Article

2018-03-07 Fifth Column

50 Years Ago, A Marine Victory in Vietnam Was Considered a Defeat by the Media

[Hudson.org] A mainstream media that reshapes reality to fit a preordained political agenda isn’t something that started only recently. A half century ago America’s major news organization deliberately buried the true story of one of the crucial battles of the Vietnam War, and one of the Marine Corps’ greatest achievements: the 31-day battle for the South Vietnamese city of Hue that ended on March 2, 1968.

The fight for Hue set a standard for Marine courage and endurance that stands beside the World War II Battle of Iwo Jima and the Korean War Battle of Inchon.

But 50 years later, few Americans even know what our Marines accomplished at Hue because the battle didn’t fit a biased media’s narrative then and now ‐ the claim that in 1968 we were losing the War in Vietnam. The time has come to set the record straight.
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On Feb. 28, Marines moved to cut off the remaining NVA forces fleeing the city. On March 2 Operation Hue City officially ended, after 216 Americans had been killed in action and 1,584 were wounded. Communist losses were more than 5,000 killed and wounded.

For many Marines, the American flag flying over the provincial administration building on Hue’s Le Loi Street was a sight as inspiring as the flag that flew over Mount Suribachi during the 1945 Battle of Iwo Jima.

But Americans at home learned almost nothing about this. The media was so set on painting the Tet Offensive as a U.S. defeat, and convincing Americans that the U.S. was (in Walter Cronkite’s words) "mired in a stalemate" in Vietnam, that they largely ignored how the Marines at Hue had achieved a stupendous victory.

The media also ignored the discovery of bodies of 2,800 civilians and captured South Vietnamese soldiers who had been ruthlessly murdered by Viet Cong death squads, including teachers, doctors, nurses and students.

Fifty years later, we need to honor what the U.S. Marine Corps accomplished during the siege of Hue.

We also need to remember that our liberal media has a long history of twisting the truth beyond recognition in pursuit of a political agenda ‐ and in the case of Vietnam, of cheating American servicemen and women of the recognition they deserve for their valor and sacrifice.

Posted by Herb McCoy7309 2018-03-07 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11136 views ] Top

#1 What they wanted to remember was the photograph taken of the summary execution of Nguyen Van Lem. That was what the MSM wanted to remember...

Posted by magpie 2018-03-07 02:24|| 2018-03-07 02:24|| Front Page Top

#2 As so often happens, the crime was doing it in front of a camera.

Posted by Skidmark 2018-03-07 08:11|| 2018-03-07 08:11|| Front Page Top

#3 Remember when we were surprised by an enemy attack in the winter, an enemy on its back heel and all but defeated, that overran our troops, destroyed and entire division? It's called the Battle of Bulge. Using the 1968 metric, we lost. Even though, as with Tet, large portions of the enemy's forces were destroyed and his gains where gone within two months. Oh, and those enemy caught out of uniform were shot as well, just with a little more play of rituals.

Yes, we consider the Legacy Infotainment Enterprises (LIEs) to be part of the enemy, why do you have to ask?

Posted by Procopius2k 2018-03-07 08:13|| 2018-03-07 08:13|| Front Page Top

#4 Tet Offensive saw the complete destruction fo the Viet Cong as a fighting force because they foolishly came out in the open to strike a blow knowing the world media would side with them. Even our enemies understood the nature of the media.

Posted by rjschwarz 2018-03-07 08:25|| 2018-03-07 08:25|| Front Page Top

#5 Yes, Tet of 1968 was a great victory for the US in the Viet Nam war. Had the media not snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and turned public opinion against the conflict, I personally think we would have won that sucker.

I have the opinion that the media's animus toward the Tet was directed by their handlers. It is not a coincidence that everyone one of our major victories was downplayed and missteps and losses were front page news.

My company was on a search and destroy mission and we happened to come across a large NVA unit moving through a large clearing. We had the high ground and my tracks had hull defilade. We blasted them, they ran around in the clearing unsure of where the fire was coming from. We hit them with mortars, 50 cals, and the platoon of tanks attached to my unit fired on them. At the end, we killed over 1200 and sent them fleeing back north in tatters.

I called in the regimental HQ for intel to come take a look. The press came along as our PR guy thought it would be good news. Each and everyone of those bastards called me a liar because when they asked about US casualties, I said "none" they refused to believe we could kill that many NVA without a single casualty. They went through my unit to a man asking about wounded or killed and got the same story. They left in a huff. I had to be physically restrained from clocking one of them who called me every name under the sun because I "lied" about my dead..."Don't you care about your men?"

To this day, I am convinced our media is completely controlled by the Soviets...err...Russians. And all of this stuff with the dossier comes as no surprise.

Joe McCarthy was right and that is why the knives came out for him. He was too close to the truth.

Posted by Sock Puppet of Doom 2018-03-07 10:10|| 2018-03-07 10:10|| Front Page Top

#6 #4) ^Were they 'foolish' or zealots doing a "Death Or Glory Charge" that they were certain would succeed? History is full of such antics and their belief that the "Proletariat would rise en masse and usher in the Great Revolution™ is easy to see.
Also, on a more cynical note, the bloodbath of Southern communist leaders cleared the field for the Northern nomenklatura to appoint their own relatives to power -- quite the Win-Win for the North!

Posted by magpie 2018-03-07 13:02|| 2018-03-07 13:02|| Front Page Top

#7 The execution was memorable, and a victory. Just not from the communist media consortium's point of view...

Posted by M. Murcek 2018-03-07 13:18|| 2018-03-07 13:18|| Front Page Top

#8 magpie, I believe the Northern leaders had the end of the Viet Cong as a fighting/political force in mind when they ordered the Viet Cong on the suicidal Tet Offensive. Commies always eat their own eventually.

Posted by rjschwarz 2018-03-07 13:40|| 2018-03-07 13:40|| Front Page Top

#9 Wow!
You guys are OLD.

Posted by Skidmark 2018-03-07 14:53|| 2018-03-07 14:53|| Front Page Top

#10 Skid,

You keep using the "O" word to describe some of us...

Have I told you about my experiences with Julie in Gaul yet?

Posted by Sock Puppet of Doom 2018-03-07 17:52|| 2018-03-07 17:52|| Front Page Top

#11 Re: #2 Skid,
When my six-year-old son who was playing at his friend's house was brought home by the local constabulary for throwing snowballs at a passing car, my comment to him was, "I am not going to tell you that I never put a foot wrong growing up. But I will tell that I never got caught. Wise up".

Posted by Angailet Slalet4696 2018-03-07 19:06|| 2018-03-07 19:06|| Front Page Top

#12 Remember Tet 1969! What, no one remembers? That’s because we killed them all the year before. After that, it was mostly disease-ridden, decimated NVA. I hate all so-called journalists to this day.

Posted by Blackbeard Bumble5724 2018-03-07 19:41|| 2018-03-07 19:41|| Front Page Top

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