History of the United States II / Unit 14 USH2 1973 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Tet
The idea
In January nineteen sixty-eight North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces launched the Tet Offensive, close to eighty-five thousand troops attacking nearly one hundred cities in the South, including Saigon, the anchor says; the Yawp counts more than one hundred sites, among them the American embassy. American and South Vietnamese forces recaptured every point taken.
In practice
Fighting at the American embassy in Saigon, after years of official claims that the enemy was weakening.
Where people slip
The misreading calls Tet a communist victory on the battlefield. The Yawp says American forces repulsed the attack and inflicted heavy casualties, yet Tet showed that the enemy could still strike anywhere in the country, and the stories and images that followed eroded public trust. Won in the field, it was lost at home.
Your place on the trail
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