Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam

If you only chose to read one book about the Vietnam War, Hue (pronounced “Hway”) 1968 might be the best choice available. No, the book doesn’t cover the whole war. As the title implies, it focuses on the location of the infamous Tet offensive initiated by Ho Chi Minh and the North Vietnamese. The event, however, does an accurate job of summarizing the entire war. The battle of Hue was what made most realize that Vietnam was a losing effort. It woke up even the majority of the most jingoistic supporters and turned the tide of, not only the conflict itself, but the public opinion.What makes this book so endearing (yet depressing) is that Bowden tells the story (literally) down in the trenches. Most of this book doesn’t focus on the bigwigs in power making decisions. Yes, we do read about some of that, but what we mostly read about are personal stories of the young people who were sent to this war with no inkling of what it was even about, and experienced a literal hell on earth. This book cuts deep into one’s emotional core. The author does such a great job in this aspect that the book would make an excellent movie if it wasn’t such a horrid, discouraging tale. There are so many anecdotes thrown in here that the reader can’t really keep track. That’s not really important though. Each story about each person resonates exactly how it should and make those who never had to experience such a horror be evermore thankful, and evermore appreciative of the hundreds of thousands of people who did have to suffer through so much.A typical story begins with an American kid who drops out of high school in Anywhere, USA. With no real prospects for any sort of meaningful future, the kid joins the army. Next thing you know, he’s fighting overseas in a country he couldn’t even find on a map with no knowledge of why the war is even being fought. He finds himself thrown into a company of soldiers that are basically scared kids just like himself. The events of the war turn these kids into petrified, drug fueled, rabid animals who soon become immune to the senseless killings, death, and destruction that overpower their senses. It’s cliché to say that the lucky ones survived, but after seeing the many scars that would haunt these poor souls for their entire life, one almost feels as though the lucky ones were actually the ones who died. At least their soul could now be at peace.All of these stories take place immediately before, and during, the Tet Offensive. Hue was where the main battle took place so this is where all of the action is in this book. It must be said, though, that the main difference between Hue and the stereotypical Vietnam battle is that Hue is in actual city. The houses are actual houses. They have furniture, kitchens, and television sets. Such accoutrements are a far cry from the typical battle scenes in the jungle surrounded by straw huts and rice paddies that we normally associate with when we think “Vietnam”. The horrors, the mindset of the enemy, and the cluelessness of the American leaders though, remain consistent.We read a lot of geography within the city, but the author provides his readers with well-detailed maps so we don’t get too lost when we hear all of the unfamiliar names and locations. Again, though, the “where” isn’t important in this book. What is important is the “who” and also the “why” which, like the war itself, is never adequately answered.So who won the battle of Hue? Again, to adequately answer that question, we must also confess that like the war itself, the immediate answer isn’t really the obvious one; or in this case, the correct one. Yes, the Americans “won” the battle in effect. After losing the city to the North Vietnamese, they recaptured the city, but what America would learn about this war is that “victory” doesn’t really happen until the enemy totally capitulates, and this is something that North Vietnam never did, nor would ever do. No matter how many points on the map that one side takes, if the other side keeps throwing in more soldiers, and young American men keep dying, eventually the public back home gets sick and says “enough”. This is essentially what ended up happening.This seems to be yet another hard lesson that the U.S.A. would have to learn during this conflict. Throughout most of the Vietnam war, we read that General William Westmorland insists that the U.S. is winning, and his main trump card seems to always revolve around casualties and fatalities. He seems a slave to statistics, and as long as the enemy suffers more losses than his side does, he looks at this as a victory. We now know that such numbers don’t mean anything. Anytime you have over 50,000 soldiers die in a war that never seemed to make any sense nor have clear goals, it’s looked at as a colossal failure; regardless of how many enemy soldiers died in relation to ours.So Hue was a wakeup call. It finally shifted the opinion of the majority. Before Hue, the opposition of the war was contained to a minority of hippies and left-leaning radicals. Once the story got out (there are a lot of stories in this book about journalists that covered the battle here as well, including Walter Cronkite) however, the tide began to turn.This book was incredibly depressing, yet such stories are necessary if we truly don’t want to repeat the mistakes of our past. True, since Vietnam, The U.S. has become involved in other worthless conflicts that pretty much yielded the same results. It’s sad that we haven’t learned from our mistakes, but if you can say anything at all positive about conflicts in places such as Iraq or Afghanistan, it would be that the body bag count wasn’t nearly as high as Vietnam. Small comfort to those who lost loved ones in battle, but we can only hope and pray that there are never again any Vietnams.

