• Hue 1968

  • A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam
  • By: Mark Bowden
  • Narrated by: Joe Barrett
  • Length: 18 hrs and 45 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (1,984 ratings)

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Hue 1968

By: Mark Bowden
Narrated by: Joe Barrett
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Publisher's summary

Not since his New York Times best seller Black Hawk Down has Mark Bowden written a book about a battle. His most ambitious work yet, Huế 1968, is the story of the centerpiece of the Tet Offensive and a turning point in the American War in Vietnam.

By January 1968, despite an influx of half a million American troops, the fighting in Vietnam seemed to be at a stalemate. Yet General William Westmoreland, commander of American forces, announced a new phase of the war in which "the end begins to come into view". The North Vietnamese had different ideas. In mid-1967, the leadership in Hanoi had started planning an offensive intended to win the war in a single stroke. Part military action and part popular uprising, the Tet Offensive included attacks across South Vietnam, but the most dramatic and successful would be the capture of Huế, the country's cultural capital. At 2:30 a.m. on January 31, 10,000 National Liberation Front troops descended from hidden camps and surged across the city of 140,000. By morning, all of Huế was in Front hands save for two small military outposts.

The commanders in country and politicians in Washington refused to believe the size and scope of the Front's presence. Captain Chuck Meadows was ordered to lead his 160-marine Golf Company against thousands of enemy troops in the first attempt to reenter Huế later that day. After several futile and deadly days, Lieutenant Colonel Ernie Cheatham would finally come up with a strategy to retake the city, block by block and building by building, in some of the most intense urban combat since World War II.

With unprecedented access to war archives in the US and Vietnam and interviews with participants from both sides, Bowden narrates each stage of this crucial battle through multiple points of view. Played out over 24 days of terrible fighting and ultimately costing 10,000 combatant and civilian lives, the Battle of Huế was by far the bloodiest of the entire war. When it ended, the American debate was never again about winning, only about how to leave. In Huế 1968, Bowden masterfully reconstructs this pivotal moment in the American War in Vietnam.

©2017 Mark Bowden (P)2017 Audible, Inc.
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

Critic reviews

"Narrator Joe Barrett's voice, always scratchy, careworn, and haggard, has just the sound this book needs to carry it forward. He sounds like an old boot and offers no quarter when detailing the battle's ravages, both in terms of men and American strategy." (AudioFile)

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I KNEW This Book Would Sting Me . . . .

What did you love best about Hue 1968?

Joe Barrett is a top shelf narrator, particularly with this genre of literature.

Who was your favorite character and why?

General Westmoreland I suppose only because he was such a common thread in this well crafted tapestry, and while I was in country 1966, Chesty Westy was my commander. I am happy that his faults and lies were portrayed as well as his grand image.

Which scene was your favorite?

The early morning breakout to the hills, being one of the three options the torn up and surrounded battalion came up with for ex-filtration. The men "Would rather die trying to live" instead of waiting to be over run.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

As much as I could, yes.

Any additional comments?

. . . . and yet I clicked on play anyway. I was in 3rd Corps, Republic of South Vietnam for Tet 1966, assigned along with 11 other American pilots, crew chiefs, radio men and advisers to ARVN forces at Duc Hoa, Southeast of Siagon. The night sky lit up with tracers and my first reaction was that we were being over run. Not so, I was told by Captain Tompkins. It was Tet and this was their fireworks celebration. We lived in a pagoda next to a PSP air strip. Capt. Tompkins made me sleep on the top bunk with a flak jacket on. Tet 1968 became the talk of the base at Ft Stewart Georgia where I was assigned as a flight instructor. Then, I was still a believer and could not distinguish lies from fact.I want to say that I am angry in my old age because of the lack of moral values by LBJ and his posse in the 60's and 70's but it is something else. Hindsight makes me sorrowful over their misleading our country and the families of the 58,000+ that sacrificed their lives so that I could purchase a bag of frozen prawns at Costco labeled "Product of Vietnam". You have heard the debate about "Blood for Oil"? Well my war was evidently "Blood for Shrimp"!

My mother was a gifted artist when I left for MACV and she never painted again. I am told she spent the year on the sofa chewing ice cubes while watching the news. She even wrote the President asking why her son was fighting in that conflict.So even though I was an Army officer and pilot who lived in relative security while not involved in operations, the story lines here rang true as I handled many radio calls for medivac, air support, artillery and resupply. Until this week, I was naive as to the horrific battle at Hue, thinking that the battle of Ia Drang Valley in November of 1965 when I had been in country just 4 months was as bad as it got. It would be wrong to say that I enjoyed the book, however it did rivet my attention for 3 days and recalled many memories that had lain un-visited for decades.

I did not know many Marines over there as I was Army. However, I "knew" many of the characters in this book. The author took great care to be graphic . . . . to fill a reader's consciousness with the feel, sight, touch, sounds and smells of close quarter battle. I am sure Mr. Bowden took some "literary license" in portraying many of these Marines thoughts and feelings, but they did ring true for the most part. I have mixed feelings about the scene where the Vietnamese woman came to a dirty and battle weary squad of Marines wishing to trade sex for C rations. I suppose it happened, but I never heard of anything quite like that. In its own way, it was tender, and a damn sight better that men just forcing themselves on civilian women.

