Remember Khe Sanh?

[kentuck]

Much like the Green Zone in Baghdad, we had placed our Marines in a forward base very near the Laotian- North Vietnam border. Their mission was to stop the flow of arms down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In late January and early February of 1968, they were besieged and many of the Marines were killed. There was hand-to-hand combat on the perimeter.

The month after Khe Sanh, there was the My Lai "massacre". They were not totally unrelated. There was a leftover attitude from Tet '68 which spread amongst many of the troops like a virus. "Kill the little gooks- they'll just grow up to be big gook.." type of attitude which I recall.

But, much like the Green Zone, we put our troops right up in the face of the enemy and dared them to do anything about it. However, the Green Zone is better protected than Khe Sanh, I think??

[Blue_In_AK]

1. I had a friend there at Khe Sanh

He became a heroin addict. :(

[acmejack]

4. Check out the retrospective (or not) here.

http://www.pbs.org/battlefieldvietnam/khe/index.html

[Blue_In_AK]

6. Thank you, I will do that.

[villager]

2. I remember the "Hue" it went,

even though I was a child at the time. How sad absolutely nothing - nothing at all -- was learned by our insulated, ruling cadres.

[Jack from Charlotte]

3. Here's the thing bout fighting someone on their home turf............

THEY CAN"T QUIT because they have no place to go. They're already at home. The "road" team can always pull up and leave. When you look at VN.... 1st the Japanese killed about a miliion VN, then the French came back until they'd had enough, then we went in. We leave and then they had some battles with China on their borders. When all invaders/foreignors left VN.......... the fighting stopped.

Same with Iraq-nam. Fighting won't stop until foreignors leave. And again.... the Iraqi's aren't leaving 'cause they have no place to go.

[RamboLiberal]

5. I was in High School at the time - Sophomore

I think that's when I realized we couldn't win the Vietnam War. The mighty U.S. military under what seemed an endless siege.

I grew up rah rah U.S. whose mighty military took down the Nazis and Japanese. How could this be happening? It was about this time too that I knew older cousins and neighbors who were facing the draft and who were enlisting trying their damnedest not to be shipped to 'Nam.

[kentuck]

7. We used to have a DUer that was at Khe Sanh...

but I don't know if he is with us any longer??