New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

The film then picks up the story of Mogie Crocker again. He wanted to enlist in the Navy, but he was 17. His parents refused to sign the consent form and insisted that he go to college instead. He then ran away from home and stayed away for four months until he struck a deal with his folks. He would return if they gave their consent for him to join the Navy.

Le Duan launched his plan for decisive battles to destroy ARVN. Two thousand North Vietnamese regulars and Viet Cong were slated to seize the strategic hamlet of Binh Gia and destroy the South Vietnamese forces that would be sent to retake it. Heavy weapons had been smuggled onto the coast to aid in this upcoming battle. The scale of this plan had never been attempted by the North before.

On December 28th, the Vietcong advance elements overran the hamlet. Two South Vietnamese ranger companies went in the next day. They were ambushed and shot to pieces. More troops were sent in the next day and the Vietcong withdrew to outside of the village. An American observation helicopter was shot down and all four advisors were killed.

The next day an entire battalion of South Vietnamese troops was sent in to retrieve the bodies of the four Americans. The lead company was ambushed and they had twelve of their men killed. A helicopter flew in and picked up the bodies of the Americans but refused to pick up any of the South Vietnamese dead. The South Vietnamese stayed with their men as the light started to go away in the jungle.

Despite the urging of an American advisor, Phillip Brady, the South Vietnamese stayed put. They then were subjected to a heavy shelling from the North Vietnamese who attacked after the shelling stopped. In desperate fighting, 26 South Vietnamese and Americans broke out and 11 of them made it. The North Vietnamese/Vietcong picked up their casualties and shot any South Vietnamese wounded still left on the field. Tran Ngoc Toan, one of the film's interview subjects, was wounded and left behind. He played dead until the Vietcong left and then he began to crawl towards Binh Gia. He would not be found until three days later.

In all, five Americans had been killed in the battle of Binh Gia. 32 Vietcong bodies had been left on the battlefield. Two hundred South Vietnamese had been killed and 200 more were wounded. An American officer said of Binh Gia that the big thing is how a thousand or more enemy troops "could wander around the countryside so close to Saigon without being discovered. That tells you something about this war."

The North was jubilant. Ho Chi Minh called it a little Dien Bien Phu. Le Duan saw it as confirmation that his strategy would work. It was their most significant victory since Ap Bac.

Shortly after the battle, Lyndon Johnson was inaugurated as President. A week after that, McNamara gave Johnson a memorandum. It said the current strategy was not working and if an independent South Vietnam was to survive, the US needed to act fast. The US could try to negotiate a face saving settlement or it could use more of its military power to force the North to give up its goal of uniting the country. Bundy and McNamara favored the latter option.

Continued:       1       2       3       4       5