So if this is what you want, if you are curious as to why so many who came back from this "conflict" only to discover they can never quite get all the way back, then this book is for you. For me, I probably will not open it again. It was well done for sure, and I did learn a lot from it that I had not previously internalized about our . . . . my involvement in Vietnam. I believe Daniel Ellsberg was heroic in his actions and saved tens of thousands of lives. I believe General Westmoreland was the reverse of Andersen's "The Emperor's New Clothes". Rather than the crowd wanting to exclaim "Look, the Emperor has no clothes", it could have been said of Westmoreland, "Look, the uniform has no general".

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Beware of men w/ theories that explain everything.

“Beware of men with theories that explain everything.”
― Mark Bowden, Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam

I told my kids the other day that they were both indirect results of Vietnam. My wife's father, now dead, had a draft number of one, so enlisted so that he would have a better chance of chosing HOW he would enter the Vietnam War. He came in at the end of Vietnam and became a professional soldier and officer (green-to-gold). The Army trained him with helicopters and tanks, and he retired a decade ago as a Colonel. My own father, concerned too with the draft, enlisted in the Navy. He also made a career of the military and we met my wife's family when our families were both stationed in Izmir, Turkey in the late 80s and early 90s. I doubt very much if either of our fathers would have become officers and made careers out of the military without Vietnam. It is weird to think of the imacts of Vietnam 50 years+ after the fact.

The Battle of Huế was fought 50 years ago in Jan/Feb of 1968 as part of the Tet Offensive. It was the biggest, bloodiest, and most pivitol single battle of the Vietnam War. Both sides claim success and both claims can probably be easily criticized. It was the turning point for the US in both our perception of the War. Bowden captures, through exensive interviews and research, the claustrophobia, filth, and horror of door-to-door combat. If anyone walks away from this with less stature, it is probably General Westmoreland who went to his grave over-estimating those NVA soldiers killed, and underestimating US casualties, and ignoring the civilians killed. One of the sharpest, deadliest quotes of the book summarizes my feelings about General Westmoreland:

“Never had a general so effectively willed away the facts.”

I have brothers who fought in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Everyday, I wish we paid closer attention to Vietnam so we would have avoided getting ourselves into another protracted war in a country most of our citizens know little about. Understanding Vietnam (and understanding what got us and kept us there) requires knowing DETAILS. Bowden helps to uncover aspects of this war I knew about, but at a granular level I appreciated. If this book did anything else, it made me start planning a trip to Vietnam. I'd love to see Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, and of course -- Huế.

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Worth reading/listening but a little off

What does Joe Barrett bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

At first the book as a whole didn't sit well with me (see additional comments) and I felt on top of that I was getting the story from Andy Rooney. It did bother me less as the book went on.

Was Hue 1968 worth the listening time?

Yes. I found the early parts of the book a bit of a struggle but ultimately it was worth the listen.

Any additional comments?

I can't quite put my finger on what I didn't like about this book. There was something about the author that struck me as though he was doing his best not to gush over the NVA/VC and his love for Uncle Ho. There was a lack of balance (perhaps born out of lack of information) in the criticisms of the US & (A)RVN forces, the NVA/VC, and the higher political policies of both sides. I got tired of hearing the same criticisms of Westmoreland over and over, how great and honest the press was, and in places how inept or morally bankrupt US soldiers were. It wasn't Jane Fonda level but it was noticeable. The book did end up getting more balanced as it went on but I considered not finishing it about an hour or two in. Nevertheless I am glad I purchased and completed it.

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Terrible narration

Terrible voice. Boring voice. Hard to focus on story. Please rerecord this book with a better narrator

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    4 out of 5 stars
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Great story of brave men, slightly anti-American

While the story itself is excellent and needs to be told for both sides, I found the frequent highlighting of things the Marines did that were terrible in nature, to give the book a slight leftist and anti-American slant to things. The author will go into great detail about bad things the marines did, while somewhat brushing off how the NVA/VC/etc would go house to house rounding up civilians, and march them off to be bound, gagged, and shot in the back of the head by the hundreds. Nor how the American journalists were captured and marched north to their own hellish version of the "Hanoi Hilton" , and not released for 5-7 years. War is hell. Both sides often do terrible things to win. I found the book to give the 1960's professor-ish anti-war anti-American side of the story. God bless our men who fought and died there, and those who survived, and I believe, had a much harder time after they came home to a turbulent ,disloyal , and unwelcoming country.

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Too slanted

I would have enjoyed a more balanced look at this story of the Vietnam war. The author is not able to restrain himself from his own biases. Too much talk about how the journalists were the great ones. Too must disdain for Westmoreland, who gets called the diminutive “Westy” repeatedly during the book. The author would do better to let me form an opinion of the general’s effectiveness instead of trying to lead me in one direction. I have a great deal of respect for the military folks who endured that unfortunate trial. War is hell.

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Amazing.

You know the second part of Full Metal Jacket? That was the battle of Hue. Dark humor, an NFL turned USMC infantry commander (and was interviewed for a tv report), personal accounts from both sides, DARK HUMOR that made me laugh out loud, and some true accounts of the demons that still haunt the veterans. Ever present is the famous USMC ability to be resourceful with what they have.

Legit book.

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    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent history

A compelling, thoroughly researched account of the bitterness battle of the Vietnam war told from the viewpoint of those who fought on both sides.

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Hue 68. Moving and balanced

Bowden captures the battle from both sides fairly. Heroism, criminalism, professionalism and amateurism are on dislpay. Like Thucididies, a great story and a warning to decision makers.

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Hue 1968: A horrid, yet true and factual account

Great narration. Truth can be sickening at times, yet we must be open to these events. only thru factual accounts is there hope of non-repitition.
Along with countless other vets, I too struggle as to reasoning for our participation in this conflict.

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