Two months after withstanding the
most ferocious siege of the Vietnam War,
Khe Sanh was abandoned to the enemy.
By Peter Brush
On May 23, 1968, U.S. Marine Corps Colonel David E. Lownds
was invited to the White House. There, President Lyndon Johnson
awarded Lownds' 26th Marine Regiment the Presidential Unit Citation,
the nation's highest unit decoration, for its bravery at Khe
Sanh in 1968. The text noted that because of the unit's actions,
"enemy forces were denied the military and psychological
victory they so desperately sought." An editorial in the
Washington Star took the Marines' accolades even further, claiming
that "One day, in fact, the victory over the siege may
be judged a decisive turning point that finally convinced the
enemy he could not win."
Vietnamese Communists view Khe Sanh differently. For them,
not only did the Americans not win a victory at Khe Sanh, they
were forced to retreat in order to avoid destruction. The Communists
claim Khe Sanh was a "stinging defeat from both the military
and political points of view."
The fighting at Khe Sanh during Tet 1968 was widely covered
in the U.S. media. As the battle continued, American military
commanders gave frequent explanations as to why the United States
sought a confrontation with Communist forces.
Khe Sanh had been garrisoned by Americans since 1962. General
William Westmoreland, commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, felt
maintaining a presence at Khe Sanh was critically important.
It served as a patrol base for interdiction of the Ho Chi Minh
Trail, as the western terminus for the defensive line along
the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), and as a barrier to Communist
efforts to carry the fighting into the populated coastal regions
of South Vietnam. By early 1968, 6,000 Marines at Khe Sanh were
surrounded by 20,000 North Vietnamese troops. The siege began
on January 21, 1968. In a report dated February 18, the New
York Times explained the importance of Khe Sanh, noting that
this area in northwest South Vietnam provided a base for allied
operations against the infiltration by the Communists of men
and supplies into the south. After the North Vietnamese Army
(NVA) surrounded the Marine position at Khe Sanh, allied forces
were unable to inhibit this infiltration; it became too dangerous
for the Marines to leave their base in sufficient numbers to
greatly affect the movement of enemy forces. Although that situation
may have reduced the strategic value of Khe Sanh in any conventional
sense of the word, American military commanders believed the
United States would suffer a heavy psychological blow if they
retreated from Khe Sanh.
Unlike the Americans, the North Vietnamese were unable to hold
fixed positions due to the efficacy of allied firepower. As
a result, the Communists concentrated on harassing and disrupting
allied forces. The American military command concluded that
the only way to stop the disruption was to destroy enemy forces
in sufficient numbers. The American commanders hoped that at
Khe Sanh they would be able to kill enemy troops in a ratio
of 10 to 1, 20 to 1, or even 30 to 1. The Americans clung to
their belief in the value of a positive kill ratio in face of
compelling evidence showing they were mostly unable to achieve
it.
Despite the fact that Khe Sanh was encircled by enemy troops,
the U.S. Defense Department claimed that the fortress blocked
five avenues of infiltration from Laos into South Vietnam. According
to the official view of the situation in February 1968, if Khe
Sanh were abandoned, entire North Vietnamese divisions could
"pour down Route 9 [the major east-west highway below the
DMZ] and four other natural approaches through the valleys and
could overrun a chain of Marine positions; the Rockpile, Con
Thien, Dong Ha, and Phu Bai to the east." This would mean
that the North Vietnamese could be in a good position to seize
control of South Vietnam's two northernmost provinces, Quang
Tri and Thua Thien, with grave political and psychological consequences.
This strategic rationale was secondary to the primary reason
for holding onto Khe Sanh: Washington was unwilling to give
its enemy a psychological victory by giving ground. One official
source explained the basis for this reasoning by recalling the
first Battle of Khe Sanh, fought in 1967. "We had to put
our foot down, and for psychological and political reasons,
we wouldn't want to pull back," said the official. "What
would the newspapers have written if we had given up Khe Sanh
afterward?"
Another reason for holding Khe Sanh was its importance as the
western anchor of the McNamara Line, a high-technology barrier
designed to impede the flow of Communist troops and supplies
into South Vietnam. The barrier was supposed to stretch from
the South China Sea to the Laotian border. Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara hoped the barrier would allow the Americans
to reduce their reliance on the bombing of North Vietnam, thereby
increasing Washington's flexibility in seeking a diplomatic
settlement to the war.
