CHAPTER V

From Tet To Stand-Down

A reconsideration of the Vietnam War in 1968 by the American people and their government led to the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from most of Southeast Asia by March 1973. After reports of a vast enemy offensive in South Vietnam in February 1968 reached the American public and the Johnson administration, support for the war, already less than firm, quickly waned. Although the coordinated enemy attacks heavily damaged several allied facilities and caused many casualties, the enemy itself suffered greatly in this futile attempt to topple the American-backed Republic of Vietnam. All in all, 1968 proved to be a near military disaster for the Viet Cong and their North Vietnamese allies. But once the United States began to withdraw from South Vietnam by the end of the year, events on the battlefield had less and less influence on the overall American military policy in that country. This last and most trying period of the American experience in Vietnam severely tested the courage and dedication of the U.S. Army's combat troops, including its Dust Off pilots and crews.

Tet - 1968

By the end of 1967 the enemy had staged large attacks on the border areas at Song Be, Loc Ninh, and Dak To. The enemy had done much the same in February 1954, just a month before the open-ing of the final campaign at Dien Bien Phu. Their strategem almost worked again. In early December 1967 Generals Westmoreland and Cao Van Vien, chief of the South Vietnamese joint General Staff, discussed the coming Christmas, New Year, and Lunar New Year (Tet) ceasefires. In a show of confidence on 15 December, Westmoreland transferred the responsibility for defending Saigon to the ARVN forces and began to move large numbers of U.S. troops outside the Saigon area. But in early January the allies intercepted a message instructing the rebel troops to flood the Mekong Delta, attack Saigon, and launch a general offensive and uprising. On 10 January Westmoreland, after hearing the advice of Lt. Gen. Fred Weyand, the commander of II Field Force, Vietnam, began shifting combat units back from the border areas to Saigon. By 20 January U.S.