Word: lange
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...week's only successful Communist stab was made at Lang Vei, a hilltop U.S. Special Forces camp four miles southwest of Khe Sanh on Route 9. Basically a post for interdicting Communist movement into the South and for overseeing allied patrols into nearby Laos, Lang Vei was defended by some 400 South Vietnamese and Montagnard irregulars and 24 Green Berets, operating out of a deeply dug bunker made of three feet of rein forced concrete and two-inch steel plate, complete with its own ventilation system. As much as any place can be in Viet Nam, it seemed...
Crucial in a Sense. But Giap had a surprise for Lang Vei: nine Soviet light tanks, equipped with thin armor but powerful guns, the first Communist use of tanks in the entire war. The tanks deployed in classic fashion east and west of the outpost, then rolled right through the camp's wire and up onto the bunker roofs, followed by North Vietnamese infantrymen. "We heard them," says a Green Beret, "but we never thought they were tanks. We thought they were our generator acting up." Soon the Communists started shoveling satchel charges, grenades, napalm and tear gas down...
...built to withstand 250-lb. bombs. Finally, the Green Berets called for mock bombing feints by U.S. planes; while the NVA were ducking, they broke and ran, escaping from the camp. Some were picked up by helicopters and others worked their way back to Khe Sanh on foot, but Lang Vei had fallen, and with it ten of the Green Berets and 225 of the irregulars, all presumed dead. Its loss did not materially affect the defense of Khe Sanh itself, said a top U.S. officer, but "it is crucial to us in the sense that we want to know...
During the attack on Lang Vei, Communist gunners poured nearly 1,500 rounds inside Khe Sanh's perimeters as a diversion-some six shells a minute in the heaviest NVA bombardment of the war. Giap also launched probing artillery and ground attacks on Marine outposts on surrounding Hills 861 and 558, both supporting positions of the Marines at Khe Sanh. His men were beaten back twice, suffering 106 dead the first time and 124 the second...
...Marianna and his yearning for the uncomplicated youth of Nadine." Given this dilemma, Resnais and screen-writer Jorge Semprun probe the nature of commitment to a cause, and the necessity of commitment even to a lost cause in order to live with self respect. This is a Fritz Lang theme, but where Lang sees commitment as necessary but essentially futile, Resnais and Semprun find for Diego, in Milne's words, "a complete reconciliation within himself, of past, present and future, fears conquered and ideals regained." La Guerre Est Finie has the beauty and integrity of the greatest...