Chapter 11: Honor in a Broken War

Vietnam began as a distant commitment and became America's longest war. This episode follows the Marines into that storm, from early advisers helping build the Vietnamese Marine Corps to the landings at Da Nang and Chu Lai that drew the Corps into a grinding fight across I Corps.

We move from rice paddies and coastal hamlets to high ridges and border valleys, through Starlite and Hastings, the DMZ outposts, the siege of Khe Sanh, and the house to house struggle for Hue. Along the way are names etched in Marine memory, from Con Thien and Dai Do to Dewey Canyon and Go Noi Island, where small units fought under constant fire while air and artillery tried to hold the line.

The story ends with withdrawal and the last fights of the Easter Offensive and Mayaguez, then returns to a country that often met its Marines with silence. It is a broken war measured in ruined cities, political fallout, and the weight carried by those who fought it on both sides of the Pacific.

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