Volume 268 | No. 4

A Gordian Knot

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by W.D. Ehrhart I was among a small unit of U.S. Marines who entered Hue City, Vietnam, on January 31st, 1968, at the beginning of what turned out to be the Tet Offensive. The city had been secretly occupied by Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army forces (VC/NVA), and it took us nearly a month to drive them out. By the time we were done, the city was largely in ruins. A year and a half later, and immediately after public revelation of the massacre of hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians by units of the U.S. Americal Division at a place known as My Lai, …

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Sun, Nov 13

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2003—Because he would not remove his Ten Commandments monument from the courthouse, Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is himself removed. 1982—The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C. Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and Robert McNamara are no-shows. 1974—Karen Silkwood, a disgruntled Kerr-McGee worker, turns up conveniently dead. 1970—Up to half a million die as a cyclone hits Bangladesh. 1965—The dysfunctional tinderbox Yarmouth Castle burns en route to Nassau; 90 passengers burn or drown, deserted by captain and crew. 1942—The torpedoed cruiser U.S.S. Juneau sinks in 20 minutes, 100 of 673 surviving the explosion. Two other cruisers depart, assuming no survivors. Eight days later, ten …

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