Road of 10,000 Pains

Book excerpt: This is an epic oral history of Vietnam's bloodiest campaign, fought for seven months in a series of battles, most of them within four miles of each other, along Route 534. Staring in October 1967, orders came down to the 2nd North Vietnamese Army Division commanding them to join with the local Viet Cong and seize the city of Danang in the Tet Offensive. After fighting for seven months in the Que Son Valley, the division was so battered that it failed to carry out its mission, with only one platoon making it inside the city limits. This is the true-life accounts of what fighting was like in that narrow, bloody valley from the veteran's own mouths, and how that saved Danang from suffering the same fate as Hue City