Word: chaisson
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...assaults took the U.S. and South Vietnamese military by surprise. In that sense, and because they continued after five days of fighting to hang on to some of their targets, the Communists undeniably won a victory of sorts. "This is real fighting on a battlefield," admitted Brigadier General John Chaisson, Westmoreland's combat operations coordinator for South Viet Nam. The Communist attack was, he said, "a very successful offensive. It was surprisingly well coordinated, surprisingly intensive and launched with a surprising amount of audacity." Westmoreland himself called the enemy campaign "a bold one," though marked "by treachery and deceitfulness...
Back at Colonel Yeu's forward command post, Yeu was angered by the harassment of loyal Vietnamese air force planes, loudly threatened to shell the airfield immediately. The marines first ordered the Vietnamese airmen to stop their flights. Then Colonel John Chaisson jumped into an armed helicopter, flew to Yeu's command post and had his chopper put down directly in front of the howitzers. In hard Yankee accents, he delivered an ultimatum: "If you make one menacing move toward those artillery pieces, we must consider you hostile. We will annihilate you." By now, five batteries of marine...