Okay . Where did the us army in Vietnam expand their operations in 1967 and 1968 . What really happened during the tet offensive ? And was it a tactical and strategic success or failure for the army ? And how did the army respond to the my lai massacre ? For these answers and more insights . Welcome to the U . S . Army history and Heritage podcast . The official podcast of the United States Army Center of Military History . The Center of Military History , writes and publishes the army's official history , manages the US Army Museum enterprise and provides historical support throughout the U . S . Army . Yeah . Hello everyone and welcome to the United States Army history and Heritage podcast . I'm lee Reynolds , the strategic communications officer for the United States Army Center of Military History . This is the third episode of a five part series on the Vietnam War where we are discussing the army activities in Vietnam during the pivotal years of 1967-1968 . Joining me to continue leading us through this discussion is Vietnam war historian Dr eric b . Velarde , welcome back ERic and thanks for joining me for what I'm sure will be another fascinating discussion . Thank you . Great to be here . And just to remind our listeners that dr Velarde is the digital military historian for the U . S . Army Center of Military History and one of the army's leading Vietnam war historians . He wrote a volume in one of the U . S . Combat operations in the Vietnam war series titled staying the course , october 1967 to september 1968 ? That was published in december of 2017 . And just coincidentally , that happens to be our topic of discussion today . And he's currently working on the next book in that series , covering October 1968 to December 1969 . And outside of CMH Dr . Ballard is the founder of the Vietnam War History Foundation , a nonprofit organization that has over 44,000 members on its Facebook group . Very impressive . He also has appeared as a historical advisor and analyst on many documentary projects , including two Ken Burns and Lynn Novick for their Vietnam War documentary series . So , eric anything I'm missing that is worthy of note . Anything Vietnam War is gonna have my attention . I I've got some projects coming up , some documentaries that were coming out in the next few years . So keep your eyes peeled . And I've been doing a lot of podcasts and I gotta say just so great to be able to talk to everyone about the Vietnam war . Yeah , this is a fascinating subject and we want to make sure that , you know , we're covering it in as much detail as we can and that's why we're dedicating five episodes to this for our podcast and I'm sure we'll revisit Vietnam to cover more in depth information on certain battles or key leaders later on in future podcast . But now let's transition back to um uh the 1967 . So , um , let's set the table for for the listeners , where are we going into 1967 . So going in in 1967 , uh , the American military presence in South Vietnam again is headed , you know , Up to and past 400,000 and this is mostly army , but again , Navy air force , even some Coast Guard Marines General William Westmoreland is the overall commander of , of this force . And so he's been in the job for a few years now , 67 for him is going to be the year where he can really bring american combat power to bear in a big way . This is , as some people have said , the year of taking the offense of the year that we have enough logistical capacity , enough combat troops to finally really go on the offense and try to push back against the North Vietnamese and Viet cong threat . So can you describe what was Westmoreland's strategic intentions or his plans ? So being the Mac the commander and again , that means he is not in control of the South Vietnamese government or its military . He's an advisor is american advisers are helping the south Vietnamese at all echelons , but he has to be respectful of their needs . And so he's there to help build the south Vietnamese . He also has a relationship with some of our allies were fighting alongside of us . So the South Koreans , for example , have committed by this point about 50,000 troops . That's a significant , it's a very significant number . Again , we came to South Korea's aid uh , during the Korean War and this is , you know , part of our new relationship with South Korea , they're going to help uh , contribute troops . Now we don't tell the south Koreans what to do , but we basically suggest and they generally say , all right , that sounds good . So the Australians and new Zealanders have their area of operation . The ties have sent a brigade . So there are some of our Free world allies who are who are fighting alongside of us . But Westmoreland's big goal for 67 is to really start chewing away at these remote enemy base areas . As I said before , Most the people in South Vietnam live in the low lands near the coast where you can grow rice . But a lot of the country and the interior mountains and jungles are very inhospitable places . That's where the VC and North Vietnamese like to have their secret camps . So West ruin . Being a smart guy that he is , knows that you can't simply win the war by killing , you know , enough VC or envy a it's more sophisticated . You have to go after those bases because all the supplies they're getting or at least most of it is being carried carried laboriously down the ho chi minh trail from North Vietnam . So every time you find a hidden supply cache , you take away that rice , you take away that guns that makes the enemy less capable . So this is gonna be 67 going into these big forbidding jungle areas throughout the country and really starting to clear them out . That's the big priority . So what were the big battles that we encountered ? I think like we had Operation Cedar falls so early on , for example , in in in the three core area , which is the area around Saigon , uh North of Saigon , you have some of these , again , really forbidding areas . One of the areas that had always been particularly troublesome and it's just a few dozen kilometers from Saigon is a place called the Iron Triangle . It's this , it's sort of a diamond or triangle shape area of jungle uh that is close enough to the city to pose a real threat . Now , the thing that's really confounding about it is the Viet Cong had spent decades building tunnels beneath this jungle . Is this coochie , this is like Iran , yeah tunnels a coochie in that whole area around the Saigon River . So one of Westmoreland's first priorities is to clear that place out . So , operation to December 67 Operation Cedar Falls um sends in american forces from multiple directions to clear this place out . So the Viet Cong seeing all this tremendous strength essentially try to hide and so they go under these tunnels and they , it's very difficult to find them . So what do the americans do a lot of things ? Uh they use these big bulldozers called Rome plows , two actually scrape away the trees and the jungles and knock those down to create roads into open landing zone . So they're doing that , they're spraying agent orange , which is herbicide , which is to to kill the foliage . So you expose the bunkers that are hidden underneath . Um they're using dogs uh to try to sniff out the Vietnamese who are hiding underground . Um and when you do find one of these tunnels and then some often very , very hard to find . It was an american volunteer soldier nicknamed tunnel rats . Usually one a smaller guy because these are not large tunnels who would go down there with a 45 or 38 a flashlight to see what was down there that took real chris . Absolutely , absolutely , because you know that there's bad guys down there . And as some of these tunnel rats discovered more than bad guys , um in some cases they had these little tunnel dead ends that would go under water , but there's no way through the other side or there's some places where they have snakes or scorpions or spiders or things , you know , so and explosives and explosives booby traps if you didn't know the right way . And of course Vietcong down there and some of these tunnels were so elaborate that they had three or four levels . They had whole operating facilities , printing presses . So like little towns , little absolutely . And some of these data again dated back to World War Two . So they've been doing this a long time . So this is , this is one of the , you know , cedar falls big operations , they never do entirely clear out the iron triangle the times . But they do neutralize some of them . And later on the army came up with some very interesting ideas to to find these hidden tunnels . My favorite is they used bedbugs and and hook them up to microphones . The idea is bedbugs smell I guess your carbon dioxide . But they the proximity of humans and they start to squeal . So by amplifying their little squeals ideas , you , you stick this little wand of bedbugs out there , you're looking for the , that is fascinating . Yeah . Well , you know that's that's the army's always trying I had never heard already or they use like the mighty mite which is like a big old leaf blower And so you just pump , you know , tear gas down there or something , you know , so and it was an ongoing problem . But this is what they're doing in early 67 going to some of these really , really And how long ? Well cfls mean the actual operation lasted about a month . Um now it was never entirely neutralized . I mean the enemy is still function there . But um , it was certainly less of a problem in in some cases what they did was they relocated whole Hamlets because Vietnamese who are living there . Yeah , Vietnamese Hamlets because you know the Viet Cong would rely on local labor , right . Um they look on people for taxation for food , for information for whatever . So even if these , you know , villages or these Hamlet goers , however they felt about the communists , maybe they supported , maybe they did . The fact is if as long as they are there , they're going to help the enemy . So in some cases they relocated entire Hamlets . Now you can imagine that's very upsetting to the people who lived there and , and the places where they went to were not always great . But this is , these were part of the ideas used to try to chip away at the feed into , you know , the north Vietnamese vehicle . The communists of course made , you know , a lot of hey , about that , you know , that , that , that this was again , um , you know , sort of crime against the Vietnamese people . Again , it's hard to tell of all the people they relocated . How many of them again actually were . Like , you know , I'm glad I'm out of there . You know , it's safer here . And how many of them like , well , gosh , you know , my brother is actually the local VC district chief , you know , hard to say . But it was , I mean at this point the war is increasing in such ferocity that it is actually affecting a lot of the people in the countryside who probably just wish they'd be left alone . And then , so this is Operation cedar falls . But then we also have Operation junction city going on , which is even bigger one that's up towards the Cambodian border ? This big massive wilderness called war Zone C or that we called War Zone C and again , converging from multiple directions . Uh It's notable among other things for being the only major combat parachute jump of the war . And who did that ? 