The Vietnam War was believed to be all but over by January 1968. The commander of U.S. forces in South Vietnam, General William Westmoreland, said the end was in sight, while in Washington D.C., Lyndon Johnson’s special assistant for National Security, Walt Rostow, told New York Times reporter Gene Roberts that, apart from a few “brush fire episodes,” the United States had won the war. And so it came as a complete shock when, in the pre-dawn hours of January 31,1968, the Tet Offensive was launched throughout South Vietnam. The taking of Hue, the ancient capital city, was the chief objective, a bold undertaking that Honoi hoped would spark an uprising of South Vietnamese civilians and win the war. After 24 days of bloody and unrelenting fighting, with 80 percent of Hue destroyed and 10,000-plus fatalities, U.S. forces took back the city. The cost was so overwhelming that American debate over the war was never again about winning, only about how to leave.Interestingly, the reporter who was told by Walt Rostow the war over, Gene Roberts, should have been on the scene during the battle for Hue (pronounced “Hway”). His reports for the New York Times were the first and among the best, and it is he to whom this book is dedicated. The author of “Hue 1968,” Mark Bowden, who also wrote “Black Hawk Down” (1999), says his book is “mostly the work of a journalist,” the result of four years of travel (twice to Vietnam), investigation and interviews with those who were there. He tells the story from the points of view of American and Vietnamese politicians and generals as well as those who did the fighting. The result is a gripping day-to-day account of troop movements, fighting inside and nearby the city, and of U.S. high command that was completely out of touch with what was taking place in Hue. General Westmoreland believed the thrust of the Tet Offensive was going to be directed at Khe Sahn, and did so for several weeks despite overwhelming evidence the actual target was Hue.The book is as much about arrogant leadership as it is about the brave soldiers on both sides who did the fighting and bore the results of decisions made by generals and politicians in Hanoi, Saigon, Washington and other positions of safety. In the first days of fighting, the U.S. high command would not believe reports from the CIA, or from those fighting on the front lines, that the well-trained and well-supplied National Liberation Front (combined North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces) had taken the city. Two companies, about 300 marines, were ordered to attack a force far larger than anyone believed possible—10,000 Front soldiers who had sneaked into the city without detection. These marines suffered enormous losses as a result. When they informed the military command in nearby Phu Bai that they were vastly outnumbered, their reports were not believed. They were accused of exaggeration, timidity and even cowardice, and ordered to attack. Entire units were deeply decimated, by as much as two-thirds, and one unit almost entirely. Meanwhile, the U.S. command continued to send in small units while denying air, naval and artillery support for fear of damaging Hue’s historic buildings, and thereby embarrassing the U.S. All the while, a fleet of helicopters could not keep pace with the mounting casualties needing to be airlifted to hospitals in Saigon. Finally, confronted with overwhelming evidence, they sent in the entire 1st Marine Regiment and part of the 1st Cavalry Division, plus aircraft and heavy artillery, and began taking back the city in grim block-by-block fighting. Hue proved to be the bloodiest battle of the Vietnam War. When at last the few remaining Front soldiers fled for the countryside, Hue lay in ruins. Casualties—combatants on both sides as well as citizens—exceeded 10,000. U.S. Marines and soldiers killed were 250 and1,554 woundedFor most of the battle, General Westmoreland was in a state of self-denial, busy preparing for the attack on Khe Sahn that never came. It seemed Americans back home were better informed on the battle of Hue than the U.S. high command, from having read the daily reports of war correspondents in the national press. CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite, a supporter of the war, did read the reports and was deeply disturbed. He flew to South Vietnam to see the battle of Hue for himself, something Westmoreland deigned not to do. A few weeks later, Cronkite’s report on the CBS evening news confirmed what had been reported in U.S. newspapers for several years: America was losing the war, and the battle of Hue was yet one more confirmation that the U.S. high command was playing fast and loose with the truth. Writes Bowden: “(Walter Cronkite) may not have declared an end to the war, but he had declared the end of something far more significant. For decades, certainly since World War II, the mainstream press and, for that matter, most of the American public, believed their leaders, political and military. Tet was the first of many blows to that faith in coming years. Americans would never again be that trusting.”The first casualty of war is truth, someone once said. Vietnam is yet one more example. Both sides were guilty of withholding the truth, to further their cause. For U.S. soldiers in Hue, the results were tragic. Had their initial reports been believed, the outcome very likely would have been different. Going in with full force at the outset would have avoided the much worse end result. Fewer soldiers would have died and been wounded, not to mention the citizens of Hue trapped in the city by the incessant fighting, and the ancient city itself might have been spared such devastation.Finally, there are the incredible sacrifices of those who did the fighting, most of them 18-to-22 year-olds, only a few of whom volunteered for duty, and the men who led them into battle, lieutenant colonels in their 30s who volunteered for Vietnam to promote their military careers. The word “courage” seems hardly adequate to describe soldiers who, having seen so many of their own shot to pieces by snipers, are ordered to step into the line of fire for the upteenth time in a single day, knowing full well the odds of returning home alive or in one piece are slim indeed. Whether you have no military experience or only a limited knowledge of the Vietnam War, the author makes events vivid and easy to understand, and reveals the battle for Hue as haphazard and savage.

