The Vietnam War dragged on for a decade, playing out on television screens across America in a litany of death, destruction and confusion. But perhaps no other battle galvanized attention on the war as much as Khe Sanh, a 77-day siege for control of a base with minimal strategic value.
UNSUNG HEROES examines one of the most perplexing battles from the conflict that many Americans--including those fighting it--had difficulty understanding. It was a political chess game with soldiers used as pawns. The fighting was so intense and prolonged that skeletons of the enemy dead were suspended in barbed wire lines surrounding the base. But no matter how bravely the defenders fought, the sheer numbers of the NVA attackers ensured that they would ultimately have to abandon Khe Sanh.
Through archival footage and recollections from the soldiers who were there, UNSUNG HEROES tells the story of the siege that, for many, came to symbolize the entire war in Vietnam.
Allied personnel in the Khe Sanh area numbered less than 1,000 men. Among these were the CIDG force at Lang Vei and the Marines’ Combined Action Company Oscar, located between Khe Sanh Village and the combat base and within mortar range of the latter. (III MAF created the Combined Action Program to increase the ability of the local Vietnamese militia units to defend their own villages. These units included Marines who lived, worked, and conducted operations with their Vietnamese counterparts. The company at Khe Sanh formed in February 1967 and was unique in that its indigenous forces were Montagnards rather than Vietnamese) The Khe Sanh combat base housed Company B, 9th Marines, reinforced by an aggregation of support detachments, and a Marine reconnaissance platoon. Organic artillery support for these units came from Captain Glen Golden’s Battery F, 12th Marines, which replaced Battery I on 5 April. While the allied forces were too small to be a deterrent to major enemy incursions, they did serve as an advance unit.