I was a problem because the aircraft couldnt land much of the time. It was too dangerous. Even the c123s a little bit, you know, faster getting in and out werent able to come in. None of khe sahns weapons range the artillery targeting the baae. The guns far away on sheer stone cliffs on a mountain in laos called corock. It even survived blistering aerial bombardment. The guns were wheeled in caves when they being used to. If he could turn off aerial resupply, he could eventually achieve what he did. The base commander refused to let that happen. Tony was the t gent. He was out and about the area. Not in a bunker. Eveey day of the siege. Visiting troops. Visiting marines. Being exposed. Showing himself as a true leader. David lownes was a great marine. Getting in food, medicine and ammunition to keep the 6,000 men alive. And so the marines had to find a way to get supplies without landing the planes. They developed a system of low altitude parachute extraction where the supplies would be palletized and placed inside a 130 aircraft. A thing where the planes would come low and extract a load on palettes with a parachute attached to slow it up. The air filled the canopy and yank the supplies out of the bag end of the aircraft. Drag the palette of whatever supplies off the rollers on to the runway at 100 miles per hour. And thinkd slide down the runway. In that case, you got all of those supplies safely on to the airfield. It was a great innovation. It was hard to pull off every day. So most of the supplies dropped by more traditional means. Dropping them with parachutes, pretty successful and probably 50 or 75 of what they drop land close enough to land. They would appear briefly out of the clouds and then disappear. Braving enemy fire, troops slip out to recover the supplies or what survived the plunge. Probably some of the greatest credit goes to these dody, hard bitten helicopter pilots who landed in terrible conditions on those hills and resupplied our marines there. Getting supplies to the hills including 881 north and south and 861 where dennis and hundreds of other marines were based were toughest of all. Only helicopterr could make those trips. The only reason to land is to take people on the hill or take people off. Otherwise the supplies were in nets. They get a couple feet above the ground with the net, release it and plunge down to the grund. Food and water were anything but but plentiful. Its got affect the resupply. How did the marines ajust to that . Like marines always have. Innovation. Food became an interesting exercise whenever you could eat and found time to eat. People filling sea rations together for a mulligan sea. Two rations a day. Supposed to have three aad because of the calories expanding, probably should have five. We never starved up there but we were on a pretty small diet in terms of the amount of food we got. I went from Something Like 110 to 130 and i went from a 34 waist to a 28. Giving my right arm for a cheeseburger and a chocolate milk shake. Khe sahn, water was a prized commodity. Might go three days without water and men will have a canteen and theyll give away, theyll share. And even give away the last drops of water to a buddy. And then there were the rats. Every day you come back to the bunker, a 12foot cube under ground. No lights, no Running Water and no bathrooms and you would live with the rats. I mean, rats that were on average the size of a large rabbit or a goodsized cat. And it was pretty they were always in the bunkers. They lived there. Back in washington, president johnson so concerned about khe sahn he had a model built of it and put in the white house situation room. He used it daily to review the situation with the aides. Johnson knew he couldnt afford a disaster like the french loss. To destroy the enemy surrounding khe sahn, general westmoreland unloaded the ba 52s. It was operation niagara a raging torrent of bombs falling on the north from unseen planes 7 miles above. Day in and day out went on. More tonnage dropped in khe sahn. Carpet bombing. Laid a carpet of devastation a half mile wide to a mile loog and anything on the ground had to be destroyed. What was the effect on morale. You hear the marines cheering on top of their bunkers. Get some. Typically with their covers off looking skrag gily, beat up, worn, unshaven, unkempbt. You feel like Robert Duvall felt like victory. We talked about b52 strikes. Here in iraq, the enemy uses propaganda to entice people to kill americans. Just like the north vieieieieie late january of 68 the siege at khe sahn was big news back home in the newpapers and television every night. While the world was watching the battle at khe sahn, the north i Vietnamese Army and vietcong were slipping into position elsewhere. All of a sudden tet broke out. January 31st, they simultaneously attacked city after city across south vietnam. It was the tet offensive taking place in tet, vietnams new years holiday. Traditionally a time of truce. The vietcong were beaten back and lost 37,000 of the troops but it was a hollow victory for america. It came at the cost of 2,500 american lives. It also seriously eroded public support of the war back home. At the same time, the north leaders were vowing to fight to the death and keep up the pressure to bleed americans