ABSTRACT
The Tet Offensive was the largest and most important campaign of the American Vietnam War, and it also changed the course of that war. Taking advantage of the cease-fire called to celebrate Tet, the beginning of the lunar new year and Vietnam’s most important holiday, some 84,000 VietCong and NVA soldiers launched simultaneous attacks during the early morning hours of January 30, 1968,1 extending from the demilitarized zone in the north to the Ca Mau peninsula in the south. They attacked 5 of the 6 largest cities, including Saigon, 36 of 44 provincial capitals, and 64 of 242 district capitals. Within South Vietnam’s beleaguered towns and cities, ARVN forces, its ranks depleted by the absence of many soldiers who went home for the holidays, fought to defend governmental and military installations, the major targets of the enemy assaults. The offensive caught the Allied command by surprise. Convinced that any enemy assaults would occur on the northernmost provinces and the Marine base at Khe Sanh, the Allied leaders “could not conceive of an attack of the magnitude of what occurred during the Tet holiday.”2
