Reports Of Their Demise

The fury of the Tet Offensive burns out quickly in most of South Vietnam. But at the ancient city of Hue, the American and ARVN victory is anything but assured. The same American commander who brushed aside warnings that Tet was imminent now makes an erroneous and dangerous proclamation: the Viet Cong have been destroyed as a fighting force. Jif Miles and the men with whom he fights know that’s not true. Jif is still a second lieutenant—a butter bar—but one with far greater combat experience than a rookie officer in country only four months has usually accrued. From Tet’s bloodbath on the central coast to the slaughter at Hue, where the Viet Cong augment the resilient North Vietnamese Army, he finds the VC still very much alive and the reports of their demise to be deadly nonsense.