Word: conge
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...last firecrackers had sputtered out on the ground, they struck with a fierceness and bloody destructiveness that Viet Nam has not seen even in three decades of nearly continuous warfare. Up and down the narrow length of South Viet Nam, more than 36,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers joined in a widespread, general offensive against airfields and military bases, government buildings, population centers and just plain civilians...
...timing and total effect, the Communist offensive changed the rules of the war in a way that will make it more difficult for the enemy in the future. In making a mockery of the Tet truce, proposed in the first instance by the Viet Cong and reluctantly agreed to by the allies, the Communists, as U.S. Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker indicated, made it highly unlikely that there would ever be a holiday truce again. By demonstrating their resources of manpower, the resiliency of their communications and command networks and the quality and quantity of their weaponry in the widespread attacks...
...slipped more than 3,000 Communist soldiers armed with weapons ranging up to machine-gun and bazooka size. Some came openly into the open city, weapons concealed in luggage or under baskets of food, riding buses, taxis and motor scooters, or walking. Others came furtively: some of the Viet Cong who attacked the U.S. embassy had ridden into town concealed in a truckload of flowers. Once in town, they hid their weapons. Only after the attack did Vietnamese intelligence realize that the unusual number of funerals the previous week was no accident: the Viet Cong had buried their weapons...
...began when a guard in his cement-lined outpost at the side entrance of the Independence Palace saw a distant blur of moving men. There was a shout: "Open the palace gates! We are the Liberation Army!" Then, rockets blazing, the Viet Cong commandos charged. From that moment on, fighting broke out all over the city, to the crack and boom of rockets, mortars and bazookas, the chop of machine-gun fire and the whine of ricocheting bullets. For the would-be liberators of the Independence Palace, the reply was a hail of fire. Retreating across the streets, the Communists...
Summary Verdict. Other Viet Cong had less militant assignments. Near the Free World Force Headquarters, a score of Viet Cong paraded through the streets singing songs and waving flags and shouting: "This is the Liberation Force come to liberate the city! Please be compatriots! Help us liberate the city!" Two-and three-man teams with the same message went from door to door, like census takers, asking for the names of local police and government officials, the addresses of ARVN and government families. Those they got?or found?they killed on the spot...