I think, as I remember, you are reading one of the best accounts of what happened at Khe Sanh.
I think they did get closer but not by much.
We were the last combat troops (101st Airborne) in I Corps and south of Kee Sanh. We had turned over Fire Bases and most of our artillery to the ARVN. The B-52’s bombing north and west of us was a beautiful sound.
Enjoy the book.
Regards-
Thanks very much...thanks for your service, and...welcome home.
On a related note...I was looking for something on YouTube last night and came across the author of “Last Stand” doing a two hour lecture on Khe Sanh. There was something that stuck out, and it was his assertion (accurate, IMO) that there was a lot said about Khe Sanh that simply wasn’t accurate.
One thing that he talked about was an author, the guy who wrote the book “Dispatches” (Name is Herr I think) which is supposed to be one of the top 100 non-fiction accounts of war.
The author of “The Last Stand at Khe Sanh” (Gregg Jones) said that “Dispatches” WAS an amazing first hand account of the war in Vietnam, the writing was very powerful, etc. and his first hand account from his visit to Khe Sanh during the siege is a literary tour de force, especially his account of two Marines (Day Tripper and Mayhew) there that people have talked about for years.
Jones said that he saw an interview a few years back where an interviewer asked Herr about it and “how did you ever find two guys like that” and Herr admitted he just made them up. Now, in his “defense” Herr claims never to have said it was journalism, that it was a story, but...that kind of smells fishy a bit to me. It was treated by many as “non-fiction” and apparently he never spoke up because nobody asked him directly.
He also takes issue with the common and unchallenged assertion by Giap that he had no intention of capturing Khe Sanh, that it was all a “diversion”. Gregg Jones feels that is a self-serving spin by someone badly defeated in the same sphere the North was defeated in the Tet Offensive, and thinks it does a disservice to unthinkingly accept that from an aging Giap.
Well the Sixties and Seventies had some strange cultural dynamics, that is for sure.
Michael Herr (”Dispatches” author apparently was a strong contributor to the scripts for “Apocalypse Now” and “Full Metal Jacket”...which kind of says something to me.