TBS 2-67 Cruisebook_Updated_7Jan23

Con Tien
CON TIEN
Word around town, as Plato tells it, was that whenever
someone would ask the Oracles of Delphi who the smartest
man in town was, the Oracle would say it was Socrates. This
came as a real surprise to him, since for years he’d been
telling anyone who’d listen that he didn’t know much at all.
So he duly climbed up Mt. Parnassus to ask them what was
going on.
“Ladies,” he asks, “why me? I know for certain that
there is much I don’t know.”
“Sure,” says the high priestess, “but you are the only
guy in town who knows it, so you win the prize.”
***
In the Asian regionals for Know­it­Alls Saigon placed first. It
was presumed, apparently, that there was an intrinsic
correlation between starch, jump­boot polish, and smarts.
So having cornered the market on the first two, they were so
assured of the third that they’d bet your life on it. Worse,
they could take any set of facts or evidence and bend them to
fit with their conclusions. Arguably, army general William
DePuy put the cherry on Saigon’s cupcake with a single
sentence: What we need is more bombs, more artillery
rounds and more napalm. That he couldn’t point to where
he wanted it all to go seemed escape his notice.
Early spring of ‘67 up along DMZ was a time of
transition. A layer of conventional warfare was slowly lain
over the unconventional one. One didn’t replace another,
instead, another was added. Nothing was abandoned.
Marine commanders still had to contend with Viet Cong
forces, only now NVA regiments had appeared. They
claimed a spot on the dance card starting up on 861 and 881.
Their appearance – open and obvious – nevertheless didn’t
alter the discordant notes played by the dance band: Walt
and Westy argued on.
When the NVA regiments finally slipped off the
backside of 881, the jungles were quiet except for the sounds
of burial parties and Marine engineers, who figured to stay.
Hanoi could, however, push forward as well as pull back.
Two NVA divisions suddenly loomed up across the DMZ
from the most northern position in I­Corps, Con Tien (Hill
of Angels). Despite the fact that Hanoi had committed a
few of its best regiments in an effort to wrest the high
ground from Marines at Khe Sanh, Saigon was loath to think
they’d do it twice. They managed to reconcile the reality of
two NVA divisions appearing across the Ben Hai river by
declaring them to be an empty diversion. Since hills aren’t
mountains, Con Tien wasn’t Khe Sanh. Thus a conventional
attack across the DMZ was, in their view, unthinkable.
Had anyone asked: what exactly does Ho Chi Minh
want? A longer look at that question may have persuaded
commanders to assume nothing and deal with capabilities.
Even if General DePuy didn’t know where to aim all the
ordinance he called for, Giap did: the Hill of Angels.
That something can’t come from nowhere is about as
obvious as a thing gets. For Delta 2/4 it was real obvious
where things were coming from: ten feet out from the wire
and on back. Had DePuy bombed, napalmed, or shelled
anywhere between Con Tien and the DMZ – in it, or north
of it – odds of a secondary were good. The rest of the odds
weren’t so good. By May Delta Company was getting 300 or
so rounds daily of 82 mm mortars, 122 mm rockets, and 152
arty, a lot of that coming from inside the DMZ. Every pfc
in Delta Company knew it. Only Washington didn’t – or was
A‐15