It’s Not Like Vietnam, It’s Not Like Vietnam, Oh Wait…It’s Like Vietnam
“You’re all in the process of making history,” Kent boomed in a clarion voice. “This is another Hue city in the making. I have no doubt, if we do get the word, that each and every one of you is going to do what you have always done — kick some butt.” Sgt. Maj. Carlton W. Kent, speaking to the Marines preparing to assault Fallujah
February 1968: The Battle for Hue wages for 26 days as US and South Vietnamese forces try to recapture the site seized by the Communists during the Tet Offensive. Previously, a religious retreat in the middle of a war zone, Hue was nearly leveled in a battle that left nearly all of its population homeless. PBS Vietnam War Timeline
It was the single worst battle of the war. There were over 10,000 people killed in that battle. Terence Smith of PBS’ Newshour, discussing the Battle for Hue
Within a few weeks of the Battle for Hue, General Westmoreland requested 206,000 more troops, and the My Lai massacre happened.
Let’s hope I’m pushing the Sgt. Major’s Hue analogy too far.
Footnote: my link for the Kent quote goes to an AP story posted on the Fox News site. What’s interesting is that there are two different variations of this paragraph out there, and it’s not clear which is the true AP version. The Fox version says “Kent boomed in a clarion voice” whereas other publications of the same paragraph (see the Seattle Times version) simply say “Kent told a crowd of some 2,500 Marines.” I’m curious as to whether the clarion call version is the original, or if that’s a Fox embellishment.
