What My War Was Like

A Marine in Viet Nam

In the Viet Nam war, the battle around the base camp of Khe Sanh was probably the most publicized story of the war. The story of Khe Sanh started a year before the Siege that lasted for 77 days. It started because the area in the far northwest part of South Vietnam got the attention of the NVA. They couldnt allow a base that was so close to the border of Laos, so close to the border of North Viet Nam, to go about its business as usual without a challenge by the army of the North. Giap was world famous for defeating the French army in 1954 in an area that looked a lot like the area around Khe Sanh. He used and developed tactics in the French Indochina war that continued in use against the Americans and South Vietnamese Army. He first tried to put his army in the high ground surrounding the air strip at Khe Sanh and was defeated in the Hill Fights of April and May, 1967, some of the bloodiest fighting in the war. For several months after that bitter battle, he left the area alone, but in January of 1968, he decided to attack again.