“The delta was the real world to the Vietnamese. Almost by definition that meant it was unreal to the Americans…. The delta was a uniquely South Vietnamese theater of action.”

—Don Oberdorfer, Tet¹

18

The Storm Unremitting

February 2-7, 1968

The sniper who killed the lieutenant and the soldier digging the foxhole was not satisfied. He represented our worst nightmare—and he would not go away. He had taken up residence in the apartment building overlooking our tenuous defense and was intent on making our existence a living hell. He moved from room to room, firing from a different window each time.

The news on my radio indicated that life in all the large cities was much the same as ours. I realized that all the soft-living rear-echelon guys were having a hard time, too. It seemed that everyone in Vietnam was struggling to survive. I was also aware that if Saigon fell completely, there would be no way out. From radio news accounts, I knew a lot more about what was happening in the battles for the ancient imperial capital of Hue, the Phu Tho Race Track and Chinese Cholon in Saigon, the Saigon River Y-Bridge, and the U.S. Embassy than I knew about the battle for My Tho. There were no American reporters where we were, and no one covered our war except for us.

However, I was able to piece together some of the situation in My Tho from my own observations, reports on the tactical net, and from what Xuan told me. This is what I knew:

The Viet Cong 9th Division, including the 1st Regiment with our old adversaries—the 261st and 263d Main Force battalions, augmented by other VC and NVA units—had infiltrated My Tho undetected during the relaxed security of the cease-fire. On the night of January 31, these units launched an all-out offensive coordinated with the general offensive throughout Vietnam. They expected the general population to rise up in support of their efforts, but they miscalculated apathy of the general population: the Vietnamese people really had no stomach for the war in their backyard.

The Viet Cong 9th Division had established its headquarters inside the bus station, near our position. The city’s soccer field, one block from the ARVN 7th Division headquarters, was a major battleground, and it was under the control of the VC. My Tho’s wharf was in VC hands; the helipad, where I had originally arrived in My Tho, and the adjoining cemetery were under VC control. The cemetery was also a battlefield. Our ARVN armored squadron had lost many of its M113 armored personnel carriers, along with their advisors, and had been under heavy attack, but the VC were keeping the squadron hemmed in. Viet Cong occupied the bridge over which the tracked vehicles had to cross the Rach Bao Dinh River to reach My Tho. The main traffic circle in My Tho, which controlled traffic in several directions, was also in VC hands.

The ARVN artillery battalion had been fighting for survival, using its howitzers in direct fire at point-blank range to keep the VC out of its compound, but it lost a main ammunition dump when Viet Cong sappers blew it up. As a result, the artillery battalion was desperately short of ammunition and unlikely to be able to fire in our support.

The U.S. 9th Infantry Division was fighting to help clear Ben Tre in Kien Hoa Province, which had been attacked a day later than My Tho. The capitol of Ben Tre was the birthplace of the National Liberation Front—an important political symbol to the Viet Cong. A U.S. Army major was quoted in the press as saying: “It became necessary to destroy the city in order to save it.”

South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu was vacationing in My Tho for the Tet holidays, and I was sure the VC knew of Thieu’s presence and would try to make My Tho a major battleground.

We had not eaten for three days and were in desperate need of ammunition, water, and medical supplies. We were so hungry and thirsty that I doubted our effectiveness if we were ordered to move. I became dizzy when I moved suddenly. At this point our hunger was beyond growling stomachs and hunger pangs—we were losing touch with reality, and maybe that was not a bad thing under the circumstances. Reality was too terrible to contemplate.

At long last, I was encouraged to see USAF F-4C Phantoms flying overhead. A U.S. L-19 with a forward air controller (FAC) aboard was also in the air. This was the same type of plane that Swamp Fox used for army fire coordination. I rejoiced at the first American fire support I had seen since the Navy river patrol boat the first night of the battle. I felt as though the cavalry was coming to our rescue.

