Reply #111: Why not ask Westmoreland?

[Ettico]

Westmoreland was theatre commander. The Marine commanders were under his command.

And who "failed" at Khe Sanh? 15,000 NVA were unable to dislodge a single, poorly supported (according to you) Marine regiment in 73 days. Seems to me it was the NVA that failed.

My understanding was that the Marines had no interest in holding the ground around Khe Sanh. Their interest was in killing as many of those 15,000 NVA as possible with bombs, pursuant to Westmoreland's attrition strategy. To that end, the Marine regiment was serving as "bait".

Being "bait" was nothing unusual for Marine combat units. To engage in attrition, you first have to find the enemy. Every small patrol was essentially bait. Hey, I've been bait myself. In fact, my CAP was a tripwire, positioned on an approach to the 5th Marines regimental base in the An Hoa valley. The 5th Marines destroyed an entire NVA regiment within 2 miles of us. I don't know exactly why that NVA regiment was in that particular place, on the wrong side of the river, but it seems safe to assume they were up to no good. Actually, their propaganda team had earlier threatened to overrun my CAP, and I told them, through a PF interpreter on a bullhorn, that they would all die if they didn't surrender. It was just a general, statistically-based prediction. I had no idea it would come to pass so dramatically. But that's another story.