All-Purpose - but Pointed
Lileks repeats something I heard on Hewitt; Paul Harvey has spoken:
Paul Harvey, of all people, noted that the hard phase of the battle would involve house-to-house combat, “just like Vietnam.” Sigh. It’s now the all-purpose metaphor.
All-purpose, perhaps - but not all that inappropriate.
Hewitt ridiculed Harvey's statement on his show yesterday - "what did they have in Vietnam? Jungle?"
Nobody remembers the Battle of Hue. You should.
The city of Hue, South Vietnam, was the site of one of the fiercest battles of the Vietnam War. Three understrength U.S. Marine battalions, consisting of fewer than 2,500 men, attacked and soundly defeated more than 10,000 entrenched enemy troops, liberating Hue for South Vietnam.
Situated in central Vietnam, Hue was the country’s cultural capital, a unique blend of French and Vietnamese influence. The Imperial City, it gracefully retained the glory of Vietnam’s past while its universities educated Vietnam’s brightest minds for the future. Hue was a symbol of everything the Vietnamese people admired and respected. For this reason, it was spared the terrible effects of war—until Tet 1968.
During the lunar New Year holiday of Tet—a very important week-long holiday celebrated all over Vietnam—the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army launched a massive assault on South Vietnam. They seized the American embassy in Saigon. They also seized the city of Hue and its population of about 140,000 citizens. This Tet Offensive began on January 31, 1968. The Battle of Hue lasted four weeks and cost some 142 American lives. Marines of the First and Fifth Regiments, fighting alongside the Army of the Republic of Vietnam’s 1st Division, were supported by U.S. Army 7th and 12th Cavalry Regiments, among other units, in the battle for Hue.
North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces were driven out of Hue little by little as U.S. Marines retook the city one block at a time. The Marines retook the Treasury building, the university, the hospital, the Provincial Headquarters and, finally, the citadel. On February 26, 1968, the city of Hue was declared secure. U.S. forces remained another week to ensure the city’s safety.
U.S. Marine Seargent Alfredo Gonzalez was awarded the Medal of Honor for his fearless gallantry above and beyond the call of duty. Today, USS Gonzalez (DDG-66) honors the memory of this hero. Additionally, countless Silver Stars and Purple Hearts were awarded for other acts of heroism.
The parallels don't need explaining. The differences do.
The Battle of Hue, according to Bing West and Ray Smith in "The March Up", was a watershed in the US Marines' approach to urban warfare. The Marines, led by officers who had survived the bloody point-a-to-point-b slogs in the Pacific in World War II, Tarawa and Peleliu and Iwo Jima and Okinawa, as well as the "Stand or Die" meatgrinders of the Korean War, took Hue in a bloody, block-by-block battle that would have looked familiar to anyone that fought at Stalingrad or Aachen.
The battle spawned a movement among some of the younger officers, the company commanders whose men had gotten brutalized at Hue, to develop new tactics. They are the men who revolutionized the Marine Corps theory for fighting "low-intensity" war - battles like we face in Iraq today - in the eighties and nineties.
Belmont Club obliquely notes the differences in the Marines' approach to Fallujah, as opposed to Hue:
In Najaf as in Fallujah too, apparently, US forces did not advance on a single broad front but snaked in to seize key areas, breaking up enemy defenses into pockets which can no longer support each other. The pockets may be further isolated by bulldozing fire lanes. The low number of casualties so far indicates that US forces have successfully sidestepped enemy forces the way a broken field runner dodges tackles.
Harvey's reference isn't entirely wrong - but events have passed it by.
Posted by Mitch at
November 9, 2004 05:05 AM
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The problem with referencing Vietnam is that the war is just so loaded with national angst--we lost the war. It's the only war in 228 years of national existence that we lost. That tends to color any mention as a flashing red light on the dashboard.
I've tried very hard, despite my misgivings about the war, to avoid invoking Vietnam. Iraq is different, and it will stand or fall on its own.
Whether we remember Iraq like we do Korea or Vietnam will be a distinction drawn several years from now. But noting that our strategy in Iraq is similar to our strategy in Vietnam isn't a bad thing; after all, we won most every battle in Vietnam. We just lost the war.
Let's hope that doesn't describe our present endeavor someday.
