Ground Pounder: A Marine’s Journey through South Vietnam, 1968-1969

Chapter Four: Tet

65 Chapter Four Tet “To those who have never experienced combat, they will never truly understand the human passion for camaraderie or the pure exaltation of living another day.” General William Childs Westmoreland (Westy) had not been ill prepared for the job of Commanding General. Nor was he at all ignorant about the many facets of guerrilla warfare and the politics involved. Smart, brave, and conscientious to a fault, he exemplified the image ofwhatanAmericancommandershouldlookandactlike.Therumor around Saigon was that he could impress the warts off of a frog. His command presence was so overwhelming to those who had met him that they would walk away believing in whatever he wanted them to believe. As an alumnus of West Point and the Harvard Graduate School of Business, he had been trained as the country’s new type of commander. Schooled in corporate management, fiscal outlays, and bureaucratic procedures, he knew how to manage a modern army and deal with the Washington politicians as well. Although he wasn’t as sophisticated as Douglas MacArthur or as outspoken as “Vinegar 66 Ground Pounder Joe” Stilwell, he still possessed the qualities needed to be a successful combat commander.1 Underdifferentcircumstances,hemighthaveleftalegacyasoneof America’sfinestgenerals,butitwasnottobe.TheVietnamWarwould have ruined any commander’s reputation, including Eisenhower’s, Patton’s, Pershing’s, or even Robert E. Lee’s. Over the past couple of decades, Westmoreland has been highly criticized for the part he playedduringtheVietnamWar.Someofthecriticismsleveledagainst him were valid enough, but many of them have been unfair. For he, along with the rest of the American armed forces, had been put in a hopeless situation, brought about by the politics of a young nation suddenly finding itself as a world power. Unlike the combat in World War II and in the Korean War, the U.S. ground forces in Vietnam were unable to consistently engage the enemy on any large scale. Though Westy had ordered his troops to find them, fix them, and finish them, it was all for naught. Possessing the advantages of inaccessible terrain, nearby sanctuaries, and a supportive population, the North Vietnamese weren’t about to throw it all away by openly engaging us. After establishing their supply lines along the Ho Chi Minh Trail and through the Cambodian ports, their main units preferred to bide their time in the jungles. With the elements of time and space on their side, they didn’t see any need to gamble everything upon the outcome of a single battle. In essence, the enemy in Vietnam drove our commanders crazy withtheirpenny-ante,hit-and-rundelayingtactics.FromthericepaddiesoftheMekongDeltatotheforestsoftheCentralHighlands ,they would suddenly appear out of nowhere and attack our positions, only to vanish at the first sign of reinforcements. For Westmoreland and theotherAmericanofficers,itwasallextremelyfrustrating.Herethey were in the middle of a career-building war and the enemy wouldn’t come out and fight. Tet 67 AftertakingcommandoftheAmericanforcesin1964,Westyfound himselfinchargeofamere16,000Americantroops.Thesituationwas a mess: the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam (ARVNs) was riddled with corruption, the Buddhists and college students were in rebellion, the Viet Cong controlled much of the countryside, and the governmentwasincompletedisarray.Inresponsetothissadsituation, Westy believed that the only way to help establish a strong Saigon governmentwastogetAmericancombattroopsinvolvedasquicklyas possible. By early 1965, after the enemy had already attacked the U.S. Air Force base at Bien Hoa and the U.S Army bases at Pleiku and Qui Nhon, he was given the go ahead to deploy our first combat units.2 In order to protect our installations around Da Nang, the 3rd Battalion9thMarines (3/9)wouldmakealessthandramaticamphibious assault upon Red Beach 2 on March 8, 1965. Plowing ashore through the waves reminiscent of the bygone days when the Marines had landedonthePacificIslands,itwasthefirstassaultinhistoryinwhich a few local bureaucrats and a bunch of Catholic schoolgirls would be standing there on the beach waiting to greet the Marine officers with leis. There was even a sign held up by a couple of advisors, which read, “Welcome to the Gallant Marines.” Previously arranged for the media back home, the recorded event lasted for about thirty minutes before the Marines were unceremoniously loaded onto some trucks and driven to the Da Nang airstrip.3 With a combination of economic assistance and rural pacification programs, it looked as if Westy had covered all of his bases. Our soldiers and Marines had begun patrolling the countryside, our civilian agenciesweredolingoutmoneyandtechnology,andourgovernment bureaucrats were teaching the South Vietnamese officials the art of “nationbuilding.” But in addition to these many programs, Westywas...