I heard some snips of the aftermath on the radio, the NVA’s unit radios as the Communists were trying to regroup and then to get out of SVN before their casualties reached 100%. Some were told to hide their weapons and then get the best they could from the Americans to surrender. Some were told to disband, go home to their villages. Then, in the fall America began to stand down. We didn’t chase the enemy out of their last pockets. We backed off and gave them room to resupply and the evacuation stopped and reversed. It wasn’t just the Media that did it to us, though that was a huge part of it, the micromanagers in Washington who were more interested in “sending messages” than in actually winning anything were snatching failure from the jaws of victory.
Prior Military service, it seems, is no guarantee that a guy is fit to be CIC of the US Military.