The Hill Fights

While the seventy-seven-day siege of Khe Sanh in early 1968 remains one of the most highly publicized clashes of the Vietnam War, scant attention has been paid to the first battle of Khe Sanh, also known as “the Hill Fights.” Although this harrowing combat in the spring of 1967 provided a grisly preview of the carnage to come at Khe Sanh, few are aware of the significance of the battles, or even their existence. For more than thirty years, virtually the only people who knew about the Hill Fights were the Marines who fought them. Now, for the first time, the full story has been pieced together by acclaimed Vietnam War historian Edward F. Murphy, whose definitive analysis admirably fills this significant gap in Vietnam War literature. Based on first-hand interviews and documentary research, Murphy’s deeply informed narrative history is the only complete account of the battles, their origins, and their aftermath. The Marines at the isolated Khe Sanh Combat Base were tasked with monitoring the strategically vital Ho Chi Minh trail as it wound through the jungles in nearby Laos. Dominated by high hills on all sides, the combat base had to be screened on foot by the Marine infantrymen while crack, battle-hardened NVA units roamed at will through the high grass and set up elaborate defenses on steep, sun-baked overlooks. Murphy traces the bitter account of the U.S. Marines at Khe Sanh from the outset in 1966, revealing misguided decisions and strategies from above, and capturing the chain of hill battles in stark detail. But the Marines themselves supply the real grist of the story; it is their recollections that vividly re-create the atmosphere of desperation, bravery, and relentless horror that characterized their combat. Often outnumbered and outgunned by a hidden enemy—and with buddies lying dead or wounded beside them—these brave young Americans fought on. The story of the Marines at Khe Sanh in early 1967 is a microcosm of the Corps’s entire Vietnam War and goes a long way toward explaining why their casualties in Vietnam exceeded, on a Marine-in-combat basis, even the tremendous losses the Leathernecks sustained during their ferocious Pacific island battles of World War II. The Hill Fights is a damning indictment of those responsible for the lives of these heroic Marines. Ultimately, the high command failed them, their tactics failed them, and their rifles failed them. Only the Marines themselves did not fail. Under fire, trapped in a hell of sudden death meted out by unseen enemies, they fought impossible odds with awesome courage and uncommon valor.

In the spring of 1967, some of the most vicious and bloody fighting of the Vietnam War occurred in the remote northwestern corner of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN), or South Vietnam. Khe Sanh lies in the mountainous northwest corner of Quang Tri Province. As an otherwise insignificant village that few people from the outside world had ever heard of, Khe Sanh's location astride Route 9 near the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating North and South Vietnam and just 10 kilometers east of the Laotian border made it strategically significant to American military planners and their North Vietnamese foes. Later, in 1968, the legendary siege of Khe Sanh, partly coinciding with the larger Communist Tet Offensive, would make this small village a household name among Americans and a well-known heroic chapter in the history of the U.S. Marine Corps.This narrative does not tell the story of the 1968 siege, but rather describes the equally heroic, brutal, and bloody fighting that took place around Khe Sanh during the preceding year. In the spring of 1967, various units from 3d Marine Division (3d MarDiv) fought a number of ferocious battles with elements of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA), some of the best-trained and most motivated troops of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.* These fierce clashes, erupting suddenly in steep mountainous terrain at close range and resulting in heavy casualties on both sides, included some of the most desperate fighting of the Vietnam War. In Marine Corps lore, they were known as the "Hill Fights" or the "First Battle of Khe Sanh."The relative obscurity of the Hill Fights in comparison to the 1968 siege of Khe Sanh is unfortunate for several reasons. First, individual Marines and small-unit leaders acquitted themselves valiantly in the Hill Fights and their efforts should not be overlooked. The valor of Marine infantrymen at Khe Sanh was matched only by that of the aircraft crews who supported them. Also, the Hill Fights illustrated several trends that characterized the experience of the U.S. Marine Corps in Vietnam. Effective close air support and other fire support coordination were hallmarks of the Hill Fights and undoubtedly saved countless American lives. The fighting around Khe Sanh also highlighted the tenacity of the North Vietnamese soldier and his skills in concealment and in building fortifications.

A soldier’s eye view of Vietnam’s fiercest close-quarters battle upon its 50th anniversary Khe Sanh’s Hill Fights of 1967—as experienced by co-author Bobby Maras and told in this hour-by-hour, day-by-day account—were carnage on the ground, much of it hand-to-hand fighting in the dark. Thanks to the brave Marines of the 9th and 3rd, Khe Sanh survived the first concentrated attack by the North Vietnamese to invade the South. After the Hill Fights, American forces pulled back and held out against constant enemy shelling and frequent attacks until the siege was broken. Combining Maras’ personal experiences with the war’s bigger picture, Blood in the Hills honors the heroic actions of our soldiers and shows how Khe Sanh was microcosm of the entire Vietnam War.

