Green Berets at Lang Vei, 1968: What Both Sides Wrote About the Tanks

On February 7, 1968, an American general told President Johnson that Green Berets at a Special Forces camp near Khe Sanh had just been attacked by enemy tanks for the first time, and had to be evacuated -- one Air Force history would later call it the first appearance of enemy armor in South Vietnam. This video sets the American record, from the notes of the meeting at the White House and a Marine general's letter down to a Medal of Honor citation, side by side with what Vietnamese newspapers later published about the same battle, one citing the armored corps' own history. Every number here traces to a source listed below. The count reported to the President that day was 9 tanks. Later American histories say about 11, or 12, or two companies of 8 each. Two Vietnamese newspaper accounts say 16, one of them citing the armored corps' own history. None of these figures agree, and this video does not pick a winner among them -- it shows you where each count comes from and what it may be counting. You will also hear the citation for Sergeant First Class Eugene Ashley Jr., who led repeated assaults trying to reach the trapped camp and was killed doing it, and see how an early report of 27 Americans killed at Lang Vei was later corrected -- 27 was the total number of Americans at the camp that night, not the number of dead. Quotations translated from Vietnamese are marked on screen, and every place the two sides' records disagree is called out rather than smoothed over. CHAPTERS 0:00 The Nine Tanks 2:45 How I Check My Sources 4:30 The Camp on Highway 9 7:27 The Night of February 7 10:28 What the Other Side Wrote 15:02 The Corrections SOURCES FRUS 1964-68, Vol. VI, doc. 60, Notes of Meeting (State Dept., Office of the Historian) -- https://history.state.gov/historicald... Vietnam Center and Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech, Tet Offensive exhibit: Lang Vei Special Forces Camp Falls -- https://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/exhibits/... Charles H. Briscoe, The Battle of Lang Vei, Veritas Vol. 15 No. 1 (2019), USASOC History Office -- https://arsof-history.org/articles/19... FRUS 1964-68, Vol. VI, doc. 61, Walt to Rostow -- https://history.state.gov/historicald... FRUS 1964-68, Vol. VI, doc. 64, Notes of Meeting -- https://history.state.gov/historicald... Bernard C. Nalty, Air Power and the Fight for Khe Sanh (Office of Air Force History, 1986), GovInfo -- https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/G... USASOC History Office, Medal of Honor: SFC Eugene Ashley, Jr. -- https://arsof-history.org/medal_of_ho... HistoryNet, Vietnam magazine, Armored Might (photo caption) -- https://historynet.com/armored-might/... Official Vietnamese perspective: Thanh Nien -- https://thanhnien.vn/xe-tang-pt-76-ch... Dan Viet -- https://danviet.vn/xe-tang-viet-nam-q... Quan Doi Nhan Dan Cuoi Tuan -- https://ct.qdnd.vn/phong-su-dieu-tra/... Bao Quan Khu 7 (Feb. 8, 2017; article credits dangcongsan.vn) -- https://baoquankhu7.vn/vang-doi-chien... PHOTO CREDITS CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons: Valder137 (3 photos); USMC Archives (2 photos); Mohit S; Archives Branch, USMC History Division CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons: Free Denizen CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons: Uziel302 (2 photos); Cooper6 CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons: Armadilo01 CC0, via Wikimedia Commons: Gary Todd (2 photos) ARCHIVE MATERIALS Public domain: Department of Defense, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, White House photographer Yoichi Okamoto (LBJ Library). AI illustrates scenes where no historical photograph exists; real named people appear only in real photographs or a named source card. The opening photograph of Gen. Earle Wheeler with President Johnson (NARA 192563) was taken January 29, 1968, at an earlier meeting in the same room; it illustrates the two men, not the February 7 meeting described in the narration. MUSIC "The Descent", "Mesmerize", "Oppressive Gloom", "Virtutes Instrumenti", "Darkest Child", "Hush" -- Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Sound effects: freesound.org (CC0) and synthesized for this film. Footage: U.S. National Archives / archive.org. Company Clerk: both sides, on the record. If you served at Khe Sanh or with the 5th Special Forces in 1968, tell me your unit and the year. #VietnamWar #VietnamVeterans #History