Word: ap
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...dearly won in American lives the week before, Ap Bia Mountain was abandoned last week by troopers of the 101st Airborne Division. Their aim, as always in the long war, had been not to seize ground but to disperse or destroy their enemies. Mission accomplished, they moved on to resume their sweep through jungled A Shau Valley, searching for Communist troops and stores. But the battle for Hamburger Hill, as G.I.s had christened Ap Bia while taking casualties of 84 dead and 480 wounded, continued to be refought far from A Shau...
...side were the critics of the current conduct of the war. Their first volley was fired by Senator Edward Kennedy two weeks ago when he condemned the series of assaults up Ap Bia as "both senseless and irresponsible." Senator George McGovern agreed, and last week in a Memorial Day address Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield suggested that critics had not merely the right but also the duty to question the progress of the war. "Areas are won and lost many times," said the majority leader. "Lives are lost but once...
...recent week, the Communists make 211 attacks, the grim toll of 453 U.S. dead is the result. But, asked a newsman, was Hamburger Hill an example of a U.S. attack or a Communist assault? The North Vietnamese had been sitting more or less quietly on top. of Ap Bia when the 101st discovered them and moved to dislodge them. Ap Bia, replied the adviser, fell into a "gray area"-it was one of the few times in the war when the U.S. had been able to make opposing troops fight when they had not chosen...
...version of "fight and talk." Nixon, like Lyndon Johnson before him, probably feels that lack of such pressure could erode the allied negotiating position in Paris. But the war and domestic reaction to it have gone far beyond purely military considerations now, and the battle of Ap Bia raises the question of whether or not the U.S. should try to scale down the fighting by rescinding the maximum-pressure order. The Communists might follow suit and U.S. casualties might be reduced...
...Which, for the week preceding the final Ap Bia battle, reached the second highest toll of 1969, with 430 Americans killed...