"In the spring of 1967, some of the most vicious and bloody fighting of the Vietnam War occurred in the remote northwestern corner of the Republic of Vietnam, or South Vietnam. Khe Sanh lies in the mountainous northwest corner of Quang Tri Province. As an otherwise insignificant village that few people from the outside world had ever heard of, Khe Sanh's location astride Route 9 near the demilitarized zone separating North and South Vietnam and just 10 kilometers east of the Laotian border made it strategically significant to American military planners and their North Vietnamese foes. Later, in 1968, the legendary siege of Khe Sanh, partly coinciding with the larger Communist Tet Offensive, would make this small village a household name among Americans and a well-known heroic chapter in the history of the U.S. Marine Corps. This narrative does not tell the story of the 1968 siege, but rather describes the equally heroic, brutal, and bloody fighting that took place around Khe Sanh during the preceding year. In the spring of 1967, various units from 3d Marine Division fought a number of ferocious battles with elements of the North Vietnamese Army, some of the best-trained and most motivated troops of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. These fierce clashes, erupting suddenly in steep mountainous terrain at close range and resulting in heavy casualties on both sides, included some of the most desperate fighting of the Vietnam War. In Marine Corps lore, they were known as the 'Hill Fights' or the 'First Battle of Khe Sanh.'"--Page 1.

The Small Wars Manual is a manual on tactics and strategies for engaging in certain types of military operations created by the United States Marine Corps. The purpose of this work is sharing experience and preserving the achievements of tactics and organization of small wars, or different military operations of the United States in countries where government is "unstable, inadequate, or unsatisfactory for the preservation of life and of such interests as are determined by the foreign policy" of the United States. The book starts with the definition of the term "small war" and continues into more than 500 pages on tactics, personnel structure, communication chain, transportation and logistics, military-civil relationship, psychological side of war, training, and support of native armed organizations and much more. The book is extremely interesting as a manual on tactics, whether it is used for a military operation or any other sort of massive campaign involving a large part of population, like elections. For example, it contains a chapter telling how to plan and organize legally the disarmament of local population. It tells what laws should be issued and what organizations form, what sort of personnel should be involved and what should be their roles. A reader will find guidelines on how to distribute and spare resources needed for a campaign, and how to properly cross a river in a dangerous area. Given the book's organization, structure and abundance of important information, covering different aspects of civil and military campaigns, this volume is a must-read for any person engaged in a state service or a student considering career in serving their country.

Based on official army records, these eyewitness accounts of seven hellacious battles serve as a brief history of the Vietnam conflict. From a fierce fight on the banks of the Ia Drang River in 1965 to a 1968 gunship mission, this illustrated report conveys the heroism and horror of warfare.

A troubled man travels to a mysterious town from his past after receiving a letter from his wife... who's been dead for years. And while our "hero" explores dark corridors and battles countless disturbing enemies, his journey offers more psychological horror than survival horror. Welcome to Silent Hill, where the monster is you. Silent Hill 2 doubles down on what made the first game so compelling: The feeling of being lost in a foggy, upside-down town as unsettling as it is familiar. Nearly two decades after first experiencing Silent Hill 2, writer and comedian Mike Drucker returns to its dark depths to explore how this bold video game delivers an experience that is tense, nightmarish, and anything but fun. With an in-depth and highly personal study of its tragic cast of characters, and a critical examination of developer Konami’s world design and uneven marketing strategy, Drucker examines how Silent Hill 2 forces its players to grapple with the fact that very real-world terrors of trauma, abuse, shame, and guilt are far more threatening than any pyramid-headed monster could ever be.

In late 1967 as part of the Tet offensive, U.S. commanders hoped to lure the North Vietnamese Army into exposing large numbers of soldiers to their overwhelming air power. But in January 1968, a U.S. Marine Corps force found themselves surrounded by the enemy in their hilltop base at Khe Sanh. The siege lasted for nearly three months and caught the attention of the world; for many it came to epitomize the conflict. Eric Hammel's classic account is a vivid oral history, using the words of American fighting men caught up in the gruelling, deadly seventy-seven-day ordeal creates a harrowing tapestry of tragedy and triumph. As two North Vietnamese Army divisions move to surround them, the vastly outnumbered U.S. Marines rush to strengthen their defenses at the isolated base and several nearby hilltop positions. The Communist forces repeatedly attack, are repeatedly repelled, and then dig in to take the American base by siege-the makings of a classic, modern "set-piece" strategy in which the defenders become bait to tie the attackers to fixed positions in which they can be pummelled and pulverized by American artillery and air support. The gripping - and moving - narrative flows from the masterfully woven threads provided by nearly a hundred men who gallantly endured the wrenching all-out struggle to hold the combat base and its vulnerable outlying positions. Re-issued in the fiftieth anniversary year of the siege, with an updated photo section and maps, this is a ground-breaking and influential history of this crucial landmark battle.