct.
Between Christmas and Tet at the 330th, we started translating message after message indicating that there was going to be an attack in Saigon, an attack in Tay Ninh, in Nha Trang, in Pleiku, in Kontum, in. . .well, every South Vietnamese city and town you can imagine. The messages even said when the attacks would take place: Tet, 1968. We were amazed: listening to MACV’s comments and reading messages from the NLF. There was a strange sort of disconnect here…someone was living in a fantasy world. We didn’t believe the first few translations we made, but as stuff poured in from all over the country, we became believers.
We sent reports and messages to MACV, to the White House, to every responsible official. Other intelligence units were sending similar messages. We were totally ignored because the generals followed their misguided beliefs of “VC on the RUN” instead of their intelligence units. In hindsight, the VC should not have attacked on Tet. They believed their own mythos, too: that the rest of the Vietnamese in the South would rise up and assist them. And so, they attacked. And they were killed in huge numbers. After Tet, what William Westmoreland had said before Tet was correct: they could no longer manage a credible offensive anywhere in the South. So, we won but not as decisively as we should have; we were not as well prepared as we should have been.
I sympathize with General Brady and appreciate his service. He’s obviously a true believer and speaks the truth "as he sees it," but true believers can't always see beyond their own preconceived notion of truth.
On the night of Tet, we retired to our palatial bunkers, but...that’s the subject for the next blog entry.
It’s amazing how often miss-truths or someone’s personal opinion gets printed in newspapers. On Friday, General Patrick Brady, who received the MOH in Vietnam and whose service I honor, did an Op-Ed in the San Antonio Express-News. Most of his facts are, basically, correct; his conclusions are suspect.
General Brady writes The American soldier was never defeated on the battlefield in Vietnam; our defeat came from the elite in the courtrooms, the classroom, the cloakrooms and the newsrooms, from cowardly media-phobic politicians and irresponsible, dishonest media and professors from Berkeley to Harvard. This is old, hackneyed warmed-over crap. To start with, no, we did not win every battle in Vietnam. Several outposts were totally over-run by the NVA and/or the VC. Ipso facto: we did not win those battles.
Hamburger Hill? Yes, the enemy quit fighting and left. We left. Dak To? The enemy quit fighting and melted back across the borders into Cambodia and Laos. They came back. Khe Sanh? We won by enduring a shitload of rocket and mortar fire without getting all the Marines there killed? And then, the enemy stopped and left. Not exactly a victory at Khe Sanh, Not a loss, I guess, but certainly not a victory. You can't declare victory unless you know what the people attacking you want and that you kept them from achieving it.
But General Brady is right. The Americans and most of the ARVN fought well during the Tet Offensive and the North did not achieve any of the objectives it set for itself. A clear American victory. BUT…
Why did the media react the way they did? And let’s be clear about this, not many people in the media ever called TET an American loss. What seems to have happened back when Patrick Brady was a young man is that the MACV generals led by General William C. Westmoreland, only a short while before Tet 1968, had been boasting in news briefings that the VC were on the run and could not mount a credible offensive anywhere. The media duly repeated that on television and in newsprint. Is it any wonder that Walter Cronkite said “I thought we were winning this thing” when the VC rose up all over the country, attacked most of the cities, occupying many of them, and stayed in Hue for weeks after Tet?
If anyone caused the media reaction to Tet, it was General Westmoreland and his cadre of sycophantic, yesman generals.
And the assertion that history professors call Tet a military loss is patently absurd. They do, frequently, call it a public relations loss. That's absolutely correct.
Between Christmas and Tet at the 330th, we started translating message after message indicating that there was going to be an attack in Saigon, an attack in Tay Ninh, in Nha Trang, in Pleiku, in Kontum, in. . .well, every South Vietnamese city and town you can imagine. The messages even said when the attacks would take place: Tet, 1968. We were amazed: listening to MACV’s comments and reading messages from the NLF. There was a strange sort of disconnect here…someone was living in a fantasy world. We didn’t believe the first few translations we made, but as stuff poured in from all over the country, we became believers.
We sent reports and messages to MACV, to the White House, to every responsible official. Other intelligence units were sending similar messages. We were totally ignored because the generals followed their misguided beliefs of “VC on the RUN” instead of their intelligence units. In hindsight, the VC should not have attacked on Tet. They believed their own mythos, too: that the rest of the Vietnamese in the South would rise up and assist them. And so, they attacked. And they were killed in huge numbers. After Tet, what William Westmoreland had said before Tet was correct: they could no longer manage a credible offensive anywhere in the South. So, we won but not as decisively as we should have; we were not as well prepared as we should have been.
I sympathize with General Brady and appreciate his service. He’s obviously a true believer and speaks the truth "as he sees it," but true believers can't always see beyond their own preconceived notion of truth.
On the night of Tet, we retired to our palatial bunkers, but...that’s the subject for the next blog entry.
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