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.Every American soldier who fought in Vietnam was guaranteed atleast a week off from the war for rest and rehabilitation, or R&R.Ser-vicemen could spend their R&R at special sites in Vietnam like ChinaBeach, or travel to Hawaii, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Manila, and other Pa-cific cities.R&R was intended, like the one-year tour of duty, to boostmorale.But many men found it disorienting to shift from combat tovacation and back again.Lt.Robert Santos, a highly decorated veteran 80VIETNAM WARof the 101st Airborne, described his visit to China Beach in a letterhome in 1968:Since I ve been here I haven t seen a bed till my R&R.I ve taken oneshower in two months, wore the same clothes for two months, and havebeen sleeping on the ground in water.I guess that s why they say war ishell cause people in hell don t even get wet.Right now I m sitting ona veranda overlooking the ocean, watching the waves break on theshore beneath me, and in 24 hours I ll be back out fighting the NVA[North Vietnamese Army].Walter Mack, commander of a marine rifle company from 1967 to1968, recalled years later that when he went on R&R, all the toughness he had developed in the field dissipated :I was eating well and sleeping well.I called home.We talked aboutwhen I d get home, what we d do together, where I d live.I bought somesuits, spent some money on presents for people.Returning to the field, with only 30 days left in his tour of duty, hecould not help thinking that he might never go home.I might neversee those people again.I might never get a chance to enjoy those suits. Once in Vietnam, few of the grunts talked much about defendingthe free world or keeping the dominoes from toppling.Even thoughthey were not the best-led soldiers in history, the grunts fought hardand bravely.In his memoir, A Soldier Reports, General Westmorelandcalled the Americans in Vietnam the finest military force.everassembled, a judgment that at least until a serious deterioration inmorale set in after the spring of 1968 was not completely farfetched.But what kept the grunts going was not a complicated ideology or evena simple love of country as much as it was a loyalty to the buddies theyfought alongside.Surviving the war, and seeing to it that your buddiessurvived, meant killing the enemy before he killed you.The grunts -eye-view of the war was perhaps best expressed by a marine lieutenantnamed Victor Westphall, who shared the lives and sufferings of his menuntil he was killed in an ambush in May 1968.Writing his brothershortly before his death, he described a search-and-destroy operation inthe midst of monsoon season, where nothing seemed to go right: 81THE GRUNTS We were all in sad shape now.I know that at one point, my feet aboutto crack open, my stomach knotted by hunger and diarrhea, my backfeeling like a mirror made of nerves shattered in a million pieces by myflak jacket, pack, and extra mortars and machine-gun ammo, my handsa mass of hamburger from thorn cuts, and my face a mass of weltsfrom mosquitoes, I desired greatly to throw down everything, slumpinto the water of a paddy, and sob.I remember a captain, an aviator,who, observing a group of grunts toasting the infantry in a bar, said, You damned infantry think you re the only people who exist. You redamned right we do. 8GROUND WAR1965 1967In the spring of 1965 the U.S.-backed government inSaigon and the war against Communists in South Vietnam tottered onthe edge of collapse.The military strongmen who followed one anotherin and out of power in the year and a half after Diem s assassinationenjoyed little support among their countrymen.They were unable torally the South Vietnamese armed forces to stand effectively against theever-more-powerful combination of Viet Cong guerrillas and NorthVietnamese regulars in the countryside.Lyndon Johnson s adviserswarned him that drastic steps would be needed to prevent the fall ofSouth Vietnam to the Communists.After months of indecision, Johnson acted decisively, orderingAmerican bombers to attack North Vietnam and dispatching Americanground combat forces into South Vietnam.Those decisions, plus thefact that a more stable (if not particularly popular) government came topower in Saigon under the joint leadership of Gen.Nguyen Van Thieuand Air Vice Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky, saved South Vietnam for themoment from Communist takeover.The search-and-destroy opera-tions ordered by General Westmoreland, American commander inSouth Vietnam, bled the Communist forces.But in the end the impres-sive body counts and kill ratios racked up by American troops inthose operations did not hamper the Communists willingness and abil-ity to continue the war indefinitely.American firepower proved no sub-stitute for a genuinely popular and effective South Vietnamesegovernment.82] 83GROUND WARU.S.Marines engage in a firefight with the North Vietnamese army neara secondary treeline, 1968.(U.S.Marine Corps)The first full-scale battles between American and Communistground forces went well for the United States, seeming to promise aturn in the fortunes of war.In August 1965 U.S.Marines trapped a VietCong regiment on the Bantangan Peninsula, near the new marine airbase at Chu Lai.This was the first major ground action in which U.S.troops were deployed to fight on their own without their South Viet-namese allies.After the marines blocked the Viet Cong retreat from thepeninsula, the enemy force was bombarded from the air and sea.Nearly700 were killed.Shortly afterward, the U.S.Army s newly arrived FirstAir Cavalry Division took on North Vietnamese regulars for the firsttime.The Air Cav was sent by General Westmoreland to relieve thedefenders of a besieged Special Forces camp at Plei Me in the CentralHighlands.Air Cav troopers drove off the enemy, inflicting heavy casu-alties.Although it was too soon to proclaim that final victory was insight, Adm.U.S.Grant Sharp, commander of military forces in thePacific, declared in a press interview in Honolulu in late October 1965that the United States and South Vietnam had stopped losing the war
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