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by Past Commander Jim Traner, 1^st Squadron, 11^th Armored Cavalry Regiment, USA

I know that the WWII veterans who were there have a vivid memory of the Battle of the Bulge.  The Tet Offensive left similar memories  for anyone who was “in country” on January 31, 1968.  For those who are unfamiliar with the term, Tet is Vietnam’s New Year and there was to be a cease fire during the week of Tet.  Instead, virtually the entire county was  attacked by a well-coordinated offensive by the Vietcong.  It’s been 48 years since the Tet Offensive but for those of us “in county” at that time, it doesn’t seem that long ago.  My unit, 1^st Squadron, 11^th Armored Cavalry Regiment, was south of the Michelin Rubber Plantation in the north end of Iron Triangle at the outbreak of Tet Offensive. We had been in contact with enemy units on a fairly consistent basis in the preceding week with A Troop bearing the brunt of the casualties.  You’d have thought that someone somewhere in the intelligence branch could have smelled a push coming since I doubt we were the only ones making contact with the enemy.  When Tet Offensive did hit, we were ordered to move down to protect Long Bien and Bien Hoa, a road trip that took 12 hours and covered about 80 miles.  Armored vehicles in a column have a tendency to kick up a bit of dust, particularly in “dry season” and I always seemed to be at the end of the column.   We were low on water and didn’t have time to resupply so it was a very hot, dusty, and thirsty trip.  As I recall, on the way south we went through a small village in the dark and saw what I thought was a low rock wall in the road ahead.  When I got along side of the ”wall” it was bodies of what I believe were civilians  assassinated by the VC earlier that day.  Without going into any details, we got to our destination at II Field Force HQ, the area we were sent to protect, and accomplished that mission. Later we moved to either Bien Hoa or Long Bien and some of the areas we went through looked like pictures of cities bombed in WWII.  Total devastation.  In the long run, the Tet Offensive resulted in a total defeat of the Vietcong but also costing a lot of American lives as well.

On a side note, I was due to go on R&R when Tet broke out.  Three of us from my unit ended up flying to Hong Kong on the first flight leaving Vietnam following Tet.  When we arrived, an Army information officer came on board and warned us not to talk to the reporters on the tarmac.  We had no idea what he was talking about but when got off the airplane there was a gauntlet of reporters and television cameras waiting for us.  Apparently the military had shut down access to Vietnam and these guys were chomping to get a story.  We didn’t talk, but I think we should have.  Walter Cronkite, the CBS News Anchor,  was saying the war was lost, and we knew we had just kicked ass.  But orders were orders…..