Word: battlefield
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...coordination of the actual assaults took the U.S. and South Vietnamese military by surprise. In that sense, and because they continued after five days of fighting to hang on to some of their targets, the Communists undeniably won a victory of sorts. "This is real fighting on a battlefield," admitted Brigadier General John Chaisson, Westmoreland's combat operations coordinator for South Viet Nam. The Communist attack was, he said, "a very successful offensive. It was surprisingly well coordinated, surprisingly intensive and launched with a surprising amount of audacity." Westmoreland himself called the enemy campaign "a bold one," though marked...
Giap's precise intention in launching the general offensive remains to be learned. As always in Communist military doctrine, Giap doubtless considered the political effect at least as important as the outcome on the battlefield. "Guerrilla activities and large-scale combat coordinate with each other, help each other and encourage each other to develop," Giap said in a speech last September. "At the same time, they closely coordinate with the political struggle to score great victories in both military and political fields, thus leading the resistance toward final victory...
Whatever Giap's immediate aims, it has been clear to Hanoi for some time that something drastic had to be done in South Viet Nam. Captured cadre notes spoke of a "counteroffensive." Depressed by constant defeats on the battlefield and consigned to stay in South Viet Nam until the war was over, the infiltrated North Vietnamese regulars were growing weary and restive. They badly needed a victory to bolster their morale, or at least a major initiative that they could call their...
...pinprick guerrilla maneuvers at which the Communists have been so effective. Reinforcing that line of thought was a document recently captured by U.S. forces calling on the Communists to "fight the war and negotiate at the same time." The directive continued: "The war will be settled only on the battlefield, not in the conference room. When hearing that negotiations are about to take place, we must attack the enemy more strongly all over the country. Negotiations will follow when we are really strong...
...down explosives and napalm right on their heads-once within 16 yards of his own position in a crater. When the V.C. finally gave up and withdrew at dawn, they had killed 23 Americans, but at the huge cost of 355 of their own dead left behind on the battlefield...