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A Sobering Crow
For their part, Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Communist troops were still confident of their ability to strike. While Viet Nam five weeks ago uneasily celebrated Tet, the main holiday of the year, Communist troops filtered stealth ily out of their sanctuaries toward major targets throughout the country. When the Buddhist Year of the Rooster was still only six days old, they were ready to sound their own sobering crow: a co ordinated offensive against practically every population and military center in South Viet Nam. Significantly, they chose to attack most often with long-range firepower, indicating that their numbers did not permit direct assault, and nearly all the major attacks were aimed at U.S. bases and outposts. Still, in the nationwide scope of the offensive and in the casualties they have been able to inflict on U.S. troops (1,140 dead after three weeks), the Communists proved that they can still threaten nearly any point in the country.
Moreover, in zones of traditionally heavy infiltration, they presented convincing evidence that they were indeed attempting to move in large ground forces—though they still did not commit all of some 22 regiments pulled out of northernmost I Corps last fall (see map, p. 27). To counter that most alarming of threats, the allies last week mounted two large-scale counteroffensives, virtually the first of such major sweeps of the Abrams era. West of Saigon, some 10,000 troops from three U.S. divisions, using tanks and armored vehicles, swept through sections of the huge, French-owned Michelin rubber plantation in an effort to rout some 7,500 Communist soldiers. Only 40 miles from the capital, the overgrown, colonial-era plantation was being used as a staging ground for what the allies feared would be an assault on Saigon. In I Corps, the 3rd Marine Division completed their eight-week-old sweep through the A Shau Valley, long a Communist-infested staging shelter. From the forested slopes of this valley pour a steady stream of Communist troops bound either for the imperial capital of Hue or for Danang, the nation's second largest city, whose outskirts were penetrated during the current offensive and which has been shelled repeatedly. Despite some damage and the sharp increase in U.S. casualty figures, however, the 1969 offensive has so far not disrupted South Viet Nam as a country—thanks largely, no doubt, to Abrams' interdiction tactics.
As with the Tet attack of 1968, the current Communist offensive has served to underscore the urgency of building a strong government in Saigon. There is almost no way for the U.S. to disengage completely from the war until it can be turned over to a durable South Vietnamese government commanding trained and equipped troops, able to handle the indigenous Viet Cong who remain after all the North Vietnamese soldiers return home.
The Best Are Few
Just how good is the army of South Viet Nam (ARVN) at present? It is in slightly better shape than it was a year ago. With its training program under the direct supervision of U.S. military experts, the necessary skills and equipment are becoming available. Nearly all 821,000 South Vietnamese in uniform have received some training in counterinsurgency warfare, and the entire regular army has been equipped with