The First Battle: Operation Starlite and the Beginning of the Blood Debt in Vietnam

Otto J. Lehrack

ಜೂನ್ 2004 · Casemate

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“[A] brief but well-told and well-researched account . . . a good description of early U.S. Marine deployments to Vietnam” (HistoryNet).
 
The First Battle is a graphic account of the Vietnam War’s first major clash. On August 18, 1965, regiment fought regiment on the Van Tuong Peninsula near the new Marine base at Chu Lai. On the American side were three battalions of Marines under the command of Col. Oscar Peatross, a hero of two previous wars. His opponent was the 1st Viet Cong Regiment commanded by Nguyen Dinh Trong, a veteran of many fights against the French and the South Vietnamese. Codenamed Operation Starlite, this action was a resounding success for the Marines, and its result was cause for great optimism about America’s future in Vietnam.
 
Blood debt, han tu in Vietnamese, can mean revenge, debt of honor, or blood owed for blood spilled. The blood debt came into Vietnamese usage early in the war with the United States. With this battle, the Johnson Administration began compiling its own blood debt, this one to the American people.
 
The book also looks at the ongoing conflict between the US Army and the US Marines about the methodology of the Vietnam War. With decades of experience with insurrection and rebellion, the Marines were institutionally oriented to base the struggle on pacification of the population. The Army, on the other hand, having largely trained to meet the Soviet Army on the plains of Germany, opted for search-and-destroy missions against Communist main force units. The history of the Vietnam War is littered with many “what ifs.” This may be the biggest of them.

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Otto Lehrack served with the U.S. Marines for twenty-four years as an enlisted man and officer. He was an infantry company commander during the Tet Offensive on his first tour (1967–1968), and the operations officer of a signal intelligence battalion on his second tour (1970–1971) in Vietnam. He has an MA in history from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Lehrack is the author of No Shining Armor: The Marines at War in Vietnam and America's Battalion: Marines in the First Gulf War.