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Two U.S. military policemen aid a wounded fellow MP during fighting in the U.S. Embassy compound in Saigon, Jan 31, 1968, at the beginning of the Tet Offensive. A Vietnam Cong suicide squad seized control of part of the compound and held it for six hours before they were killed or captured. (AP Photo) [the Respository.]
Episode 2778 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature a story about the Tet Offensive from an eyewitness Vietnam Vet. The featured story comes from The U.S. Department of Defense website and was titled: Highlighting History: How “Tet” Began the End of Vietnam. It was submitted by Katie Lange, a writer for the DOD.
Lang, in her story, reported that Some may know the Tet Offensive had something to do with Vietnam, but that’s about it. Jan. 30 marks the anniversary of the start of that campaign, so what better time than now to learn a little about it, right?
She further reported that The Tet Offensive was a big deal because it marked the peak of U.S. involvement in the war. Before then, U.S. forces had been on the ground for more than three years, fighting with South Vietnam’s democratic government to try to expel the communist north. After Tet, however, U.S. troops’ numbers — and public support — started to erode.
Although the U.S. had better trained troops, more air power and more artillery than the North Vietnamese government, both sides were at a stalemate in early 1968. So, the leader of the north, Ho Chi Minh, set about a plan to break that.
On Jan. 30, 1968, in a wave of coordinated surprise attacks, Ho Chi Minh sent 70,000 of his troops and members of the Viet Cong — guerilla allies from the south — to overrun military bases, towns and cities in South Vietnam, including the capital, Saigon.
The two primary goals set by the North Vietnamese leadership for the Tet Offensive were:
- To cause South Vietnamese troops to collapse and its communities to turn against Saigon’s leaders.
- To drive a wedge between U.S. and South Vietnamese troops.
Listen to episode 2778 and discover more about the Tet Offensive from an eyewitness Vietnam Vet.