173rd Airborne Brigade , uh basically battalion jump um close to the border . It wasn't that they had to do it . I mean there were other ways to get there . But part of west marlins um motivation was he wanted to put the communists on notice that if the time came that he got the authority for example to go into cambodia where a lot of these Viet Cong bases were . He could also do it with parachute troops . So that was the idea of of that combat jump . Oh , interesting . And then what was the purpose of the mission Again , massive area with all these hidden supply caches , um enemy infiltration routes . It's it's it's you know , it's a huge , huge piece of real estate . But the idea is to go in there and try to find them and destroy them because as I said before killing the enemy is only one among many ways to achieve victory . You can take away his food , you can take away his medicine , you can take away his ammunition , you can try to convince him to defect . That was a big part of the worst psychological operation . So there's a lot of ways that you can achieve your objective . How long did it last ? And what was the result ? That was again , that was an operation that lasted , you know , five or six weeks . Um , you know , while it was going again , they they're , they're doing this in january in february because in , in in South Vietnam they are under the influence of monsoon whether so for half of the year , you know , from like october to april in that area , it's pretty dry because of the monsoon winds . So these places are pretty dry and you can actually put tanks and vehicles out there and operate now when the rains come for the rest of the year , those places are much harder to operate . And so this is why they're doing it at that point . And again , you need american equipment , you need the big bulldozers , you need to be able to have , not just hueys , but even bigger helicopters like the CH 47 Chinooks , which we are still using . Oh yes , some of those airframes were still in service . So , uh , again , it's because of these advantages that we could operate over such distances . And then just talk a little bit about the tactics on the ground , was it ? Search and destroy cordon and search in this in this , in this particular case when you only have a vague notion where the enemy is . Um , and , and it could be , for example , they might use a playing flying overhead with infrared sensors and the infrared sensors detect the campfires , right ? That's one way . Or they again have an informant who says , hey look here or you have the loops , the loops who actually go in have eyes on or air cavalry squadrons . Us commanders could never get enough air calvary scars . So these are um dedicated units based on helicopters , both Huey gunships and a smaller aircraft . We use a descendant today oh H . 58 oh 8 600 . It's a coyote . It's a two person fast helicopter . So you're zipping around the terrain actually looking for signs of the enemy . And so by the all these different techniques . Once you get a fix then you you sort of pile on . But if you're on the ground as an infantry , um you know , it's it's it's a daunting prospect because this part of the country , triple canopy jungle . There are places where you do not see the light of day , it is so thick and you can only see , you know , a few feet in front of you need that human intelligence . You need human intelligence . Um You also need to make sure that you you know where everyone else is . So you're not shooting your own people . And also think about the U . S . Airpower . Great to have . But if your own airplanes don't know where you are , that's a problem . So M . Sixteens . This is actually one of the areas where there was some criticism . Right ? So the M 16 rifle that came into service , the first year of operation , they realized it had some issues . One of it was , in fact it would jam because the powder they used was kind of wasn't very clean and the soldiers weren't doing a really good job cleaning their weapons . Also , the spring was too tight . So the 21 magazine , you can only put 18 bullets in . If you put more than that , it would jam . So they didn't come up with , with , with um , you know , improved versions . But It shot a light bullet , a 5.56 Bullet like the 22 caliber . And some of the soldiers complained that in all the foliage , you know what I'm saying ? The , the actual banana leaves would kind of make the bullets go sideways right now . Some of the , I mean the american machine gunners are using heavier weapons , but the enemy is using heavier bullets . Yeah , they're using primarily what the enemy's ak version type , usually maiden China actually , but it's a 7.62 . It's like a 30 caliber bullet . It's happy hour . M60 was a 7.27 point and that could , that could do A whole lot of damage . And that could punch through . But there was , you know , again , in certain environments , some of the , some of the soldiers were like , Gosh , I really wish I had my 14 . Well and oh , really ? So they preferred that , But by this time with the M fourteen's gone from there , they were disappearing . Some snipers uh still used them . Um A few marines used them to , yeah , they got their M sixteen's a little later . Um Oh all in all though , especially once they fixed some of the M 16 main problems I would say if you did a survey , the vast majority of troops actually said yeah , the M 16 is a better weapon . It's lighter , carry more ammo . If you clean it properly , it's , it works just fine . And the M four we have today is a descendant . Oh yeah , of course it is . Right . Yeah . And then um well since we're talking about some weapons , we've talked about the M 16 , the M 60 machine gun , but then they also had a grenade launchers . The M 79 yeah , M 79 which is called the blue gun and it looks like it was like a sawed off shotgun and fired a single 40 millimeter grenade round . And uh for those of you , probably a lot of you seeing the movie apocalypse now that that famous scene by the by the bridge later on and there's someone out there screaming in the jungle . And there's this one guy , he's got an M . 