30. Fact: Other offensives followed closely upon the heels of the Tet Offensive
Just under one month after the Tet Offensive was brought under control (which took about eight weeks of heavy fighting) the Viet Cong launched a second offensive, which while less ambitious than Tet indicated their offensive capability was intact. In August, 1968, a third offensive was launched, and 1968 became the bloodiest year of the war. The intent of the three offensives was to destroy the American will to continue fighting and to hopefully (by the North Vietnamese) encourage defection by ARVN units. Though no defections of whole units occurred, desertions by individuals increased dramatically. The year of communist offensives also gave the lie to the rosy reports by General Westmoreland that the war was all but won by the spring of 1968, and revealed the communist troops were still very much a fighting force, despite his claims that they had been all but destroyed.
