Khe Sanh was valuable base for allied ground operations against infiltration routes entering South Vietnam and, as events would prove, for attacks on North Vietnamese supply dumps located across the Loatian border. By January 1968, the base has evolved into a well organized defensive postion with a runway that could accomodate the largest American tactical transport. Moreover, the base had become a symbol of U.S. determination to see the war throught. Intelligence officers were convinced that the enemy, aware of this symbolism, would lay seige to the base and attemptto overwhelm its defenders in the same way he had crushed the French and their auxiliaries at Dien Bien Phu. Westmoreland's staff recognized that an attack on Khe Sanh might be part of some even more ambitious scheme combined perhaps with a thrust from Laos throught the A Shau Valley toward Hue or Da Nang to isolate portion of I Corps but they were certain that Giap, wheather directing operations from Hanoi or Actually in commamnd on the battle field, fully intended to repeat along Highway 9 the klind of triumph he won 14 years before in the wilderness far to the north. Yet the possibility exited that by massing troops against Khe Sanh, General Giap or his field commander might be putting a pistol to his head. Ever since 1966, General Westmoreland had been fighting what amounted to war of attrition. He used his remarkably moblie forces to strike suddenly, attempting to engage the enemy so that America's awasome fire power, everything from M-16 rifles to B-52 bombers, could be brought to bear. His objective was not to capture hill or ridge line, but to destroy enemy soldiers and hostile units.

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