79 he just kind of angles it up and get some could fire buckshot , you could fire illumination , it could fire White Foster . It's a very versatile weapon , but what ended up happening in Vietnam as they end up going to a under slung grenade launcher beneath the M 16 . So that happened during the M 203 , right ? They began to experiment and that is now kind of become the standard . But they back then the M 79 definitely had its had its place um , in , you know , in in the arsenal , I mean bigger equipment . I mean you had 50 caliber machine guns going back to World War One , we're still using those . I mean sometimes when you get something right , it works forever . Uh , M 48 tanks . Um , the patents um , again , it turned out to be very , very effective and 1 13 armored personnel carriers um , could actually bust through jungle . So you had to be worried about the fire ants . Yeah . Right , Because you're going to the jungle and you hit a nest of wasps or fire ants and suddenly they're inside they're inside the compartment . So usually you'll see the big cans of bug spray on these vehicles when you see them . Amazing . And then what about the artillery at the time ? How effective was the artillery and artillery ? Uh , it was updated versions , you know , World War Two equipment with the 105 millimeter . Yeah , the M101 was a standard . Basically every infantry battalion had this , you know , you know , battery in direct support . Um , and then you had at higher echelons bigger weapons like the 155 howitzer , right ? Usually under brigade division core support up to the really big boys like the eight inch and the the 203 millimeter cannon Which could , you know , range out to 17 , 18 miles . And then units had mortars where there was a 60 millimeter 81 . And then the four Deuce , which is like about 100 and 20 millimeter , it started out as mainly being used for chemical , you know , for for for sending smoke . But but they also has a warhead . Now it's way too heavy for you to carry but in a rear area . Um and then you had some other exotic weapons . You had recoilless rifles , various and who would use those um depending usually The heavy weapons company or platoon . And if you thought you needed it because it's kind of heavy usually what they put it , they put it on a jeep or something or leave it back at base or some like they're the quad 50s . Every Vietnam value will tell you about . These are 450 caliber machine guns designed to be any aircraft weapon , but in Vietnam using for base defense . Okay . Yeah , that makes sense . Well let's um we'll talk more about maybe in in the next episode a little bit more about other branches that we've got there . But because I really want to get into uh talk about the tet offensive , but the lead up to the tet offensive . So let's talk a little bit about that . How I guess from both the enemy and the American . So again , as I said in 67 , you know , the war is expanding in intensity . More American troops are coming in . The enemy's pouring in more troops . The U . S . Uh scope of activity is growing by mid 67 there there's now parts of the ninth Infantry Division in the Mekong Delta operating with the Navy Task force doing amphibious operations . That's the first time we have , you know , combat troops down there . Uh , the army also created a provisional uh division in Southern I corps by taking several brigades and lopping them together . So now the army is pretty much everywhere . So we're reaching point of peak intensity the enemy leaders in no , I know this Our strength is moving towards 500,000 American troops . Right ? The communists are beginning to lose some ground . They're beginning to lose control over some of the countryside And so they make a decision , let's strike a blow to win back momentum . But we know we can't strike the americans because it's powerful . What do we do ? So they make a decision , We're going to try to basically do a surgical strike against the south Vietnamese government . They see that as the week element . So the plan they come up was is basically this Um , at the new year's of 1968 um , they're going to send the best forces . They have V . C . And N . V . A . To attack hundreds of South Vietnamese cities simultaneously including cycle , you mentioned their new year . They call that Ted they call that Ted because in Asia they observe a lunar new year cycle . So for us it's a solar cycle is always one january . But on a lunar cycle it depends on the year and this year the chat celebration , the holiday um , falls right at the end of january 1968 30 january 30 31 january . And the reason the communists shows that is their tack date is Ted is a the biggest holiday in Vietnam . It's it's a holiday for being with family and a lot of South Vietnamese soldiers . We're gonna we're gonna be on leave . So this is the time you strike when you know their enemies the weekend . So that's that's the general plan . So while these communist soldiers pour into the cities , the second part of it that they think is happening is a general uprising right there , agents in the cities are going to mobilize the masses who they think , you know , hate the south means government . The point of all this is if everything goes according to plan in a matter of days or weeks , the south unions government could collapse and then the