Should We Men Themselves Monologue
WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE ... AND YOUNG
PROLOGUE.
In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watch 'd And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars ... -Shakespeare, Henry IV, Pan One, Act II, Scene 3
This story is about time and memories. The time was 1965, a different kind of year, a watershed year when one era was ending in America and another was beginning. We felt it then, in the many ways our lives changed so suddenly, so dramatically, and looking back on it from a quarter-century gone we are left in no doubt. It was the year America decided to directly intervene in the Byzantine affairs of obscure and distant Vietnam. It was the year we went to war. In the broad, traditional sense, that "we" who went to war was all of us, all Americans, though …show more content…
advisers ' compound and air base at Pleiku in the Central Highlands. Eight Americans were killed and more than one hundred wounded. "I 've had enough of this," Johnson told his National Security Council.
In retaliation, within hours carrier-based Navy jets struck the first targets inside North Vietnam. By
March 2, Operation Rolling Thunder, a systematic and continuing program of air strikes against the
North, had begun. While the Navy warplanes safely came and went from aircraft carriers at sea, the
U.S. Air Force jets based at Da Nang were clearly vulnerable to enemy retaliation.
When General William C. Westmoreland, the American commander in Vietnam, asked for U.S.
Marines to guard the air base, he got them. On March 8, a battalion of Marines splashed ashore on
China Beach. On April 1, President Johnson approved General Westmoreland 's request for two more
Marine battalions, plus 20,000 logistics troops. He also agreed with General Westmoreland that the
Marines should not be limited to strictly defensive duties; now they would fan out and begin
PROLOGUE.
In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watch 'd And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars ... -Shakespeare, Henry IV, Pan One, Act II, Scene 3
This story is about time and memories. The time was 1965, a different kind of year, a watershed year when one era was ending in America and another was beginning. We felt it then, in the many ways our lives changed so suddenly, so dramatically, and looking back on it from a quarter-century gone we are left in no doubt. It was the year America decided to directly intervene in the Byzantine affairs of obscure and distant Vietnam. It was the year we went to war. In the broad, traditional sense, that "we" who went to war was all of us, all Americans, though …show more content…
advisers ' compound and air base at Pleiku in the Central Highlands. Eight Americans were killed and more than one hundred wounded. "I 've had enough of this," Johnson told his National Security Council.
In retaliation, within hours carrier-based Navy jets struck the first targets inside North Vietnam. By
March 2, Operation Rolling Thunder, a systematic and continuing program of air strikes against the
North, had begun. While the Navy warplanes safely came and went from aircraft carriers at sea, the
U.S. Air Force jets based at Da Nang were clearly vulnerable to enemy retaliation.
When General William C. Westmoreland, the American commander in Vietnam, asked for U.S.
Marines to guard the air base, he got them. On March 8, a battalion of Marines splashed ashore on
China Beach. On April 1, President Johnson approved General Westmoreland 's request for two more
Marine battalions, plus 20,000 logistics troops. He also agreed with General Westmoreland that the
Marines should not be limited to strictly defensive duties; now they would fan out and begin