On February 25, General Westmoreland expressed doubt that the
North Vietnamese could stand a long war. Responding to a question
during an interview in Saigon about whether his fundamental
strategy had been changed by the Tet Offensive, Westmoreland
replied, "Basically, I see no requirement to change our
strategy."
The key to the defense of Khe Sanh was overwhelming air power.
On March 27, senior Marine officers in Da Nang claimed that
the effectiveness of allied airpower was so great that "they
have no plans for pulling the Marines out no matter how much
the enemy might increase his shelling at Khe Sanh." An
Air Force spokesman said that since January 22, allied airmen
had dropped 80,000 tons of ordnance around Khe Sanh. "We
plan to keep up the pace indefinitely," he added.
The same report noted that airpower had limited effectiveness.
Even though 80,000 tons of ordnance amounted to more than the
nonnuclear tonnage dropped on Japan throughout World War II,
it had not stopped enemy movement around Khe Sanh. On March
25, a Marine patrol was halted by heavy enemy machine-gun and
mortar fire after traveling only 100 to 200 yards past the camp's
barbed wire perimeter. During the previous week, the enemy had
managed to fire 1,500 rocket, artillery and mortar rounds at
the Khe Sanh base.
Other examples illustrate that the protective aerial umbrella
around Khe Sanh was less that 100 percent effective. On February
8, enemy gunners fired hundreds of mortar rounds into a Marine
position on nearby Hill 64. The NVA assault that followed the
mortar barrage resulted in 21 men killed, 26 wounded and four
Marines missing in action. Only one Marine on Hill 64 was unscathed.
Colonel Lownds, the base commander, however, later described
the Marine casualties resulting from the fighting on Hill 64
as "light."
On February 25, a two-squad patrol, instructed not to venture
farther than 1,000 meters from the base perimeter, vanished.
Two weeks later, casualties of the so-called ghost patrol were
established as nine dead, 25 wounded, and 19 missing. A company-size
patrol on March 30 had as one of its missions the recovery of
the bodies of the ghost patrol. This second patrol suffered
three dead, 71 wounded and three missing before being ordered
to pull back. Only two bodies from the ghost patrol were recovered
at that time.
On April 5, the 76-day siege was officially declared ended.
Since 7,000 North Vietnamese were still reported to be in the
vicinity of Khe Sanh, however, the end of the siege was more
official than real. The North Vietnamese had fired more than
40,000 artillery, rocket, and mortar rounds into the Marine
positions during the siege.
By April, the situation had changed in the Khe Sanh area. The
New York Times noted that the North Vietnamese had built several
new roads into South Vietnam from Laos--apparently in an effort
to improve their ability to move troops, heavy weapons and supplies
into combat areas. Two of the new roads pushed across the South
VietnamLaos border to the north and south of the Khe Sanh
combat base. No longer would NVA troops have to endure protracted
marches along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. They could be driven closer
to the battlefield in trucks. Heavy weapons and ammunition could
be transported to the front more quickly and in greater quantity.
These new logistics capabilities had profound implications
for American military commanders. General Westmoreland had built
up the Marine force at Khe Sanh to approximately 6,000 men,
a figure that represented a balance between the number that
could be effectively supplied and the force level necessary
to ensure adequate defense of the combat base. Since at that
time the Marine garrison could only be supplied by air, any
increase in the Communists' ability to launch attacks against
the Marine positions could tip the balance against the Marines.
According to a New York Times report dated May 24, both President
Lyndon B. Johnson and General Westmoreland felt the decision
to defend Khe Sanh was the proper one. They believed that the
defense of the camp not only prevented the North Vietnamese
from opening a major route into South Vietnam's populated areas,
but also greatly strengthened the American initiative toward
peace talks, "for they [the Marine defenders] vividly demonstrated
to the enemy the utter futility of his attempts to win a military
victory in the South," according to the New York Times.
Although the level of fighting fell off in April, it was not
over. On May 30, 600 NVA attacked Marines in their night defensive
positions around Khe Sanh. The attack was supported by mortar,
artillery and rocket fire. Marine losses were 13 killed and
44 wounded. Two days later another battle took place when a
large NVA force attacked Marine positions two miles southeast
of Khe Sanh. Two-hundred-thirty North Vietnamese were reported
killed in that battle, in some of the heaviest fighting in South
Vietnam at that time.