Posted by: Jeff Fecke at November 9, 2004 04:11 AMVery well said, Jeff.
In today's world you can win every battle yet lose a war. It is critical to project unity, resolve and commitment. Vietnam showed our enemies that they don't have to win militarily; they merely need to last long enough and inflict enough casualties and we will quit. Then they can continue their murderous ways "in peace."
The question is: have we learned this lesson? We came about 130,000 votes from telling the terrorists they are dividing us, and therefore defeating us. In their eyes (accurately or not) a change in leadership would have meant that Americans agree that the war in Iraq was wrong... with clear consequences.
One lesson from Vietnam is the cost of quitting to the people we left behind. Another lesson is that each and every one of us has a role to play in making sure that doesn't happen.
Posted by: chriss at November 9, 2004 06:13 AMJeff & Chriss:
Posted by: shawn at November 9, 2004 07:56 AMPut down the Democratic Talking Points memos and PC history, and actually read the real story which Mitch gave part of above.
First we did not lose the war in Vietnam in the traditional scense of the losing a war. We negotiated a peace treaty with North Vietnam and withdrew our ground forces. Much like we did in Korea where by the by we still do not have a peace but only a long term cease fire.
Next the North invaded the South not once but twice after the treaty. The first time the US rushed supplies to the south and pounded the heck out to the Northern army with air power. The helicopter gunship came into it's own at this point destroying many Russian made Northern tanks at a bridge who's name escapes me at the moment. The North withdrew. Congress, now mostly Democrats went nuts. When the North invaded again, with more tanks then Hitler used to sieze all of Europe, Congress blocked all aid and even humanitarian supplies from the South. That is the real history.
And another note on Hue, what Mitch didn't mention but actually does compare well with Iraq is that after we retook Hue we discovered thousands, and if I recall correctly ten's of thousands of the best and brightest and the community leaders of the town in mass graves, where the North Vietnam army had cold-bloodedly murdered them, to surpress any opposition. This was well before the "Killing Fields" of the Kamher Rouge.
That was the enemy we were fighting then and now. And people wonder why Kerry lost? I wonder why anyone would vote for him?
Jeff and Chriss have some good points. Vietnam is invoked by left wingers because it's the only war we lost.
And it is important to present a unified front. Something that the democrats and the media don't seem to get.
As for the actual battle of Fallujah, Mitch is absolutely right. The Marine Corps has spent a lot of time preparing to fight what former Commandant Krulak called, "the three block war". We are much better prepared to fight an urban war now than we ever have been before. Both in terms of training and philosophy. Marines don't need officers to make every tactical decision. We place a lot of responsibility on small unit leaders (junior NCO's) to adapt to the changing battlefield without waiting. We have better combined arms practices and communications that enable us to fight more effectively and efficiently, with less risk to our troops. Rather than storm an enemy stronghold with infantry, the infantry calls in mortars, artillery, or air strikes. Hopefully we'll never see another battle like Hue, or war like Vietnam again.
Posted by: Jarhead at November 9, 2004 09:22 AMI have no battlefield experience, I have not particularly studied the history of the Vietnam war. I'm just an ordinary American who likes war movies, and here's something I've noticed:
Posted by: mlp at November 9, 2004 11:19 AMIn the civil war, we fought with rifles, bayonettes and horses.
Eighty years later,in the second world war, we fought with tanks and airplanes.
Sixty years after that, we fought the Gulf war with smart bombs.
Eleven years later, we fought with computers, and we took Afganistan with a few hundred men. Now,two years later, we are in Iraq using weapons and computers which didn't exist when we took Afganistan.
To compare what we are doing in Iraq today to a war that was fought 35 years ago makes as much sense as comparing it to the American revolution. Just because we remember when Vietnam was happening, doesn't make it any less ancient history.
The reason, the ONLY reason anyone wants to compare Iraq to Vietnam is because the weapon that beat us; public opinion, is the only weapon left which our enemies can still use to defeat us.
Not trying to spout Dem talking points by any means. I disagree with Jeff on many things but appreciate the civility and thought he brings to these comment threads.
Posted by: chriss at November 9, 2004 04:09 PMNo we did not lose Vietnam (or Korea) in the traditional sense. We must not lose in Iraq in any sense. We must not lose our collective will and abandon anyone to the fate of the people of Hue that Shawn reminds us of.