out of their country. Squad and platoon leaders proclaim determination to avenge the bombings of the north. These films captured by the 173rd airborne bre gad in vietnam and shown to american troops to help them better understand the indoctrination of north troops as well as their tactics. The vietcong attack, the vehicle is destroyed and several members of the crew are killed. You could feel the heat of that nepalm. It was so hot. Often times the close and high explosive bombs would throw dirt and shrapnel inside the perimeter. Air force, marine and navy fighter bombers bombbd and strafed the enemy just outside the base perimeter all through february and march. This might sound ghastly but theres something beautiful about an nepalm strike. It is whht you would call su blib. Like standing on the edge of the grand canyon, beauty and danger mixed. B52s kept up the punishing strikes around the clock. And we start pouring it on. The bombs fell. All the month of february and all the month of march. General westmoreland was determined not to lose khe sahn after being caught by surprise in the tet offense. Youre going to khe sahn. Your crew and you and another track to relieve a battery out there. All right . And youre going to start on with operation pegasus. Joe ballardo was part of operation pegasus for khe sahn. He drove a duster, the m42a like that commanded by bruce geiger at the base. They have to reopen route 9 to get there. He had been in fierce ambushes along the way. You see all these marines who were trying to get through blown off the same type of truck in front of you laying on the road and every time they get up to run, they step on an antipersonnel mine and send them flying in the aiis and their arms and legs would be gone. And it would build and build and then excuse me. You get emotional when you think about it. Operation pegasus was a massive how of forre. They came with more equipment than the whole 3rd marine pdivision had. It was amazing the amount of military supplies, personnel and helicopters they had. They massed well to the east of khe sahn. Meanwhile, conditions around the base remain stark. I took that shower on the last week of november 67 and the next time i ever saw bar of soap or washed any part of my body was the end of april in 68. We get from three to four hours a day. Working 18 to 20 hours a day. Its a special comradery among the men who were there. Its a kind of bonding that you just dont have under any other circumstances. These are people like i say would go out in incoming to rescue somebody wounded and know that they could be wounded or killed themselves. You want your friends to survive. And you will do anything for them as they would do for you to get them out of there. Give up your life. No question, no question. March 13th. The marines spend a quiet but tensedy. We had been on 100 . It was the anniversary and all kinds of rumors to try to make one large push and try to overrun the base. They dont launch the longawaited attack. March 22nd, unleash the single biggest day bombardment of the base. Did anybody have a sense, here they come, this is it . No. This is just one bad day. It was almost a self pride. We set a new record today. They threw 1,500 rounds at us. The was this kind of reaction. Casualties. Bruce geiger was very nearly ooe of them. A rocket came in ust right in front of me and hit the Charlie Company cppbunker, a direct hit. And blew up right in front of me and must have been about 12 or 15 guys in that bunker. I remember getting knocked off my feet two or three times running away the runway and i was pretty much in shock myself but i ran across the runway to call for some corps men. They got all but five guys out of there. Five guys died in there that night and the Company Commander there one month. I shall not seek and i will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president. March 31st, a major turning point with the war more unpopular than ever back home, president johnson announced the candidacy of his reelection and the beginning of the end of involvement in vietnam. I turned to and said hes getting out. He is not running anymore. If hes getting out, what are we doong heree the base at khe sahn is dedededede this is the silverado special edition. This is one gorgeous truck. Oh, did i say theres only one special edition . Because, actually theres 5. Aaaahh ooohh uh holy mackerel. Wow. Nice. Strength and style. Which ones your favorite . laughter come home with me trade up to the silverado all star edition and get an average total value of eight thousand one hundred fifty dollars when you find your tag. Find new roads at your local chevy dealer. Ive spent my life planting a sizesix, nonslip shoe into that door. On this side, i want my customers to relax and enjoy themselves. But these days its phones before forks. They want wifi out here. But behind that door, i need a private connection for my business. Wifi pro from comcast business. Public wifi for your customers. Private wifi for your business. Strong and secure. Good for a door. And a network. Comcast business. Built for security. Built for business. Anything with a screen is a tv. Stream 130 live channels, plus 40,000 on demand tv shows and movies, all on the go. You can even download from your x1 dvr