In a June report, New York Times reporter Douglas Robinson
described Khe Sanh as "still a fearsome place of exploding
shells and death." North Vietnamese artillerymen fired
130mm artillery shells from caves or dug-in positions on the
Co Roc massif in Laos. These guns, out of the range of the largest
U.S. artillery, had been firing on Khe Sanh for months. It was
difficult to prepare adequate defenses against them, since even
dud rounds penetrated four feet into the ground. The Americans
were unable to destroy these guns. In early June, the North
Vietnamese gunners at Co Roc were still able to fire more than
100 rounds in a single day into the base at Khe Sanh. Marine
Brig. Gen. Carl W. Hoffman claimed, "The North Vietnamese
still want Khe Sanh and we are still trying to keep them from
getting it." The general described the enemy as being composed
of "fresh, well-equipped troops with new haircuts and good
morale, proof we are facing not a rabble but well-trained force."
In the six weeks preceding that June report, the Marines had
killed about 1,300 North Vietnamese Army regulars within a four-mile
radius of Khe Sanh. During that time, American dead and wounded
had flowed in a steady stream to the Khe Sanh aid station, which
was dug deep into the ground. General Hoffman conceded that
the Communists had the ability to keep the Khe Sanh combat base
under pressure for "as long as they wished."
Months earlier, the Marines had made an effort that, had it
been successful, would have given them means to counter the
threat posed by the NVA heavy artillery at Co Roc. In August
1967, a large supply convoy left Dong Ha for Khe Sanh, including
several U.S. Army 175mm self-propelled guns. General Westmoreland
had wanted to position the guns at Khe Sanh to deal with NVA
artillery in Laos. When the convoy ran into an enemy ambush
along Route 9, however, the decision was made to deploy the
large guns at Camp Carroll rather than risk their destruction
at the ambush site. (See "Expend Shells, Not Men"
in the August 1997 issue of Vietnam.)
That incident caused a change in thinking about resupply for
Khe Sanh. Route 9 was too risky; thereafter, during the period
from August 1967 until Route 9 was reopened in April 1968, Khe
Sanh would be resupplied by air. The reopening of the road was
accomplished through Operation Pegasus, a combined Marine and
Army sweep of Route 9 to the combat base.
With the arrival of the relief column, an Army colonel replaced
Colonel Lownds as base commander. Army troops would replace
the Marines, freeing them to go on the attack. Although ending
the siege freed the beleaguered Marines for offensive operations,
it also gave increased flexibility to the enemy forces. No longer
would they have two divisions tied down at Khe Sanh. Even though
a large portion of the NVA force withdrew into Laos near the
DMZ, they could easily be shifted to other battlefields as needed.
One American official claimed the North Vietnamese withdrawal
had been prompted by the effectiveness of the American bombing
campaign. The U.S. military command refused to say definitely
whether it planned to keep American troops at Khe Sanh. However,
since the purpose of the base had been to serve as a center
for anti-infiltration activity before the siege, some senior
officers hinted that a continued American presence at Khe Sanh
was likely.
The reopening of Route 9 to convoy traffic did not mean that
the supply problem had been solved. These convoys faced the
same threats that they had in 1967. American units had to be
stationed at every bridge and culvert to guard against ambushes.
Steep cliffs lined the roadway, making it possible for the enemy
almost to drop grenades into passing trucks. Supplies moving
overland were threatened by almost nightly ambushes and firefights.
One June 16, Marines reported a North Vietnamese attack on
Marine positions south of Khe Sanh, in which 168 Communist soldiers
were killed. Although the fighting continued, the U.S. command
felt significant changes had taken place around Khe Sanh. Friendly
strength, mobility and firepower, had increased since the Army
forces had arrived, but the extent of the enemy threat had increased
due to a greater flow of replacements and a change in NVA tactics.
Consequently, the base at Khe Sanh was to be abandoned.
Senior Marine commanders had long felt that maintaining a large
force at Khe Sanh was more of a liability than an asset. They
had only garrisoned the place because of pressure from General
Westmoreland. In late 1967, an Army task force was formed to
control activity in this critical sector of South Vietnam; Westmoreland
felt the Marines were unable to adequately direct the battle.
In March, Army Lt. Gen. William B. Rosson took command of the
task force. Unknown to General Westmoreland, Rosson and his
Marine counterpart, Lt. Gen. Robert E. Cushman, decided on their
own in April to withdraw American forces from Khe Sanh.
Naval gunfire experts and Air Force liaison officers were sent
to Khe Sanh to plan for the destruction of the Marine positions.
Marines began packing their equipment and filling in foxholes.
The base chaplain at Khe Sanh noted in his diary, "The
general attitude of people in the base is that it is wrong to
abandon the base after fighting so long for it."
