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00:00You
00:30We
00:33Went around the corner
00:35all hell broke loose
00:38Grenades everywhere booby traps you were fighting for your life
00:47Communists completely controlled the city the odds were phenomenal against
01:00You
01:08You're fighting for the guy next to you, and he's fighting for you. That's the only thing you were fighting for
01:18There were Marines with with bullet holes with burns with broken bones that refused medevac
01:27It was just amazing I mean
01:30They would get hit medevac back to McVie compound
01:34They would crawl out the window and come back to a platoon to keep fighting
01:45It wasn't apple pie it wasn't any noble cause of freedom from Vietnam
01:53What it was it drove us
01:55was the love of
01:57Your brother Marine, and if you would leave them there would be tremendous guilt
02:27You
02:57I
03:15Got to Vietnam and signed alpha company first battalion first Marines
03:20Then on 30 January
03:231968 we got sent to Fubai
03:26Half of the company did not make it because of
03:31Insufficient helicopters to fly so we had a company of approximately 150 Marines, which was at half-strength
03:40Fubai was supposed to be a little rest and relaxation
03:45Most of us at alpha company had not eaten a hot meal in four or five months
03:51We had not taken showers
03:55I
04:12Served with first soon golf company second tag fifth Marines
04:16They had pulled us back to
04:19Fubai
04:20which was a real luxury for us, you know, that's where they had hot showers and a mess all real food and
04:27That was kind of a nice break
04:30Or at least we thought
04:35In late January the Americans and the South Vietnamese were aware of unusual movements by the NVA
04:42But
04:46Nothing had indicated that underfoot was one of the greatest strategic surprises in all of military history
04:58The enemy strikes and sweeps through the whole country in a single stroke
05:03They infiltrate tens of thousands of North Vietnamese regulars and Viet Cong guerrillas
05:08They strike the big cities
05:11Saigon
05:13Danang
05:14They strike every provincial capital every key Hamlet most vitally they strike way
05:28Way is more than the beautiful cultural center of nation
05:32It is the heart of South Vietnam's logistical and transportation center critical to the American war effort
05:39It is a key objective of the enemy to be taken and held while they re-educate the population to inspire a people's revolution
05:49But for all its towering strategic value
05:52There was hardly any u.s. Military in the city except for a handful of advisors at the Mac V compound
05:59regional headquarters for military assistance command Vietnam
06:09Sometime in the middle of the night our company commander woke us up and told us to saddle up
06:15That the Mac V compound in Way City needed our help
06:20And we'd be back by noon
06:30Now being salty Marines I had wet socks, so I just put my combat boots on with no socks
06:35I had wet socks, so I just put my combat boots on with no socks took one bandolier of ammo, and we load it up on trucks
06:47When we started out the way city, I really
06:50Was thinking wow this is gonna be cool. You know the old imperial capital and
06:55Citadel from a couple thousand years before and that one particular day the Lunar New Year
07:01We were thinking you know bad guys were supposed to stand down and of course didn't think anything about it
07:07you know a nice truck ride go to Way City and do a little sightseeing and wow this is great and
07:13It just keeps getting better
07:31These
07:36Were terribly confusing days for the for the Americans and for the Marines
07:41Reports from all over of North Vietnamese everywhere disasters and rumors
07:46They didn't know that this was a major offensive that there were everywhere in the country there were North Vietnamese and Viet Cong
07:54running rampant
07:56Striking so many targets
07:58Communications line the network just blew out almost with all these emergency reports help us. We're being overrun. We need supporting arms
08:05We need reinforcements help us
08:08So way yes, they're in way, but we didn't know how bad and what was there?