I had not heard of this specific battle. It is a very good narrative on the events. Too many people do not know much about the war and could learn something by reading this book.At the time this was taking place, I was a Lieutenant in a field artillery unit in Germany. I was just fortunate. If I had been in Vietnam I would probably have been a forward observer and might not be here today. Reading about the war always makes we wonder why we were there.

Totally blown away by this book, the research into all aspects of the battle from all angles was incredible. The book is written like a novel I cannot recommend this book more.

A ofensiva do Tet foi no mesmo ano em que, com apoio do governo americano, a Ditadura Militar Brasileira promulgou, em 13 de dezembro, no dia em que completei 17 anos, a revogação do Estado de Direito. Foram 20 anos até a promulgação da nova constituição e retorno ao Estado de Direito. É bom ler uma revisão desapaixonada e eminentemente histórica dessa época. Creio que os Brasilianistas que aqui estiveram na época estão devendo aos Brasileiros essa revisão. Pelo menos com a devida neutralidade. Eu não posso fazê-lo. Perdi muitos amigos nos anos de chumbo.

Superbly researched, and compelling, high adrenaline story of the US marines who fought and died in the streets of the ancient city of Hue during the Tet offensive. The author relies extensively on contemporary and first-hand accounts of the survivors as he paints a brutal picture of the savagery of the battle to reclaim the city from the North Vietnamese.

Balck Hawk Down は以前に読んで感心したのですが、その著者が今度はベトナム戦争について書き、Amazon.comのレビューで好評なので読んでみました。前作よりはるかに長く大きな戦闘で、登場人物も多いのですが、現場にいた人に取材し、資料にあたり、よくある大きな物語（おはなし）にせず、ドキュメンタリーに徹しているのはみごとだと思います。ゲリラ、正規軍、市民がごちゃまぜの狭い地域で、激しい市街戦が1ヶ月近くつづいたという苛酷さで、ことに後半の海兵隊の反攻のくだりは、切れめなしの轟音、爆風、地面はゆれ建物は崩れ破片が飛び、火薬や煙と腐敗臭、血のにおい、戦闘服はずたぼろ、空腹、疲労、不眠、突然の衝撃と激痛、というぐあいで、類のない迫力に引きずられるように一気読みでした。文章もわりとわかりやすい部類と感じました。ベトナムの海兵隊員は、市街戦については訓練も経験もなかった、という指摘にはなるほどと思いました。読み終わってから検索してみると、youtubeには、Battle of Hue City など、当時の現場の映像があり、本に出てきた人がちょこちょこ出てくるので（あたりまえなのですが）奇妙な感じでした。ベトナム戦争、というか、戦争一般について、多少でも関心を持っておられるなら、読んで損はないと思います。

Mark Bowden tem uma apuração magistral e uma forma de conduzir a narrativa, sem exageros e autoelogios tipicos de escritores militares, que prende a atenção. Dar voz aos vietcongues e estrategistas do Vietnã do Norte tornou o relato da batalha o mais completo e fiel possível.