When Westmoreland found out about Rosson and Cushman's plan,
a Marine general on Westmoreland's staff in Saigon claimed that
he "never saw Westy so mad." The Marines at Khe Sanh
were notified that the base would not be abandoned. They began
unpacking their personal gear and started digging in again.
Marines would continue to occupy Khe Sanh and various nearby
hill positions and engage in search and destroy missions. Fresh
Marine and Army units would replace the Marines who had spent
the siege at Khe Sanh. More than 400 American troops would be
killed and 2,300 wounded in the 10 weeks following the end of
the siege. Those figures were more than two times the casualties
sustained by the Marines in the siege during the period from
late January to late March.
On June 11, 1968, General Westmoreland relinquished his command
of U.S. forces in Vietnam. The Rosson-Cushman plan to abandon
the base, previously rejected by Westmoreland, was to be implemented.
This version of the plan was dated the day after Westmoreland
turned control over to his successor, Army General Creighton
W. Abrams. The Marines who had fought at Khe Sanh were furious,
with one of the battalions "almost in open revolt"
over the decision.
There is speculation that the base closing was ordered by President
Johnson, who wanted no more nonsense about defending exposed
positions. According to some sources, Johnson told General Abrams
to get out of Khe Sanh as soon as Westmoreland was gone from
Vietnam and before he could become fully established as Army
chief of staff in Washington.
It is clear that President Johnson took a great personal interest
in the fighting. Earlier, the New York Times had noted that
the ultimate command post for the battle of Khe Sanh was the
White House in Washington, D.C. There, Johnson asked "tense
and urgent" questions of his commanders in the field, probing
"policy, tactics, preparations, morale," according
to the Times. The responses these questions evoked "adds
up to the largest volume of messages and reports ever gathered
by the White House for a tactical engagement in the war."
General Abrams ordered the base closing to be kept secret for
as long as possible. When it was finally made public, only a
minimum amount of detail and explanation were provided. The
decision was met with "incredulity and bewilderment"
when the news reached the United States. National Security Adviser
Walt W. Rostow noted, "I believe we have a serious problem--perhaps
of substance, certainly of public relations." Rostow pointed
out that intelligence estimates on the enemy order of battle
still placed about 40,000 NVA troops in the DMZ area. "If
it was good to pin down two divisions with 6,000 men, then why
not now?" he asked. The Pentagon acknowledged the base
closing announcement caused a "difficult public relations
task."
The U.S. command in Saigon claimed the base closing was a result
of a changed military situation around Khe Sanh. "When
the situation changes, you ought to change your tactics,"
explained an unnamed general on the Saigon command staff. The
Marine presence at Khe Sanh had been established to inhibit
infiltration. Explaining the logic of the decision, the unnamed
general said that the construction of additional infiltration
routes by the NVA into South Vietnam meant Khe Sanh had become
less valuable as a means to check this infiltration. Khe Sanh
had long served as a logistical center for the supply of the
nearby hill positions. Now the general claimed that it did not
make sense to maintain even a reduced garrison to defend Khe
Sanh in order to use it as a supply base for servicing troops
who would be conducting mobile operations in the area. "Khe
Sanh was in the way; it was tying us down," the general
explained.
Displaying a flawed grasp of geography that paralleled his
convoluted logic, the general claimed the supply function of
Khe Sanh could be taken over by other installations in the area,
such as Camp Stud. This base, "unlike Khe Sanh, is beyond
the 17-mile range of the enemy's artillery in the demilitarized
zone at the border between North Vietnam and South Vietnam,"
said the nameless general. In reality, Stud was situated farther
north than Khe Sanh, which puts it closer to the DMZ and not
farther away. In any event, it was NVA artillery in South Vietnam
and Laos that fired on the Marines at Khe Sanh, and not artillery
from the DMZ.
An American colonel claimed he did not think "we ever
really planned to have a base there in the first place."
According to this view, the Marines came into the small Special
Forces camp at Khe Sanh. When the NVA surrounded Khe Sanh, "all
of a sudden we had five to six thousand men there." Responding
to the question as to whether it was proper to defend the base
at the height of the fighting there in February and March, the
colonel rolled out the kill-ratio argument, saying: "We
killed many, many more of their troops than we lost ourselves."
The colonel claimed, "We showed them that if we wanted
to hold Khe Sanh we could do it."
Although the vulnerability of Khe Sanh to enemy artillery was
a reason given by the military for abandoning it, one high Army
official stated it was unlikely that seven other bases within
the range of enemy artillery in the DMZ would be abandoned.