08:13So as the first rifle company from Phu Bai
08:17Came up the road to way
08:19They still don't understand the range and depth of the North Vietnamese defenses
08:26And they were waiting for us. It was a death trap
08:56And
08:58We
09:00And
09:25We got to the MACV compound there was a lull in the in the fighting
09:30They repelled. I don't know how many attacks. They had barely survived the surge their walls had been breached and
09:38I could remember there was a wall and
09:41They started cheering us as we came in
09:44because they had been through hell and
09:47They thought that we were there to save the day and you know little did we know the numerical
09:54numbers of NVA there
09:57After making it the MACV
10:00Short while later the captain gave the order for us to advance across the perfume River Bridge
10:06Which is considerably long
10:09Looked even longer after they started shooting
10:26When I got to the river I just across the river I saw a big NVA flag
10:31And I saw hundreds of NVA which now quantity and content we had seen the enemy, but this was
10:39Something like we've never seen before hundreds of them, and they had
10:44the best equipment because before the the
10:47Attack on way city they had broken into an Arvin armory
10:51Which had all-american weapons and bullets and they had stolen all that so they were well armed
11:01Our company's role was to fire support across the river for Gulf Company to cross
11:14When Gulf Company started to go across I thought
11:18It's such a narrow field of fire a narrow killing zone and as they went across
11:25machine guns opened up NVA machine guns
11:28rockets mortars
11:33And we were taking fire the whole time going across here
11:36There's occasionally a few little sting in the legs where the concrete was getting kicked up from the round
11:47The
11:52Gulf Company had little cover and concealment so that they went across there was a hundred and fifty
11:58Marines from Gulf Company approximately that went across that bridge
12:10Fifty were dead or wounded
12:18I
12:19remember the gunny and I
12:21Going off into the bridge and dragging these guys back the dead and wounded. I mean they were just chewed up
12:47And
12:56What we didn't know is on the first day of way city
13:00There was nine battalions of NVA
13:03nine
13:05Numerically that put us at that point at a few hundred to one odds
13:11And these were not Viet Cong these were trained NVA troops with
13:18weapons and training and the ability and
13:22This was their battle to end this war
13:28Most of us thought we'd never get out
13:41You
13:54The opening shock and confusion of the Tet Offensive now sweeping across all of South Vietnam
14:00Has sent a few hundred Marines into a deathtrap
14:02The
14:04Few Viet Cong guerrillas they expected to find while we're leaving the MACV compound and way turn out to be more than
14:1110,000 NVA regulars
14:14We have two rifle companies at best
14:18300
14:19We are losing men left and right
14:22There's great confusion
14:25They still don't know that they're facing 10,000 North Vietnamese regulars waiting for
14:33I
14:37Remember the gunny
14:38Gunny, Kenley is a marine legend
14:41He didn't talk much and he came by on his rounds and I'm looking out
14:47And I said gunny, how's it look?
14:50And the gun he said it don't look good legato
14:53With
15:00The outbreak of Tet and the seizure of way
15:04The Marines were located at Fubai a crossroads airfield
15:09This was a home of the headquarters of task force x-ray
15:13under the command of Brigadier General Foster look you
15:17The reports he had were way were conflicting and confusing
15:22General Hugh
15:23responded to these urgent
15:26calls for reinforcements
15:28By sending Fox company up in helicopters to the outskirts of way and putting them into the fray
15:38We were given the impression that we were to go into way city
15:42Report to one one they were having a little bit of difficulty there and we'd probably be back in a couple of days
15:51I commend the country. I'd been there about two weeks
15:56Lieutenant come over and said break the platoon down the helicopter teams. I said, where are we going? He said I don't know
16:21There anything
16:27Calling Angie say again
16:34Hey
16:51Run down the street and we had all these big buildings and the guys are all looking around to them
16:57We don't know where the hell we're at
16:59We just come out of the rice paddy
17:11We went around the corner started down the street no help broke loose
17:21They were just zapping us as fast as we run around the damn corner
17:30They were in elevated positions in the building shooting down on us
17:39They get hit from the neck up and back down we couldn't we couldn't move
17:43And
17:50Everybody's just sitting there. They don't know what they all they've been in
17:52They're just sitting there looking looking the guy started getting their ammo putting it in their magazines
17:58Checking their rifles because then they realized this is it
18:04When your brain is in
18:07Jungle mode and all of a sudden you find yourself in the middle of a city being fired at
18:11It was a totally different war
18:15None of our lieutenants had had real training in urban warfare
18:20Our troops had not really had training in urban warfare
18:25You'd run across the street
18:27And you look around and the guys that were on your flanks
18:30They're laying out in the street and pretty soon, you know, you just think
18:34Damn, how many people's are gonna take to get this place secured?
