TBS 2-67 Cruisebook_Updated_7Jan23

Que Son
THE QUE SON BATTLES.
You may not be interested in war, but war is
interested in you.
Leon Trotsky
War unexpectedly found Foxtrot Company of the 2 nd
Battalion, 1 st Marines on 21 April 1967. Oh, the Marines
were looking for a fight, though not the sort they got. The
2 nd NVA Division did expect a fight. It was what they came
for. What the Marines gave back, however, wasn’t at all
what the NVA expected, either. Sometimes you get the
bear; sometimes the bear gets you.
Still, there was nothing about the Que Son Valley,
stuck out west of Hoi An near the mountains, that suggested
that Hanoi should think it to be an ideal spot to squirrel
away one of their best divisions. There was nothing of its
geography that suggested dominate terrain in the same way
that Khe Sanh and Con Tien did. Yet quietly, carefully, the
NVA had slipped in from the mountains and entrenched.
So why?
Because they could. While they could never walk
down Highway 1, they could walk around Khe Sanh and
then down the Ashau Valley. That easily? Well, several
lieutenants from company C were sent out there to slow
down the traffic, and the NVA blew past them like
bridesmaids heading for a tossed bouquet, so yes. From
the bottom of the valley NVA had only to hop­scotch over
some openings in the Annamite range in order to get in
toward the back door to DaNang and Hoi An. Handier yet,
they could ease back into the mountains at will, distance
themselves from the 1stMarDiv and refit, as needed.
Mission, enemy, and terrain are the usual suspects
for dictating how battles unfold. Usually, but not always.
Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia needed shoes on his swing
through Pennsylvania, so a fateful detour took him to
Gettysburg. What sent the 2 nd NVA Division to Que Son?
Whatever purpose they may have once had came to be as
opaque in the following years as why the Hatfields hated the
McCoys. Anyone who returned to Quang Nam Province in
1970 after having been there in ‘67 would have found the
only things to have changed were the commander’s name on
unit signs. And sometimes, not even that. (e.g.,P.X. Kelley:
CO, 2/4 & 1 st Marines)
When John Hobbes famously characterized life in his
day as nasty, brutish, and short we’d be forgiven in thinking
he’d gotten med­evac’ed out of the Que Sons. It was that
sort of place. The question, in looking back, is what made
that region of Quang Nam Province so different? It was, to
borrow the term, a place of Ten-Thousand Pains. Death and
misery pursued you relentlessly. Why there? The usual
suspects are human design and natural geography. As to
Giap’s design, it would make sense if the major tactical
initiatives were to have followed Vietnamese history, north
to south. Would it not be wise, then, to deny your opponent
a secure rear area and harbor from which to defend against
Hanoi’s push south? Obviously so. Giap need not actually
attack the city, but he must constantly threaten it. To that
end Giap committed the 2 nd NVA division and assorted VC
main­force units with a smattering of VC strap­hangers.
There was a secondary advantage to his strategy: bleeding
Marines. The propaganda value of steady U.S. casualties
was always of value to Hanoi. The terrain in western Quang
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