Word: viets
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...beginning of 1968, almost 16,000 Americans had been killed in Viet Nam and more than 100,000 wounded. During that time the war in Viet Nam became a gathering presence in American life. History obeyed Newton's Third Law of Motion: for every U.S. action in Viet Nam, there came a (seemingly) equal and opposite reaction back home. America internalized the war, as if it had swallowed fire. In the fall of 1967, 35,000 demonstrators had marched on the Pentagon and in the hip-mystic style had attempted with chants to levitate the palace of the war machine...
...illumination, never seen, that would indicate that victory and salvation were near. At the close of 1967, the official invocation of the light at the end of the tunnel was still ritual. The New York Times, influenced by Government briefings, reported in late December that "military indicators in Viet Nam present the most dramatic and clear-cut evidence of progress in the war since the dark days...
Then, as often happened in Viet Nam, one murderous mirage overtook another. The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces launched their general offensive during the lunar New Year, called Tet. Militarily, Tet was a defeat for the Communists. But once again in Viet Nam and in the American mind, illusion triumphed over reality. America, and much of the rest of the world, regarded Tet as shocking proof that the war was a disaster for the U.S., unwinnable...
...first unhappy surprise for Americans came at dawn Viet Nam time on Jan. 30, 1968. Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces attacked Da Nang, the second largest city in South Viet Nam, and seven other major towns. Almost 24 hours later, they mounted a wave of near simultaneous attacks throughout South Viet Nam. They hit 36 of the country's 44 provincial capitals. They overran all but a corner of the historic former capital at Hue. Communists penetrated the heart of Saigon. They attacked the U.S. embassy, the presidential palace, the government radio station. All this was the work...
...Viet Nam and Tet reverberate now in American foreign policy and in American psychology about the rest of the world. Ever since, any attempts to assert American force have twitched a neo-isolationist nerve. Only easy knockouts like Grenada seem tolerable, and then only if done so quickly that television has no time to bring the carnage into the house. But for the experience of Viet Nam, the U.S. might have invaded Nicaragua by now; the threat there is more immediate, the logistics easier. Instead, the battle is waged by proxy, sloppily and tentatively and erratically. "Involvement" and "commitment" have...