18:38Next one could be me
19:08I
19:38I
19:49Had been in country two weeks and I wind up one of the biggest battles of war way city
19:55And I get in there. I don't know what's happening, but I knew what we were supposed to do
20:00The younger guys the biggest problem they had was they had made friends and when your friend gets killed part of you gets killed
20:08When I went through boot camp, they taught you you don't make friends only acquaintances
20:13Then when they get killed, you're not gonna lose any part of you. I
20:18Wanted to take care of them they were young they were like my sons
20:22But you just can't do it. You just lose part of yourself every time you lose one of them
20:27And you've only got so many parts
20:30I
20:32Affected me for a long time
20:35As a matter of fact, there's one young kid. I still see his face
20:39Salazar I
20:41Sent flowers to his grave every year in Texas
20:45He just he looked like he was smiling all the time he gets killed and it just always stayed in my mind
21:00The
21:03Small brotherhood of only a few hundred Marines face an overwhelming enemy 10,000 strong
21:12But already they are adapting to the gruesome realities of urban combat
21:17In the hours to come their unparalleled heroism and relentless courage would inspire daring new tactics
21:25And incredible feats of human perseverance as they fight to save their brothers in savage and barbaric battles
21:33against the odds
21:42You
21:44You
21:47You
22:11Ambushed and under savage attack and play by a dug-in enemy
22:15an enemy outnumbering the small Marine Brotherhood of 101,
22:19they find the odds stacked against them in all directions.
22:26Marines are trained to fight as an air-ground team,
22:30but that was not available, any of it,
22:32on the first days in the Battle for Hawaii.
22:35The weather was bad, no aircraft could really fly safely.
22:40Even worse for the Marines is a smothering order
22:43not to damage the historic Old City.
22:46The Marines are forbidden by rules of engagement
22:49to use napalm, naval gunfire, artillery, or mortars,
22:55the prime tools of urban combat.
23:00In those first days, they were going pretty much
23:02just with their own individual weapons
23:05against heavily defended,
23:08heavily defended, well-armed pockets of North Vietnamese
23:12who were just waiting for them.
23:20The enemy had defended in strong points,
23:23so every several blocks, there would be a strong point.
23:28So you got the upper floors, you got snoopers,
23:33and down that street, there was a machine gun.
23:38And that machine gun had flanking fire directly down.
23:41Mystery.
23:49Just intense fire.
23:54It was like the typical scene
23:56in one of these World War II movies,
23:58concrete ships flying everywhere.
24:00As we certainly learned on that first day,
24:03trying to go down both sides of the street
24:05and finding that totally ineffective,
24:09we had to adapt quickly,
24:10and that was sort of a natural thing for these Marines.
24:16Americans adapt.
24:18We improvise.
24:21The most ferocious fighting we've ever seen.
24:24We've never seen anything like it.
24:26We improvise.
24:28The most ferocious fighting machine
24:31the world has ever seen is a 19-year-old pissed-off Marine.
24:38Because you'll take that kid from Detroit or Mississippi,
24:42and you'll train him in Marine Corps boot camp,
24:45and you'll put him in a situation that's foreign to him,
24:49and he will adapt and improvise
24:52and become that situation and deal with it.
24:57We made the decision,
24:58and I think we made the choice.
25:15Ernie Cheatham got there with the battalion headquarters.
25:18The decision was made,
25:19the only way to do this
25:21is to, in fact,
25:23go frontly, house-by-house.
25:25Colonel Cheatham, what's the objective, and what are your men about to do?
25:33Well, I've got two companies here that are just about to clear the next two blocks up.
25:41What kind of fighting is it going to be?
25:43It's house to house and from room to room.
25:49The rules of engagement were fairly stringent.
25:54We were not to use any indirect fire weapons, interpreted by us to be artillery.
26:01But when Lieutenant Colonel Cheatham arrived in the third, the emphasis on these rules
26:06of engagement dissipated.
26:09And our directions from him was if you even suspect there's enemy in the building, blow
26:15the building down.
26:16We were blowing holes through the wall down with the .35s, and they'd take a hole out
26:25you could drive a tank through.
26:31What we would do is blast holes through each wall, and we'd go through that wall and clear
26:35that courtyard.
26:36And blast a hole through the next wall, and we just worked our way down the street that
26:41way.
26:44These young Marines, one idea after another, they were always aggressive.
26:49They were always innovative.
26:51And that's what makes the Marine Corps go around.
26:59We learned that when you take a building, you've got to go in the building, you've got
27:03to take every room, and you've got to secure every room.
27:07Then you move on to the next building, you do the same thing.
27:11I guess they just didn't realize they were fighting the United States Marines, and we
27:14were going to get that damn building.
