some 15,000 rounds into the battle area, while Air Force jet fighter-bombers logged 103 sorties with over 100 tons of ordnance in support of the ground action.

Asked at what point the pendulum of victory had swung in his favor, Colonel Haig replied:

In the subjective sense there's no question: with the arrival of the air, tactical air and especially the ordnance, the CBU ordnance was the main factor. However, this is subjective . . . and while it was the straw that broke the camel's back, I would be very remiss if I didn't say that the artillery . . . our mortars, and our own automatic weapons were major factors. And had not all of these been employed to their utmost, and closely coordinated, and well integrated, no single factor by itself would have changed the outcome. . . . As it turned out, the amount of fire that we had falling by way of artillery and our own automatic fire and infantry weapons, [and,] may I add . . . the CBU, with the enemy configured as he was, that is, stacked in depth, in the open, and moving forward, [it was this] combination of things that really made the difference.

Colonel Haig had this further thought about the battle of Ap Gu:

In this particular attack, I think, as in ATTLEBORO last fall, when you get belly to belly with a large VC force, they are not sufficiently flexi-ble to react especially intelligently. They are going to react like most soldiers and that is to attack. In this case, we were right on their doorstep. We found them by aggressive reconnaissance, the order was called, and the battle was started. . . . I think this was a case of being in their back-yard, confronting the commander . . . with a basic problem: When the enemy [the U.S. force] is there, do you run? If you run on top of the series of defeats, where do you stop? When do your men finally realize this is a lost cause? I think this commander was confronted with that very tough decision and he came down hard on the wrong side-at least from the perspective of his future effectiveness.

Back near the Cambodian border that Viet Cong commander probably would have agreed.