communists say look we'll take it from here will form a coalition government . Thanks thank America . But don't need you anymore . This is the tet offensive plan that the communists come up with . And then so now let's talk about what really is one of the most well known and largest campaigns of the war . The tet offensive . So talk us through that . What so we understand what their plan was , what their target . So what happened ? So the question of course is what did the allies ? No , you know what the americans know ? How much did they know about this ahead of time ? Because this was months and months and months in preparation . So the the answer , the short answer is we knew some things but we never quite piece the whole thing together . Um partly because if on the face of it it seems insane right ? The Communist had spent the past several years avoiding costly battles where they couldn't control their own casualties . So the idea that they're going to suddenly charge into the cities and expose themselves just seem nuts . And the idea that the people are going to rise up , I didn't track so a lot of american officers who tracked intelligence and we're seeing some signs of something they're like , yeah , that can't be it though because that's that's that's that doesn't make any sense . So in some places the signs were stronger up near the DMZ , it seemed more likely the northeast late siege , this marine base called cason um couple other places in the highlands . But the bottom line is american intelligence just didn't piece the whole thing together . And the other big reason is this in order to , to make this secret , most of the communists didn't know this was coming . So only a few senior leaders in hanoi and the different um front commands in the south actually knew the plan . The average rank and file of Communist soldier Had no idea this was coming until like 24 hours ahead of time . So that's when they were told , oh by the way , we are now going to you know , attack this and half the time they didn't know the city that they were entering . So it created a lot of operational secrecy , but it also created chaos when this thing happened . And for for the for the communists and , and , and and this is probably , I think one of the funniest story isn't funny in retrospect , but there was so much secrecy in fact that when hanoi actually sent the orders saying when this thing was going to happen , they were a little vague , they said it's going to happen between the 1st and 2nd nights of Tet and it was only like a day later , like , like like 36 hours before the attack began , they realized , Oh my gosh , they're using a different calendar in South Vietnam . It was one day off . So when they said 1st and 2nd days of tet people in the south , oh that meant the night of 29 30 not 30 31 . So they had to send like , no , no , no , no , we actually mean but so this is why in some parts of South Vietnam , some of the enemy troops attack one day early And this actually gives the allies some a valuable advanced warning . So when the big attack happens , 30 31 January across the country um the allies are able to to make some adjustments but it is a a firestorm . I mean it hits all the major cities in in in in South Vietnam . Well they hit the U . S . Embassy to hit the U . S . Embassy . Although funny , you know of all the targets there , 10 targets in Saigon that the Viet Cong really wanted commandos wanted to attack . They added the U . S . Embassy just a few days before the attack almost as an afterthought because you said that the plan , the plan was to take out the south Vietnamese americans . I mean look they were happy to embarrass us but the reason they added it um was because they thought it would , they didn't actually think that they were going to take over the embassy . What they were going to do is take the grounds of the embassy , like the the actual park outside the building and then have a bunch of students from the university come stage a sit down strike . So this was just part of the idea of of of creating sort of public relations um uh impression that it was a popular uprising that it didn't happen that way . But that was the idea was this mostly Viet Cong or was the north Vietnamese army ? This um , for the tet offensive , it was half and half of the 84,000 communist soldiers in the initial wave , about half were North Vietnamese and about half of Viet Cong . So yeah . So then how did the U . S army respond to this ? So again , you know , in in the opening hours , lots of confusion . Um some US commanders had taken preparation because they thought , look , I've seen enough intelligence to think some things can happen in other cases Um came as a surprise . Um , but basically within a few hours , uh , the Americans , you know , mobilized . Therefore , forces coordinated with the South Vietnamese and began counterattacking . So within 24 hours It went from , you know , Oh my gosh , this is the Alamo two . OK , Roger . Yeah , it's , this is bad , but you know where we are now on the , on the , on the attack . And so that's generally the situation throughout most of country . In the first few days , the allies retake all the cities that the communists have penetrated . The exception being the city of White up north in I corps . It's the third largest city in South Vietnam . It was the old home of the Nguyen emperors in the 19th century , this massive stone uh fortress and uh the several north Vietnamese uh battalions got inside that fortress and took over most of it . And so that battle went on for about a month . And was that with the army or army marines ? The marines , US marines did most of the fighting in the city , the southern part of the city and