The Briefing Room
General Category => Military/Defense News => Topic started by: TomSea on January 29, 2018, 05:06:07 pm
-
50 Years Later, the Tet Offensive in Vietnam Still Resonates
Have the lessons of Tet been fully learned by the U.S. military?
By Kenneth T. Walsh, Contributor |Jan. 29, 2018, at 12:01 a.m.
The attacks erupted before dawn on Jan. 30, 1968 and escalated to new levels of ferocity the next day. It turned out that tens of thousands of communist soldiers had begun a coordinated series of surprise attacks on more than 100 cities and U.S. bases in South Vietnam, taking the Americans and their local allies by surprise on the lunar new year of Tet.
North Vietnamese Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap had planned the offensive to break the will of the United States and South Vietnam and end a long stalemate in the struggle by the North to reunite with the South under communist rule. And while Giap's forces were eventually pushed back with huge losses, he did accomplish his wider objective of undermining American and South Vietnamese confidence in the war effort.
Read more at: https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2018-01-29/50-years-later-the-tet-offensive-in-vietnam-still-resonates (https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2018-01-29/50-years-later-the-tet-offensive-in-vietnam-still-resonates)
50 years later, Bay Area Vietnam vets describe the Tet Offensive — “Holy (expletive), they dropped the bombâ€
Bill Green arrived in Vietnam two weeks before the 1968 Tet Offensive — 50 years ago Jan. 30. Assigned to the 198th light infantry, he was being trained on map reading and booby traps at the Americal Division in Chu Lai.
“(Enemy) rockets started coming in,†said Green, an Alamo resident and president of the Vietnam Veterans of Diablo Valley. “They finally ignited the ammo dump. When the ammo went off it was like the sun came up. It got super bright. All I could see was a big mushroom-shaped cloud and I said, ‘Holy (expletive), they dropped the bomb. They waited until I got here to drop the bomb.'â€
So the Tet Offensive was a surprise?
Read more at: https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/01/29/50-years-later-bay-area-vietnam-vets-describe-the-tet-offensive-holy-expletive-they-dropped-the-bomb/ (https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/01/29/50-years-later-bay-area-vietnam-vets-describe-the-tet-offensive-holy-expletive-they-dropped-the-bomb/)
So, I hope the US News article doesn't have some slant disagreeable with some. This 2nd article looks okay.
-
From what I've read the Tet was a last gasp by the north. When it failed they were ready to surrender but our politicians were determined that we lose the war.