History - Battlefield Vietnam: Siege at Khe Sanh

1999. If you look up the word in any thesaurus, the definition of siege is everything from a simple attack to a naval blockade. What these references books wont tell you is that the true meaning of that ominous utterance is what happened at the United States Marine combat base at Khe Sanh on January 21, 1968. Beginning at sunrise, a massive North Vietnamese artillery barrage fell on the base, the support runways, and the main ammunition dump, sending soldiers scrambling for cover. After two days, when the smoke finally cleared, thousands lay dead and wounded. Battlefield Vietnam: Siege at Khe Sanh, the eighth episode in the PBS series Battlefield Vietnam, covers this historic incident.