27:17It didn't make a damn if we had to blow it all up, blow them up, the people beside them,
27:21but we were getting that building.
27:23And that's what we did.
27:24We took it building by building, room by room, and the guys were just, they were just wonderful.
27:30They just fought their butts off.
28:00We were trying to advance.
28:13The NVA was dug in.
28:15They were firing B-40 rockets, RPGs, and we couldn't move.
28:21We were pinned down again, and we were losing a lot of Marines.
28:25The operations officer from our battalion was hit pretty bad, and the Marines were crying
28:31out, and even though Major Murphy was hit bad, he was shouting encouragement to the
28:36other Marines.
28:38And he eventually asked for a pen and paper, and he wrote a note to his wife.
28:46And then he signaled for Father Lyons.
28:50Father Lyons had been hit in the leg, and men lifted up Father Lyons to Major Murphy,
28:57and he gave him last rites.
29:00And the last thing Major Murphy said, may God help my Marines.
29:20The one thing that I'll never forget, the Marines, most of us were wounded.
29:48Now normally, if a Marine is wounded, shrapnel, you break your leg, whatever, you'd go to
29:54the rear and you'd get fixed up, and it was sort of a nice two, three day R&R.
29:58You'd get stitched up or tetanus shot, and you'd come back.
30:04There were Marines with bullet holes, with shrapnel in them, with eardrums busted, with
30:10burns, with broken bones, that refused medevac.
30:16In fact, many times Marines were wounded, and they were so afraid that they wouldn't
30:21be able to go back, that they faked going back for medical treatment.
30:26Guys were walking using their weapons as crutches.
30:29And the thing is, it wasn't, at that point, apple pie, it wasn't any noble cause of freedom
30:37for Vietnam.
30:38What it was that drove us was the love of your brother Marine, and if you would leave
30:44them, there would be tremendous guilt.
30:51As the Marines adapt and innovate to overcome the carnage of block-by-block urban combat,
30:57they face a sobering fact.
31:00There are thousands more of the enemy than of them.
31:03For the NVA, such facts of attrition are critical.
31:09It is only a matter of time before they bleed the diminishing Marines into non-existence.
31:16But the Marines know something they don't, and it is no small fact.
31:21Marines don't give a damn about statistics, only winning.
31:27Hue is about to become one of the deadliest battles of the entire Vietnam War.
31:33Come on, let's go!
31:39Go!
31:40Go!
31:41Go!
31:42Go!
31:43Go!
31:44Go!
31:45Go!
31:46Go!
31:47Go!
31:48Go!
31:49Go!
31:50Go!
31:51Go!
31:52Go!
31:53Go!
31:54Go!
31:55Go!
31:56Go!
31:57Go!
31:58Go!
31:59Go!
32:00Go!
32:01Go!
32:02Go!
32:03Go!
32:04Go!
32:05Go!
32:06Go!
32:07Go!
32:09There was also a saying in Vietnam when I got there, you know, I was 19 and these guys
32:15that were 19 had been there one month longer than me, were like God.
32:20They had wisdom.
32:24And they used to say, you can kill me, but you can't eat me.
32:32And I didn't know what that meant.
32:35But I figured out what it meant, is you're in Vietnam and you're humping 50, 60 pounds
32:40of gear and ammo and you have 110 degree weather.
32:51We slept out in the monsoons and you got leeches, you got dysentery.
32:59And it comes a point where if killing me is the worst thing you can do, that's like
33:05not good enough anymore.
33:08If that's your best shot to kill me, I'm not afraid to die.
33:12And at Way City, that feeling, you know, again, with everybody being wounded, okay, go ahead,
33:18you know, you can kill me, but you can't eat me.
33:38You always had that fear that this would be the last time you would go into a building
33:58because you thought, wow, I'm going in here, what am I going to hit or who's going to be
34:04in there?
34:08Battle was just intense everywhere around you.
34:16There was no such thing as danger close.
34:19The difference about urban conflict is you're 35 meters from your enemy, you're looking
34:25at him and he's looking at you.
34:30When you accomplish your mission, you had that big sigh of, boy, I made it through this
34:36one.
34:37But there was also the thought of, well, where are we going next and now what do we have
34:42to do?
34:49I mean, we were moving blocks.
34:51We were occupying buildings that the enemy used to occupy.
