Allied Victory Loses Public Support
Militarily, Huế was an Allied victory, because the NVA and VC forces (ultimately numbering about 12,000, more than a full division) were driven from the city paying heavy price for their offensive, but from the opinion of the American public, Huế was the beginning of the end. Marine Captain Myron Harrington who commanded a one-hundred-man company during the battle: "Did we have to destroy the town in order to save it"? (in a 1981 interview, Harrington answered in the affirmative, saying "I think in the case of Huế that it was required, because the NVA wanted it") From this time forward, American support for the war in Vietnam declined, and during the next five years American involvement slowly but steadily decreased until 1975 when the last American troops left Vietnam.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Hue
Famous quotes containing the words allied victory, allied, victory, loses, public and/or support:
“A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory.... From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.”
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965)
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“When the people contend for their liberty they seldom get anything by their victory but new masters.”
—George Savile, Lord Halifax (1633–1695)
“An alliance is like a chain. It is not made stronger by adding weak links to it. A great power like the United States gains no advantage and it loses prestige by offering, indeed peddling, its alliances to all and sundry. An alliance should be hard diplomatic currency, valuable and hard to get, and not inflationary paper from the mimeograph machine in the State Department.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“Why needs a man be rich? Why must he have horses, fine garments, handsome apartments, access to public houses, and places of amusement? Only for want of thought.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“‘Tis not enough to help the feeble up,
But to support him after.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)