On the radio, its battery miraculously still working, I heard the FAC informing the F-4s that a Viet Cong flag was flying on top of the bus station, only one kilometer from where we held our blocking position. (The bus station was the headquarters of the Viet Cong 9th Division.) I knew we were close to the station, so I called the FAC and informed him that I would pop a smoke grenade so he could identify our location. I didn’t want his bombs dropped on us. I was glad I had taken the initiative when the FAC informed me that he’d not known we were there.

The sounds of jets scorching low toward their targets buoyed our spirits. They made their cannon and bomb runs screaming directly over us. When they released their bombs west of us, the fighters cut away to avoid heavy antiaircraft fire rising from the bus station.

The fins of bombs snapped open and we watched them float directly over our heads before they struck the bus station. We heard antiaircraft machine guns from the bus station engaging the fighters and the roar of the Phantoms as they flamed their jet engines. Brass shell casings from the 20mm cannon fell on us; we had to keep helmets on for protection from the falling debris, but we didn’t care. We were in the best spirits we had been in for days. The bombs exploding only two city blocks from our position encouraged our beleaguered band. It seemed the tide had finally turned.

In the midst of the bombing, about a hundred refugees rushed up the dirt road, directly toward our position. Soldiers stood in the road to stop them because, sure enough, VC followed behind the fleeing civilians, using them for cover. There was no safe way to separate innocent civilians from enemy soldiers. The VC didn’t fire on us, and our soldiers didn’t engage them in the middle of the refugees. The path of the chattering refugees was turned 90 degrees, and they continued to flee the bombing by a route around our position, with escaping VC intermingled.

Our situation remained desperate, but I believed the balance had finally shifted in our favor. We were certainly helped by the inaction of the general population, which at least was not supporting the Viet Cong. Had it done otherwise, our battalion would have been lost.

A report on the advisory radio alerted me that the U.S. 9th Division had deployed an infantry battalion to the dock in My Tho. Its mission was to move inland toward our position, to provide us with some relief. We were to remain in a blocking position—as if we had any other option.

Already I felt that the hard resistance at our front had been softened by the Air Force attacks on the Viet Cong division headquarters. The stream of VC fleeing with civilian refugees seemed to confirm it. I believed we could move about more freely and search for the weakened enemy, but our mission was to stay in place. We were still critically low on supplies and were physically weak. All the same, I was anxious to get away from hell’s gate before it swallowed us.

I was concerned that the FAC had not known our position. If he was unaware of our location, other fire-support elements might be also. I called the Seminary with our coordinates in the clear and requested they make it widely known. But communications broke down somewhere. At 11:00 a.m., as we baked in the sun, our tiny world erupted into explosions as 155mm artillery rounds burst inside our small perimeter. Our defensive circle was no larger than fifty meters in diameter, and six rounds exploded in that tight space, and more outside it. We were exposed, with no overhead cover.

Our undersized trench was scant protection, but it was all we had. Large steel shards whistled by us while clods of dirt pounded us. Our ears ached and rang from the blasts, which created such pressure inside my head that I thought it would split.

I knew it was U.S. artillery, since no one else had 155mm howitzers. A U.S. infantry battalion was approaching us and was likely clearing a path before them with the artillery. For a moment, I contemplated jumping into the deep hole with the dead lieutenant and his soldier, but I knew their decaying bodies would kill me if the artillery didn’t. I had seen flies circling the grave: I imagined maggots crawling in a decapitated body.

We took only three casualties from the shelling. The low number of wounded amazed me, because the explosions were so intense. From then on I was skeptical of the killing power of artillery, although I was certainly afraid of it. The psychological impact was tremendous; I gained even greater respect for the Viet Cong who had escaped us so many times while being pounded by such vicious attacks.

We held our position until noon, when a company from the U.S. 9th Division linked up with us. I shook hands with Captain Matz, feeling relief at seeing Americans again. While we had to count each bullet, the Americans were armed to the hilt. As we stood and chatted casually with our fellows, the sniper in the apartment complex saw a target of opportunity and fired a round harmlessly into the ground at our feet. It was the greatest mistake of his life.

