At a certain point he stopped fearing death or horrible maiming, he just expected it.

This shift in his thinking was subtle but profound. It had made him feel, not imagine or think, but feel how temporary was his life, and how, from one breath to the next, it could end.

He had seen two men, one of them his good friend, simply erased from existence in an instant. He had seen the man whose warmth comforted him in his hole through a freezing wet night lying stiff and dead. He had helped carry the shattered bodies of the wounded to the helicopters for evacuation. He had seen so much in the past two days. He felt a stab of hope, of exhilarating hope. DiLeo felt ? what?Relief? wasn?t a strong enough word. Word passed quickly from foxhole to foxhole that they were going. 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title. In Huế 1968, Bowden masterfully reconstructs this pivotal moment in the American War in Vietnam. When it ended, the American debate was never again about winning, only about how to leave. Played out over 24 days of terrible fighting and ultimately costing 10,000 combatant and civilian lives, the Battle of Huế was by far the bloodiest of the entire war. With unprecedented access to war archives in the US and Vietnam and interviews with participants from both sides, Bowden narrates each stage of this crucial battle through multiple points of view. After several futile and deadly days, Lieutenant Colonel Ernie Cheatham would finally come up with a strategy to retake the city, block by block and building by building, in some of the most intense urban combat since World War II. Captain Chuck Meadows was ordered to lead his 160-marine Golf Company against thousands of enemy troops in the first attempt to reenter Huế later that day. The commanders in country and politicians in Washington refused to believe the size and scope of the Front’s presence. By morning, all of Huế was in Front hands save for two small military outposts. on January 31, 10,000 National Liberation Front troops descended from hidden camps and surged across the city of 140,000. Part military action and part popular uprising, the Tet Offensive included attacks across South Vietnam, but the most dramatic and successful would be the capture of Huế, the country’s cultural capital. In mid-1967, the leadership in Hanoi had started planning an offensive intended to win the war in a single stroke. Yet General William Westmoreland, commander of American forces, announced a new phase of the war in which “the end begins to come into view.” The North Vietnamese had different ideas. His most ambitious work yet, Huế 1968, is the story of the centerpiece of the Tet Offensive and a turning point in the American War in Vietnam.īy January 1968, despite an influx of half a million American troops, the fighting in Vietnam seemed to be at a stalemate. Not since his New York Times bestseller Black Hawk Down has Mark Bowden written a book about a battle.

Huế 1968 by Mark Bowden