34:56This was war as we understood it.
35:13One of the things when you fight in an urban area is because of the din, unbelievable total
35:21noise, the fact that you physically are going over, you're going through rubble, you really
35:27get very physically tired.
35:31It's a tough and difficult fight.
35:36We used so many hand grenades that they started issuing hand grenades from World War II.
35:41That's all they had left.
35:43We just ran out of hand grenades.
35:45We had blown up every room in there that we could.
36:11On the 14th of February, the Marines accomplish the impossible.
36:15They recapture the southern half of Hue, below the Perfume River, from the grasp of an enemy
36:21100 times their size.
36:25But it has left only a few hundred exhausted and walking wounded Marines, and the battle
36:31is far from over.
36:36Across the river lies the northern half of the city, a complex maze of fortress-like
36:41structures held by an estimated 8,000 dug-in NVA, a modern-day Thermopylae.
36:50It was there that the Greek warriors stood side-by-side against an overwhelming Persian
36:55enemy.
36:58Their creed of brotherhood could easily transcend the thousands of years to the Marines at way.
37:06Rise up, warriors.
37:08Take your stand at one another's sides.
37:11Our feet set wide and rooted like oaks in the ground.
37:18Learn to love death's ink-black shadow as much as you love the light of dawn.
37:24Here is courage, mankind's finest possession.
37:30Here is the noblest prize that a young man can endeavor to win.
37:38No warrior ever embodied this ethos more than the Marines at way.
37:54Charge 626.
38:15With weeks of murderous fighting to clear the southern position of way now behind them,
38:20the Marines launch an even tougher battle across the Perfume River to clear the northern
38:24half of the city.
38:27Over 8,000 entrenched NVA are waiting.
38:36With the main bridge over the Perfume River blown, the Marines load on to Navy LCUs, large
38:43open-decked landing craft for a three-mile downstream flanking attack.
38:50The exposed passage would become a deadly gauntlet as NVA machine gunners and mortar
38:56crews prepare to unleash hell on the oncoming troops.
39:12Get down!
39:15Incoming!
39:18Heavy fire!
39:23We're going to freeze down here in a minute.
39:31Can you hold on?
39:38After fighting the first half of the battle with crucially needed air and naval gunfire
39:42support withheld, the political handcuffs come off entirely.
39:53Cruisers and destroyers of the 7th Fleet opened fire on targets a dozen miles away.
40:02Marine fighter-bombers sweep in low, laying in napalm and high explosives.
40:33Fire!
40:36Fire!
40:39Fire!
40:42Fire!
40:45Fire!
40:48Fire!
40:51Way City would be declared secure on the 2nd of March, 1968.
41:14The once beautiful and cultural center of Vietnam lay in ruins.
41:21Over 3,500 of its citizens were dead, murdered in cold blood by the NVA, and buried in mass graves.
41:30Another 116,000 citizens were now homeless refugees.
41:37The great uprising the NVA had hoped for, that would help push America out of Vietnam,
41:43never materialized.
41:49Do I believe we won Tet of 68?
41:51Darn right we did.
41:53We would win tactically, but psychologically, the war-weary United States and its public
42:00was just not there for it anymore.
42:03So Tet, in my mind, became the Gettysburg of our own Civil War.
42:10It was a turning point.
42:16In the end, it would take 31 days and cost the Allies 4,400 combat casualties.
42:25But for those Marines and soldiers who had clawed their way through building after building
42:30against impossible odds, the victory was nothing short of a miracle.
42:44Having this all said and done, I don't believe we could have done it any better.
42:48I think we did a fine job.
42:49I think we accomplished the mission that we set out to do.
42:52It took a lot longer than we thought it was going to, but I think the end result was a
43:00job well done.
43:06They really weren't kids anymore.
43:07They grew into men right there.
43:11They really grew up, and I was proud to be damn one of them.
43:20Some of the Marines I served with, Jimmy Sullivan, Pat Fraley, Herman Watkins, Eddie Neese, though
43:2819, ran consistently into enemy fire, ran consistently exposing themselves while saving
43:34other Marines.
43:40I really saw probably some of the bravest men that I'd ever see in my life, and I would
43:47do it again tomorrow with the same group of guys.
43:58You know, they say of Iwo Jima, uncommon valor was a common virtue.
44:05That's what I saw in Wei.
44:09The inspiration of just how they looked after each other.