History Channel - Shootout , Tet 68

[DMZ-LT]

Tonight at 9pm the History Channel is airing , for the first time , Tet 68 on its Shootout series. It's a good series using film , graphics and interviews with survivors to tell the story

[SuperScout]

Thanks for the reminder! Guess that time is EST, not CST. If I watch it, I'll try to give a critique in the next several days, for what it's worth!
Brice
Scouts Out!!

[DMZ-LT]

Yep , it's EST. They do a good job on this Shootout series. Would like to hear your review. Think splummer , Ron and stick were there then too. Anybody else ? Scouts out Sir !!

[39mto39g]

The History channel telling a true story? I'll have to see it before I say anything about it except, I dought it.
I dought if there is even enough time to tell a small part of the story of Tet 68 and what location do they pick, Hue, Phu Bai, Sigon, Lang Vei, somewhere in the delta, ?

Ron

[DMZ-LT]

Thought it was pretty good . Frank used to tell me we all have our own movies in our head and I know he was right . Served with a guy in the 101st that landed on the roof of the embassy and cleared it

[SuperScout]

Thanks again for the 'heads-up' about the show. Overall, it seemed that the presentation did not convey the enormity of the attack - just repeatedly showing arrows coming down from the north to various parts of South Vietnam was quite ineffectual. In those scenes that were shown, I didn't get the impression that the vast difference in total casualty figures was presented, with more emphasis on the US losses than the NVA/VC.

The on-camera interviews with Keith W. Nolan were interesting - I never knew what he looked like, although we have spent many hours on the phone and Internet. Frank was right - we all have our own movies.

[39mto39g]

I only watch a little then turned it, I have to agree with SS, on tha casualty part.
Losses during Tet Offensive

Country/Force Killed Wounded Missing
US, Korea, Australia 1,536 7,764 11
South Viet Nam 2,788 8,299 587
North Viet Nam and VC 45,000 not known not known
Civilian 14,000 24,000

This came from
http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-...ietnam/tet.htm

Ron

[splummer]

I probably didn't know what was going on and that it was called the Tet Offensive until some time after it was over and the guns stopped for a while. The civilians in Hue were comming up to our guys and telling us, in their broken english that the war would be over soon, because most of the VC were dead. The history channel didn't mention the 100's of civilians in Hue that the NVA murdered . I knew about that at the time, before I ever read about it, years later. The news reports back home must have been terrible talking about American casualties. My father wrote me that he hoped and prayed that I was all right. [He wasn't a real religious man and never talked or wrote that way.]

[SuperScout]

After the evening news broadcast and televised the one-sided version, I got more letters from my folks and everybody else that knew I was involved than ever before or since. The impression that was conveyed to them by the Walter Cronkite types was that we had had our asses kicked from one end of the country to the other, and it was just a matter of time before we would have to flee. Thank you Uncle Waltie, for lying so convincingly. May the wrinkled cheeks of your ass grow shut tomorrow.

I'm not certain about the time-frame when I became aware of the atrocities of Hue. BTW: the number of dead was in the thousands, not hundreds. I distinctly remember the horrible photographs of the gravesites, and seeing how many of them had been buried alive. But not one of condemnation by the leftists about the war crimes that were committed by their heroes, the North Vietnamese.

Sad to say, but in many respects, the sell-out by the mainstream media of our warriors is too much alike for me to ignore. They didn't like us then, they don't like us now. And America will be the worse off for that.

[splummer]

I really hate the media for what they did then [and now]. I didn't read newspapers or watch the news for years after. When I went home in Jan 1969, I thought the war was almost over.