"Khe Sanh was always different," he said. In reality,
the major difference between Khe Sanh and other bases near the
DMZ was simply that Khe Sanh was the only major American base
to be abandoned.
The actual process of abandoning the Marine base was complicated
and dangerous. Nine allied infantry battalions were operating
in the vicinity of Khe Sanh when the decision to close was made.
Those units had to be deployed elsewhere without advertising
the move to the North Vietnamese. Allied forces would be extremely
vulnerable to enemy attack while the base was being dismantled.
The U.S. command wanted to leave a "completely clean piece
of real estate" at Khe Sanh. Ruined aircraft were cut up
and hauled away so they could not be used for propaganda purposes
by the Communists. Nothing would be left to indicate that the
Americans had been forced to withdraw. Eight hundred bunkers,
miles of barbed wire, and acres of metal runway materials were
buried, destroyed, or physically removed.
Communist gunners continued to fire on the Marine positions
as the trench lines were filled in and sandbags were emptied.
On July 5, the base was officially closed. Five Marines were
killed in fighting near Khe Sanh that day. The final Marine
withdrawal was conducted at night and was interrupted for several
hours when Communist artillerymen scored a direct hit on a bridge
on Route 9. The bridge was finally repaired, allowing the Marines
to move down Route 9 to the east.
Fighting continued in the Khe Sanh area even after the base
closing was complete. On July 9, Marines on Hill 689 near Khe
Sanh "vowed to hold the peak until the last attacking North
Vietnamese had been killed." The Americans claimed 350
North Vietnamese died in this round of fighting. Echoing the
rationale that brought the Marines to Khe Sanh in the first
place, and seemingly unaware of the change in policy, the 3rd
Marine Division commander, Maj. Gen. Raymond Davis, said, "We
are going to move off this hill, but not until we have defeated
the North Vietnamese." That same day a Marine spokesman
denied a Hanoi radio report claiming that a Viet Cong flag had
been raised on the recently abandoned Khe Sanh combat base.
As predicted, North Vietnam was quick to exploit the propaganda
benefits of Khe Sanh's abandonment. In the five-day period beginning
on July 7, 1968, Hanoi radio devoted 70 percent of its broadcast
time in all Asian languages to discussions of the "American
defeat" and the "Communist victory" at Khe Sanh.
Hanoi specifically mentioned previous American explanations
regarding the vital contribution of Khe Sanh to its strategy
in the Vietnam war. In a report from Hong Kong, the New York
Times noted that Asians believed the North Vietnamese explanation
for the base closing and mostly rejected the American version
that it was due to a changed military situation.
A clear distinction can be made regarding the merits of closing
Khe Sanh between American military and political leaders on
the one hand, and Marines who participated in the defense of
Khe Sanh on the other. Like no other Vietnam battle, Khe Sanh
captured the attention of the media and the American public.
Roughly 25 percent of all Vietnam film reports shown on evening
television newscasts during February and March 1968 were devoted
to the situation at Khe Sanh. In the case of CBS, the figure
was 50 percent. By March, supporters of the war among the American
public were outnumbered by those who opposed the war. Gallup
polls indicate nearly one person in five switched from the hawk
position to the dove position between early February and mid-March.
The best way to keep Khe Sanh from causing a negative influence
on support for the war in Vietnam was to close it.
Official explanations for the closing are inadequate. As has
been shown, the situation around Khe Sanh remained much the
same before the siege as after. In May 1968, four North Vietnamese
regiments supported by artillery were reported to be in the
immediate vicinity of the base. According to the commanding
general of the 3rd Marine Division, the situation at Khe Sanh
at that time was the same as in late 1967, when Westmoreland
had ordered Khe Sanh reinforced. As early as February 1968,
the New York Times reported that civilian officials who studied
Vietnamese history were unwilling to share the level of confidence
of military men that Khe Sanh would prove to be an American
victory. These civilians noted "the North Vietnamese willingness
to suffer overwhelming casualties for the sake of victories
with political impact."
General Westmoreland, always the driving force behind the continued
American presence at Khe Sanh, was unable to grasp this willingness.
In his biography, Westmoreland says of North Vietnamese Army
commander General Vo Nguyen Giap, "A Western commander
absorbing losses on the scale of Giap's would hardly have lasted
in command more than a few weeks." Still espousing the
value of a positive kill ratio, Westmoreland claimed Giap's
casualties at Khe Sanh were far in excess of those incurred
by the French at Dien Bien Phu. The Vietnamese Communists, who
also compare the two battles, claim that Khe Sanh was "America's
Dien Bien Phu."
