Vietnam War - TET Offensive
Even though the United States won most of the battles up until 1968, nothing could have prepared them for what was to happen on January 30-31, 1968. Prior to the “Tet,” otherwise known as the Chinese Lunar New Year, some small battles along Rt.9 nearby Khe Sahn, had been taking place. The Tet is the same as our new years day, but instead of celebrating number years, they celebrate years of different animals, such as, 1968 was the year of the monkey. After two weeks of silence, American scouts discovered North Vietnamese camps with over eighty’thousand Communist troops. The Americans did nothing to prepare for a battle in which was almost impossible not to be known about. On the eve of the Tet, Communist forces began an assault on Khe Sahn, and many other northern cities in South Vietnam. They attacked even as far south as the US Embassy, and the Capitol City of Saigon. The Tet Offensive was undoubtedly a military victory for the south even though they sustained heavy losses, but because of video coverage, the US Military lost most if not all support from its homeland. Many in the US military just did not see a point in fighting the rest of the war without any support from the people they were fighting for. When the American citizens did not support the war, it was the turning point, and everything fell apart for the US in Vietnam from there on out.
From the start of the Vietnam War, the French were out because of the fall of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Then in December of 1960, Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, organizes the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, the Vietcong. Ho commits the NLF to the overthrow of the non-Communist government in South Vietnam, the ousting of U.S. advisers and the unification of Vietnam. In 1963 President Kennedy was assassinated as well as South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem. In 1964 Lyndon Johnson calls for War on Poverty and greater efforts on civil rights in his First State of the Union. In August Johnson orders immediate retaliation for the attack on U.S. destroyers, Maddox and Turner Joy in the Gulf of Tonkin, allegedly by the North Vietnamese. Congress approves Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving the President power to...