then in the citadel along with the South Vietnamese . Whereas the army and the first cavalry division are part of it fought this battle off to the , off to the west to try to cut the supply line that the enemy was using into the mountains . So there was this whole other battle going on that isn't as well known but was incredibly fierce and , and like Ronnie joe hooper from the winner first receives the medal of Honor for his heroics at a place called tom chu and then at the same time what was going on at cason ? So , cason actually was one of the very few quiet places on on the first day of tet and it is in the north western corner of quantity province . So if you think of where South Vietnam meets North Vietnam and that corner over by Laos , it's , it's up in that corner . So it's a very remote location . Um , there are about 6000 marines there in some South Vietnamese and they were surrounded by two NBA divisions . So for a while , you know , it was looking um , it was concerning , let us say to President johnson , um , to the point where um , in fact General Westmoreland even just very quietly did a little study on the use of nuclear weapons . I mean , I don't think he ever thought they needed , but he thought , you know , due diligence . Um of course there everyone is thinking about D . N . Bien phu right where the french got defeated in 1950 further guys , this is another one . Well , no , it wasn't because the americans had all these advantages . But on the day of ted it's actually quiet because an american bomber had had knocked out the N . V . A command post a week earlier . We didn't know at the time that was , but but on the seventh of february a for the first time in the war , um North means light tanks overran the laying the special forces camp , which was just south of Tyson . So this is the first time that they actually using soviet design light tanks . Um so they take over a long day , but they never do take Tyson . In fact , once tet settles down first . Cavalry division uh lifts helps lift the siege with Operation Pegasus because they're in way there after way is over . They move over to help marines at and and and West Berlin deliberately wanted the first cavalry division up in I corps because he had plans for them to do all I mean to to really just roam around and and you know , not the north Vietnamese , you know , wherever they could find him . In fact he had a secret plan called el paso where he planned to take the first calvary division and launch it into Laos in the later summer of 68 to cut the Ho chi Minh trail . So I mean that this was part of his thinking , he never got permission , but that's why the first cal was there . And um , so how long before cason was ? Well , the , the , you know , um , in april of 68 basically early april 68 Pegasus , um , effectively list lift the siege . Now again , the marines were there , you know , see it a little differently . They're like , look , you know , we could have held out forever and they're probably right . But the fact is um , drove off a lot of the north Vietnamese who were in the surrounding hills . Ultimately americans end up basically abandoning case on a few months later because it no longer serves the purpose for for which we had , that was going to be the jump off point for that invasion of the Ho chi Minh trail . Right , when the raging season comes , it's like we do go back there later , but that's why we live the stage and then end up leaving . So I , what I want to talk about then is is the perception , right ? So would it sounds like you would define the tet offensive as a , was it a tactical or strategic uh , success for the United States failure for the Communists . How how would you describe ? Yeah , there's , there's certainly and arguments to be made on both sides . But um in a nutshell , I would say , you know , from a tactical operational point of view , the tet offensive absolutely was a defeat for the Communists of the 120 some odd 1000 . They committed during the whole thing , As many as 40,000 were killed or incapacitated . So they took enormous losses . And the V . C . I mean , as a part of that , they were , you know , I've read in different places that the VC was was basically destroyed as an effective . Yeah , actually , I mean , and and that's yeah , that's that's that's a misperception . Um there were certain VC units that were certainly pulverized during tet , but and every single one of those cases they're reconstituted . Like there's there's a there's a battalion that gets almost totally annihilated in Tet reconstituted , comes back and and invade Saigon . It may . So , I mean , you know , so , so the fact is the VC still remain in absolutely potent force . It's really other factors that are going on that explains that . But yeah , it was pretty much balanced N V A V . C losses but in in some ways then the it's it's a tactical advantage for the United States at the end of this . But but having said that , so the media um , was there reporting on this and so it completely changes perception in the United States . Yeah , I mean , Okay , that's yeah , that's certainly an argument that is often made okay . And this is how I would put it , it's a different tack . President Johnson in later 67 , right is telling the American people who are making progress in Vietnam we've been fighting for a couple of years where we are actually seeing gains and so he's setting the public up to expect more success . Right ? So when ted happens and it takes the american public by surprise . Um , of course , just like just some extent militarized price . Of course the first rise , like what the heck is going on here ? You know , images of dead sappers in the U . S . Embassy and that kind