Word: veis
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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...
...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 what...
...Hill 881 South form the arrow's flukes. An area of choice coffee plantations and twelve-foot-high elephant grass, the Khe Sanh Valley was defended by a company of U.S. Marines guarding its airstrip and three companies of South Vietnamese in the Special Forces camp at Lang Vei (see map). The North Vietnamese, hidden from air observation by monsoon clouds and rain, had stealthily and expertly moved in through Laos and fortified the three hills into a vast redoubt for at least two regiments of the 325th NVA Division...