ARVN soldiers had never come close to hitting the sniper with their fire. But this time, a U.S. M79 grenadier calmly adjusted his leaf sight, took steady aim, and lobbed one grenade. We watched it slowly arc into the window where the sniper was peeping over the windowsill. He was extinguished in a burst of light when the grenade exploded. A cheer rose from our midst at the elimination of the constant threat, and in respect for the extraordinary marksmanship of the grenadier.

The U.S. 9th Infantry Division rifle company had released six captured VC to the ARVN right after our linkup. While we cheered the sniper’s demise, an ARVN soldier fired into the prisoners and they fell backward into the small canal. I was as shocked as the other Americans, but nothing could be done. Ashamed and angered by this brutal, unlawful action, I wondered what we had been reduced to. Revenge for the unseemly death of the lieutenant and his soldier was neither sweet nor satisfying.

The U.S. infantry company moved on to complete the sweep through its assigned zone. We accepted a resupply of ammunition and a fresh battery for the radio at the road, and then we began clearing a path southward through the western edges of My Tho.

I was astounded by the devastation. The city had been bombed, shelled, shot, and burned into a ruin. Burned-out buses and cars were scattered in the road, and sometimes the passengers were still in them. One burned-out Lambretta taxi was still manned by a driver with the back of his head blown off and his body charred from the fire. In a macabre gesture, someone had placed sunglasses on him and stuck a cigarette in his mouth.

We could not escape the stench of burned and decaying human flesh. Seasoned soldiers walked around with one hand on their rifles, the other clutching scarves over mouths and noses to filter the air. Flies were prevalent throughout the city; I didn’t want one fly to touch my skin. Bodies lay grotesquely beside the roads, where recovery crews were already going about the gruesome task of gathering them into trucks like road kill.

I shall never forget the smell—it haunts me still. I tried for weeks to wash out my nostrils with soap to expunge the smell from my memory. Nothing worked. When I remember it, I can still retrieve the horrible smell.

Later that day we arrived at Binh Duc. I had expected to find the training center destroyed, but it was relatively intact. The training center cadre had been mobilized to defend the base and the adjacent airfield. Apparently it had succeeded.

For the next three days, we ran daily patrols into designated sectors of My Tho and the surrounding urban areas to mop up and kill intransigent, hard-core Viet Cong. Some still hid in houses, and we were fired on in town for some time to come. But My Tho was basically in government forces’ hands, if they could only maintain control.

The part played by the Vietnamese 2d battalion was minor in the grand scale of the Tet general offensive, but it loomed very large in my life. From a military perspective, we accomplished a desperate counterattack into one flank of a VC division, holding that side in place until larger forces compelled the VC to retreat. We had begun with 150 faint hearts and ended with about the same number, using replacements to compensate for our losses. For four days we’d had virtually no food, little water, and only the ammunition we carried in. We were unable to tend our wounded or bury our dead.

Myself, I’d witnessed things best unseen and unimagined. I experienced extremes of hunger, thirst, and fear in a situation I never expected to survive. My loyalty to the Vietnamese soldiers was strengthened after our trials, and my admiration for their courage and determination was bolstered. I was, however, extremely disappointed that all the warnings we received over the previous months had been ignored. We were so completely surprised by Hanoi’s cunning move that although we defeated the enemy in battle, we would never recover. I wondered how our side could ever win such a war, and I wondered why the United States was fighting a war with no apparent intention of winning. I wondered what Peggy had seen in my face and in my eyes that had frightened her away. And what had she seen in the eyes of so many others before and after? I wondered whether I would ever be able to ask her.

Efforts to assess the offensive’s impact began well before the fighting ends. President Johnson announced that the Viet Cong suffered complete military defeat, an appraisal that General Westmoreland echoed in a statement declaring that allied forces killed more enemy troops over seven days than the United States had lost in the entire war. Militarily, Tet is decidedly a U.S. victory: psychologically and politically, largely thanks to the way it is reported, it is a disaster.²