of thing . Um , city's on fire . But if you actually like look at public opinion um , in those first few weeks after tech support for the president , the war actually goes up , not down . You don't turn against people rally around the flag . I mean , they may be confused , right ? But they actually rally around the flag . Um , it isn't until 56 weeks later that that sort of , you know , public opinion starts dipping again . Part of the reason is , um , after things settled down , it's clear , you know that it's been defeated . General Westmoreland reintroduces an idea that he had pitched a year earlier . He said , you know , really to get this thing done , We may need to call up another 200,000 troops . Now again , it wasn't just his idea , he was , his superiors were kind of whispering in his ear saying , look , our cupboards are almost bare , but politically that issue , right ? Because to do that , you'd have to mobilize reserves . The National Guard , the anti war movement was already very active . And so what happens is it's not , it's not that the media gave the wrong impression of ted it's not the immediate turn the public against it . I think looking at all the coverage , the media is is pretty , pretty down the middle . But the fact is , and this is where I refer back to walter Cronkite , you know , you know , the the the great cbs a news anchor , This is a guy who flew B-17 missions in World War II . I mean , not a wallflower , not a password . So when he goes on , um , in late february and gives a short little editorial , you know what he basically says is , um , you know , and he was there , he went way and saw it . He said , look , I think it's unrealistic to say that America's is near defeat . It's not true . You know , we , we we are are nowhere near defeat . We we can keep fighting this war , you know , as as long as we feel like it . However , I also don't see how we can bring the war to a successful conclusion in any reasonable time or cost . So he says , basically what I see is a stalemate , I don't think he was exactly right . I think that's the key is the shock of tet seeing that this war was not on its downward slope . That's when a lot of people said , alright , okay , you know , how long will this need to go on ? And um , so we need to pivot from Ted because really immediately after that or still , while some of that was going on another dark day , uh , took place in army history and um , you know , we know that as the My lai massacre . So March 16th , 1968 . Um , so right in in a lot of ways , this is this is this is an outgrowth of tat . Okay . One of the big priorities in 67 was helping the South et mes with this thing called Pacification , which was basically to root out all these Vietcong agents in the villages to get the people to support the government . Southern I corps um was one of the hardest places to do this because the Viet Cong support went back decades . Okay , so this one province , Quang Ngai province , right ? You had this new American division called the americal or the 23rd um and won several of its battalions went in the special operation in March . Their purpose was just to sort of win back territory that had been lost during Tet . What happens unfortunately is that some of those american troops , um particularly ones led by Captain Medina and Lieutenant Calley go into this one of several villages known as my lai and basically begin massacring the civilians in some cases sexually assaulting them . um desecrating , but I mean it's it's it's it's it's it's awful , there's no way around it and loss of morale discipline um gets out of leadership . Um Now again , not everybody in the miracle in that area was doing it , but there were certain platoons and one or two companies where this was happening . Um Now there there were a few shining heroes at the moment Hugh Thompson for example , was a helicopter pilot flying overhead Um with with he had two people in his helicopter flying over . He saw American soldiers doing this . He landed his helicopter , got out with the 45 and aimed at it and said you will stop right . So he was obvious disturbed . He went back home reported it . Some other people did the offshoot is there was an investigation done by the division on what happened and it was kind of a whitewash . They basically said , well yeah , a lot of those people were probably killed by artillery or it could have been , this could have been that . So this initial investigation Kind of got , you know , so for the rest of 68 And well into 69 , the American public does not know about this , but people who are there are still talking about it . So , and this is something we will be dealing with in the next episode , the fallout . But this does happen on the heels of tet and um yeah and the the lessons learned from this and I think we'll address the next episode . Um , but there are some very positive after effects . I mean , it is , it is absolutely one of the blackest episodes in our history . No question and no , no , you know , dodging that at all , but um , and we have to acknowledge that you have to acknowledge it absolutely . Um , but you know , in the longer run , the lessons that the army did learn from it and applied have , I think served as well in the years since . Again , then this is not to take away from any of the anguish of the Vietnamese or any of that . It's just to say that , you know , we have to look at square in the face and and understand why it happened and make sure it never does again . And as a professional institution in the United States Army is um , you know , something as terrible as this happens and uh , we make changes that from that time period on that , um , ethics training . Um , I think you