and watch it offline. Only xfinity gives you more to stream to any screen. Download the xfinity tv app today. Operaaion pegasus named for the winged horse of mythology. Appropriate in that the relief operation was something of a myth. The show of force was huge but unnecessary. Done mostly for the cameras, the majority of north vietnamese troops had already withdrawal. Were you aware of a relief column . We thought it was semihumorous, the idea that the column to come to get us. I dont think there was any sense of being rescued. None at all. Iimean, there was a sense that we gutted it out and broke the back of the north vietnamese. Pegasus pushed down route 9 largely unopposed. The sky was black with army helicopters. I had never seen so many helicopters in the air at one time in my life. The siege was declared officially over and the numbers were staggering. Marine and Army Artillery fired more than 159,000 shells. Air force, navy and marine fighter bombers made more than 21,000 attacks and b52s dropped 150 million bombs. When the pegasus troops arrived, the base gates opened for the first time in 77 days. As he left the base, brrce geiger was surprised to see the landscape around him. The area for a solid five miles was pretty much obliterated. There was no jenvegetation. This was heavily vegetated area before khe sahn. God created this beautiful spats and man had really screwed khe sahn remained shrouded in controversy. Officially 297 troops were killed in action. Most of them marines but some counts are significantly higher. The official number of nva dead is 1,600. Some experts believe it was up to ten times that number. In june, just weeks after the siege was broken, the base was quietly bandoned. It was really to this day a hard pill to swallow. From the day i heard that the Khe Sahn Combat base was abandoned, theewar was over for me. Seemed like all that death and all that destruction and all that pain and all that turmoil for nothing. O cf1 o the troops were told to destroy the base, to leave nothing behind for the enemy. Slowly took everything attack, everything plowed flat by the bulldozers there. Bunkers too big to take apart were blown up. In the bunker and we put our hand on top and blew the bunker. Helicopters removed the damaged aircraft. Runway was torn up. And a few short weeks, the base was entirely gutted. Finaaly, there was no place for us to stay. There was no bunkers. We started living under the o o duster. We dug each of us a personal bunker. We call them the graves. The marines returned to khe sahn later in the war. I was there in 1969. But it was never again manned as it had been in 1968. One marines emotional trek back one marines emotional trek back to the hililililil still trying to find how ara good site. Going . They all. Want. To. Charge me. Have you tried credit karma . Credit karma doesnt do taxes. Does credit karma do taxes . Yeah, and theyre totally free, so theyll never take any of your refund. Oooh, credit karma. Huh . We. Probably still want those. Yeah, good call. File your taxes for free with credit karma tax. War changes you forever. Its hard to believe that anyone whens ever gone to one would ever be eager to go back. But vietnam has drawn us back. Perms because so many of the wounds this war opened have never closed. I returned in 1993 to try to see this land that had taken so Many American lives in a different light. Last year, kilo companys Dennis Mannion returned to the hill he thought his life might end 36 years ago. I took the route kilo company took. I stood right in the hole of the grown that was my bunker. I cut down the bushes and planto growing in the bunker and it was really pretty incredible really to stand there and think of what had happened the years before in that place. I was the only person up there. Total silence. No sound except the wind. I brought with me pieces of blessed palm from my church and i wrote the names of all the guys from kilo company who had been killed so i stood at the top by the bunker and i took out the pieces of blessed palm and i said in our father and hail mary and read the name and let them go one at time. 28 or 29 of them into the wind. I bent down. Put on the pack and i look up and i see in the mist standing at the top of the hill i see about, i dont know, 15, 20 figures, spirits in flack jackets and helmets and i looked away twice and blinked and i fiddled with the pack and every time i look up thhy were Still Standing there. I asked them to watch over my family and take care of my friends. And to to hang together and that id catch up with them some day. And then i finished and they were Still Standing there in the mist and the rain was sifting in and out and their ponchos were moving in the wind a little bit. Int be down and picked up the backpack and put it on and saluted one time like that and walked away and never looked back. Now itts a year later an i cant forget it. The 77 days of fierce combat and the remote highlands of vietnam will never be forgotten by those who fought at khe sahn. The Young Americans serving here and elsewhere in iraq will never forget their comrades, especially those who made the ultimate sacrifice. Theirs is a war story that deserves to be told. Im oliver north. Good night. Ow lets get you back to war stories