Fighting Viet Cong in the Rung Sat

£19.99

Fighting Viet Cong in the Rung Sat

Memoir of a Combat Advisor in Vietnam, 1968-1969

Military history: post-WW2 conflicts

Author: Bob Worthington

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Language: English

Published by: McFarland

Published on: 10 November 2021

Format: LCP-protected ePub

Size: 283 pages

ISBN: 9781476643960


Introduction

The Vietnam War was not going well in 1968. The January Tet Offensive--a tactical defeat but strategic victory for North Vietnam--showed the U.S. military and the American public that the enemy remained determined, no nearer defeat. Americans grew war weary while politicians and military leaders could not agree on how to win or how to withdraw.

Author's Service

Between combat tours, the author served as a U.S. Army company commander--a job he came to despise. Experiencing what he perceived as a degradation in the Army's senior command, he resigned his commission. Yet he needed money to complete graduate school and volunteered to return to Vietnam as a combat advisor.

Memoir Highlights

This memoir describes his participation in the fiercest fighting of the war, on the Cambodian border, where he almost died of hookworm and was shot in a night operation. In Saigon to recuperate, he was tasked with creating an advisory team to train South Vietnamese commandos to conduct raids in the swamps south of Saigon, the Rung Sat Special Zone. For seven months they were successful, with Worthington receiving seven combat decorations.

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