talked about earlier rules , rules of engagement , Oh yeah , rules of engagement , embedding uh jags , you know , judge advocate general's at multiple echelons so that you have someone looking over the commander's shoulder , making sure that everything is looking right . I mean , this is the army we have now and it's because of the lie . Yeah , and um grow great . Um , well , thank you for those insights . Eric is there anything else about 1968 that you wanna wrap up with ? Well , I would just say that , you know , after uh tet offensive and all this uh confusion and and and and uh you know , questioning um you know , the next six months , you know , there's some changes . President johnson , you know , announces on tv that he will not want run for re election . He's going to devote himself to trying to bring peace . He actually made the decision not to run months earlier , but he announced it there . Um General Westmoreland becomes army chief of staff and gives away to his deputy . Um Creighton Abrams when when is that when does he take over effectively May june 68 . So Abrams who got there in april 67 to work with south enemies . He becomes a new Mac the commander um the communists launch a second general offensive in May and june not his biggest pet sometimes all mini chat although pretty devastating in Saigon and they launch a third one in august and september so the takeaway there is the leaders in hanoi are still dedicated , they didn't get the result . They wanted it wasn't a knockout blow , but on the whole , they again , these are professional revolutionaries , ideologically committed to this . They want to sort of keep the pain going . Um and so this is this period is the most intense period of the war . And in fact the first week of the tet offensive is the highest number of american combat fatalities in the entire Cold War . That is the hottest point of the Cold War . And when you mentioned keeping the pain going , they fully understand the communist that um the perception . Yeah . And and and taking the war if you will to the american people , I mean the american american public opinion was never a first priority in their thinking . Again , they always had that as a component . Um but they were always looking for Ways to generate leverage on the battlefield . And as 68 wears on , um , what they're mostly trying to do is is trying to create sort of a fracture point more and more between the americans and the south Vietnamese because they're they're everyone involved is beginning to understand this work cannot be won decisively . It has to be one at the negotiating table . So that is the other big development . And the Summer of 68 , both sides agreed to begin peace talks . Now they don't actually begin in earnest , but they say world meet in Paris and we will start to , so that's the beginning of the Paris peace talks . And so , and so this is where the there there's a shift in the war and so the fighting now becomes a part of diplomacy . Alright , well , um eric before we close it's time again for our segment called who trivia . This piece of significant army trivia that hoping we will wow the audience . So is there some piece of army trivia , Who a trivia that you can share in this stage of the Vietnam war ? Well , um , again , tet offensive is of course , you know , one of my , you know , uh , favorite topics . Um , but I gotta say , um , I'm gonna pivot a little on this and , and mention something that we didn't really talk about , uh , discussion the battle of the toe . This is the Central Highlands in november 67 . Um , and we , we've talked about the one 73rd Airborne Right , this very famous fight . Um , he'll eight some five Where the 173rd is attacking up the cell day after day guns and trans positions and at one point they're surrounded culinary support and a marine A four drops to bombs . One of it lands right in the middle of the american perimeter and , and one of the Medal of Honor winners is the chaplain right riders , who is , who is there with the soldiers . And so I just kind of want to , you know , uh , you know , you and I went to Fort Jackson , Lady saw the Chaplin school . And just to acknowledge that , you know , it isn't just the trigger pullers . I mean it's the chaplains and then the other folks who are , who are out there to the photographers and yeah , I mean in these kinds of wars there's no real front lines , you know , everyone is so a tip of the hat to , to the chaplains and um , and to the battled Acto to which All right eric Well thanks so much appreciate your insights again in discussion today about 1967 , And if anyone wants to learn more about the Vietnam war or army history in general , I encourage you to explore our website at history dot army dot mil where you can access all of our publications about Vietnam . They're available as free pdf downloads or you can purchase them from the government publishing office and if you want to experience army history every day then visit our social media sites on facebook twitter and instagram . Please join us every week on this podcast for more in depth discussions about army history as we cover topics from all eras of U . S . Army history examining battle , soldier experiences , equipment , weapons , tactics and lots of who a trivia . Thanks for joining us today on the United States Army history and heritage podcast for the center of military history . I'm lee Reynolds and until next time we're history . Mhm . The views expressed in this podcast reflect those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views policies or opinions of the U . S . Army or Department of Defense . For more information about the army's proud history and heritage . Go to history dot army dot mil