Tet Offensive
On January 31, 1968, the first day of the celebration of the lunar new year, Vietnam's most important holiday, the North launched a major offensive throughout South Vietnam. This was known as the Tet Offensive. It took weeks for U.S. and South Vietnamese troops to retake all of the captured cities, including the former capital of Hue. Although the offensive was not militarily successful for the Vietnamese Communists and did not meet its major objectives, it was a political and psychological victory for them. It significantly contradicted optimistic claims by the U.S. government that the war had already been won.
For the average US citizen the Tet Offensive provided the dramatic realization that the war in Vietnam was futile. …
