The Tet Offensive

Just prior to the [enemy] Tet Offensive of 1968, which was one of the major campaigns of the war, our company was operating somewhere in the mountains of I Corps. We had decided to occupy a place that, as far as I could tell, was in the middle of nowhere. We assaulted the ridge in our usual V-formation of Hueys. We circled around as the artillery and the ARAs pounded the area. It had been one of the more spectacular bombardments, as they were not only interested in dealing the enemy a blow, if he happened to be present, but to clear out some of the vegetation. The area was quite heavily forested, and when we finally came in, there was broken vegetation all over the place. The explosions felled trees everywhere, strewing branches about as if it had been a hurricane. The bombardment scattered bits and twisted chunks of rocket shrapnel (over a foot long in some cases) all over the area. The smell was unique and intense. It was a peculiar mixture of wounded vegetation and sulfur, the odor of unnatural thunder and its victims. It is a smell frequently encountered in firefights, and to smell it again leads with Pavlovian inevitability to a reëncounter with fear, a fear that seemed to lightly tincture the perception of the wrecked surroundings, giving it a well-deserved heir of hellish reality. They made some extensive use of buzz saws to clear the timber for an LZ while we began setting up. We dug good foxholes on the side of a fairly steep incline on the face of the ridge not too far from its summit, where the CP had set itself up. Bravo Co. had been digging in next to our company, somewhat higher up where the ridge seemed to turn to the right. I remember someone telling me that Bravo Company had only 85 men, having suffered some attrition.

The CO and the Lieutenant Get Blasted. While I was away on R & R during the Tet Offensive, the company had been out in a more level area, having set up on a group of dry rice paddies. [yet to be completed ...]

| Home Page |