Vets commemorate Tet Offensive anniversary

TampaBay.com ^ | January 31, 2009 | Jessica Vander Velde

[BIGLOOK]

The attack started in the early hours of January 31, 1968, during what had been a traditional cease-fire for Vietnam's lunar new year. The coordinated attacks shifted the fighting from jungles and rural villages and rice paddies to the streets of Saigon and other major South Vietnamese cities. And it caught the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces by surprise.

[Dapper 26]

Biglook, I did mention to some at the GOE show for support for our troops that I couldn’t think of a better way to spend the 41st anniversary of TET than with fellow vets.
The book, “Ringed In Steel” by Michael Mahler has a good accounting of action with the 3/5 Cav, 9th Inf Div and their mission to support Bien Hua airbase from VC/NVA attack. Of course, his accounts are from his recall while listening to the 3/5 command net. I can tell you the commo and action at the platoon level was a lot more graphic, descriptive and real. In the end, from the air, Mahler notes that Saigon was encircled in a ‘ring of steel’ from all the armor units sent to that area. Of course, Cronkite and the rest of the media traitor pukes did not see and did not care to report that aspect of TET.

[BIGLOOK]

Aloha Caisson71!

I'll have to check out that book.

The skinny from the rotating vets I'd met who were there during the Tet offensive said the real worry was in I Corps, Quang Tri, Hue and Khe Sanh. Those cities were close to the DMZ on the north and the fountainhead of the Ho Chi Minh Trail to the west and northwest. All told of the problems there.

Tan Son Nhut and Saigon were fortresses but Cronkite made hay by reporting erroneously that the US Embassy had been stormed and penetrated. That was the tv news I'd seen while at DLI; that was the news nearly all in the States believed.

Here's the real story.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

As a military action, the Tet offensive was one of the biggest disasters in military history for the NVA/VC. A huge defeat. The Viet Cong suffered such heavy losses from Tet it ceased to be an effective fighting force, was disbanded, and it's men were absorbed into the North Vietnamese Army.

The left manufactured them a winning legacy still nowhere near based in reality to this day.

[Dapper 26]

Exactly. General Giap said as much in his book and also said the intent of TET was to kill more Americans and boost the anti-American opposition in the US. Giap’s blueprint is still used today - Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc - quite effectively. The UnAmerican antis follow in step as planned by our enemies.