The Vietnam war

Victor Davis Hanson:

 Refighting the Vietnam War

Triumph Regained shows that America’s war in Vietnam could have been won earlier at far less cost, and in fact almost was, even belatedly by 1968.

In 1968 I was assistant commander of the 3rd Marine Division communication center in Dong Ha.  One of my roles was to review communication and send it to the appropriate commands.  It was my impression from these communications that the US was indeed winning.  

I later became an executive officer of a rifle company on the DMZ and that experience confirmed much of what I was seeing at the communication center.  The NVA at that point was doing what it could to avoid contact with the Marines in Northern I Corps.  We would see an occasional artillery attack and troops in the field would encounter occasional hit-and-run mortar attacks.  

There would be occasional ambushes of patrols but little in the way of mass attacks.  The attacks on Khe Sanh failed to achieve their objectives.  At one point I was sent on a top-secret mission to Khe Sanh and saw sporadic artillery attacks during that trip.  I also saw the results of intense bombing around the base during the earlier siege.

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