The Tet Offensive

The Tet Offensive

The Tet Offensive took place from January 30, 1968 to September 23, 1968.  It was a large-scale attack led by the Vietcong forces against the U.S. and the South Vietnamese army.  The assault began during the lunar new year named Tet.  It is the most important holiday on the Vietnamese calendar.  In the past years it had always been time for an informal truce between the North and South Vietnamese.  The main objective of the offensive was to drive a wedge in between the U.S. and south Vietnamese and cause a rebellion among the south. 

The actual attack’s began on January 21, 1968 on remote Marine garrisons.  They also began an artillery barrage on the Khe Sanh garrison.  These attacks where bait for the Americans to distract them from the real Vietcong threat.  The Vietcong in under 24 hours of their attack had launched more than 120 attacks on various South Vietnamese targets.  The targets ranged from cities and villages to American bases.  A major attack the Vietcong launched was the attack on the U.S. embassy in Saigon this attack was quickly repelled by U.S. forces. 

The Tet Offensive was a major turning point in the war for the Vietcong.  Back home in the U.S. public moral and support for the war dropped.  This led to even more people being against the war.  It also had a psychological effect on the Soldiers and the U.S. it showed that the Vietcong were not as weak as they had been made to look.  This would lead to the slow withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam.

Because of the Tet Offensive both sides had suffered lots of casualties and both sides had victories.  On one hand the U.S. was able to repel the attacks and inflict heavy damage to the Vietcong.  On another the Vietcong failed to take over anything significant and thinned their forces out, but they caused a public outcry in the U.S. public that led to the demise of the U.S. in Vietnam.  It was a military victory for the U.S. and political defeat.  The Vietcong lost an estimated 50,000 of there 85,000 strong attacking force.  The U.S. lost roughly 4,000.  Overall the Tet Offensive was a turning point in the war that led to the U.S. pulling out of Vietnam.  It was arguably the biggest series of battles that took place in the war and what swayed the war into the way it ended.

Captured Vietcong Solider after Saigon embassy attack

https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/tet-offensive

Maya Lin and the Impact of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial In Washington D.C

An image of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C

Maya Lin was born on October 5, 1959. She was national recognized at age 21 for her design for the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C. She also is the creator of Civil Rights Memorial Center, Museum of Chinese of America. After the Vietnam there was contest for designs to represent all the veterans that had fallen in that war. So, Maya being an architecture and sculpturing major at the university of Yale at the time when ahead and submitted a design. The relevancy of this was important for several reasons but the main reason is present day this monument is invaluable in both value and memory. But at the time not everyone was for the creation and building of the VVMF because the funding being pushed towards the memorial could’ve been spent helping several veterans that needed help. At the time there were no names on any of the designs and at the time if that wasn’t the case she believed that her design wouldn’t have been chosen. Once getting to this point she started going under fire simply for the fact that she was young student of Asian descent and that she was a woman. Others didn’t like how simply the design and felt it was a minimalistic design and was not paying enough homage for their service and sacrifice. One person even testified in front of the Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) against the design, and he was a former supporter of the design, veteran and lawyer Tom Carhart. Going as far as saying that “One needs no artistic education to see this design for what it is, a black trench that scars the Mall. Black walls, the universal color of shame and sorrow and degradation.” Which was controversial because Vietnam was a war where color did not play a role in general, and so the argument that the color of the walls being black was invalid and held no meaning positive or negative. After a couple debates Maya had moved to Washington to be able to have control over her design as it was being built. But at the end of the day with all of the controversial feelings and debates, one thing is certain the VVM is priceless and a timeless memorial created by one who will go down in history.

http://www.vvmf.org/the-controversy