The decision to abandon Khe Sanh is better described as a tactical
withdrawal rather than a forced retreat. The Marines on the
ground were willing to maintain their positions at Khe Sanh
if ordered to do so. I was at Khe Sanh from December 1967, before
the fighting began, until April 1968, when the siege was officially
declared ended. There was no sense that we were a defeated force,
and I had no idea the base was scheduled for closing. My Marine
unit was told that we would remain at Khe Sanh until another
mortar battery could replace us. When that happened we relocated
to the east and continued operations against the North Vietnamese.
The aggressive spirit of the encircled Marine garrison at Khe
Sanh is exemplified by a comment made by a Marine commander
who found his unit in a similar position during the Korean War.
Told his regiment was surrounded by Communist forces near the
Chosin Reservoir on November 28, 1950, General (then colonel)
"Chesty" Puller said, "that simplifies our problems
of finding these people and killing them." Intelligence
personnel of the 26th Marine Regiment at Khe Sanh were well
aware of Communist tactics at Dien Bien Phu. Initially, the
Marines at Khe Sanh had tried to keep the North Vietnamese from
getting too close to the base. Massed artillery fired could
have accomplished this. With the overland route to Khe Sanh
closed, it proved impossible to deliver sufficient massed artillery
fires from a logistics standpoint--aerial resupply simply could
not deliver the volume of artillery rounds needed. When that
became evident, the Marines decided to let the North Vietnamese
move in close to the base in order to simplify the problem of
locating and destroying them. The Marines did just that until
they were ordered elsewhere.
Since the Communists did not share the American belief in favorable
kill ratios, it is necessary to use different criteria to determine
who achieved a favorable outcome at Khe Sanh. In the long run,
who had use of the combat base? In March 1973, American officials
in Saigon reported that North Vietnamese troops had rebuilt
the old airstrip at Khe Sanh and were using it for courier flights
into the south. That was the first time North Vietnamese airplanes
had flown into South Vietnam.
A New York Times story dated May 7, 1973, noted that several
thousand North Vietnamese laborers had been sent south to construct
roads and airfields. The single most ambitious project was construction
of an all-weather road from Khe Sanh, through the A Shau Valley,
to the outskirts of Da Nang. The same report indicated Khe Sanh
was being developed into a major logistical center by the Communists.
This represented a complete reversal of the supply path of the
Marine Corps garrison at Khe Sanh, whose supplies frequently
arrived from their logistical center at Da Nang. The NVA installed
at least a dozen surface-to-air missiles sites around Khe Sanh
in addition to anti-aircraft guns. Those facts cast further
doubt on the explanation of American military commanders that
Khe Sanh no longer had strategic value in the context of the
war in Vietnam.
Although conventional war was what America fought best, Vietnam
is known as a war without fronts. Consequently, search and destroy
operations were the means by which America would try to win
the war of attrition. Even though General Westmoreland acknowledged
that "a commander...wins no battles by sitting back waiting
for the enemy to come to him," this is precisely the role
he assigned to the Marines at Khe Sanh.
As a percentage of North Vietnam's prewar population, the number
of NVA killed in the war against the Americans was equal to
the percentages of those killed in several of the European nations
laid waste during World War I. Westmoreland was unable to grasp
why his adversaries found that rate tolerable. The answer is,
of course, because the stakes were equivalent for the Europeans
and the Vietnamese Communists. As military historian Ronald
Spector has pointed out, during the first half of 1968 (the
period of heavy fighting at Khe Sanh), the Marine casualty rate
in Vietnam exceeded the rate of American casualties in either
the European or Pacific theater of World War as well as during
the Korean War. With nothing to be gained by the Marines at
Khe Sanh beyond killing Communists, ordering their withdrawal
and closing the base was a sensible political and military decision.
Although many claim that the United States never lost a battle
in Vietnam, it is impossible to reasonably put the fighting
at Khe Sanh in the American "win" column.
A Marine Corps veteran of the siege of Khe
Sanh, Peter Brush is a frequent contributor to Vietnam Magazine.
For further reading try: Valley of Decision, by John Prados
and Ray W. Stubbe; The End of the Line, by Robert Pisor; and
Battle for Khe Sanh, by Captain Moyers S. Shore II, U.S. Marine
Corps. Or, for a different perspective on the Battle of Khe
Sanh, try "Window of Opportunity," by Captain Ronnie
E. Ford, U.S. Army, in the February 1995 issue of Vietnam.
