Two Missions in May
Forty years ago, in May 1969, two teams of skilled and brave Americans were engaged, on behalf of their nation, in epic missions that riveted the attention of the country and had far-reaching impacts. As the massive Saturn rocket with Apollo 10 and its lunar module lifted off from Cape Kennedy on May 18, halfway around the globe weary paratroopers faced yet another miserable day clawing their way up a jungle-covered, 3,000-foot mountain in the face of an entrenched enemy’s unrelenting gun and rocket fire. Later that day, as the Apollo crew escaped Earth orbit and began hurtling toward the moon, the men at Vietnam’s Ap Bia Mountain were once again hauling their dead and wounded back down the mountainside, their assault turned back by a tenacious enemy aided by a pounding monsoon rainstorm. Above the fold on front pages of newspapers across the United States on May 19 were these two competing and contrasting stories. One hailing the NASA mission that would be the test run for the moon landing to come two months later. The other a bitter reminder that America was still deeply mired in a disastrous war here on Earth and its young soldiers were dying by the score for reasons that seemed less comprehensible every day.
Two days later, as the American people closely watched the moon mission that would take humans nearer to the surface of another celestial body than ever before, they were also learning the gruesome details of the Ap Bia battle, which would soon be widely known by the name given it by the troops on the ground, Hamburger Hill. Reactions to the accounts of the costly 10-day battle were visceral.
By the time of Apollo 10’s return to Earth on May 26, Americans were convinced that the goal of putting men on the moon was within reach. Americans were likewise becoming just as convinced that victory on the ground in Vietnam was not. Finally, when the mountaintop that had cost so many lives to take was abandoned in June, to be immediately reoccupied by the enemy, Hamburger Hill came to represent an empty, pointless policy that must be changed.
As historian James H. Willbanks’ cover story in this issue documents, the men who fought and ultimately inflicted crippling losses on the enemy at Hamburger Hill did so with undaunted courage and determination. Nonetheless, the public and political reaction to this “victory” was severe.
Although thousands of American troops would still die in the years to come, Hamburger Hill essentially signaled an end to large-scale U.S. offensive engagements and accelerated the effort to turn the fighting over to the South Vietnamese.
Originally published in the June 2009 issue of Vietnam Magazine. To subscribe, click here.
