In some quarters, however, there were still grumblings over the Khe Sanh issue. During the siege, there had been a virtual storm of protest from critics who opposed the Administration's decision to hold the base. These doomsday prophets suffered from what some military experts referred to as the "Dien Bien Phu Syndrome." Many noted intellectuals were in the van of this group and throughout the battle they could not be convinced that air and artillery support would provide the margin of difference; they warned that the tiny base would suffer the same fate which had been meted out to the French garrison 14 years earlier.(224)
[Illustration: During the presentation of the Presidential Unit Citation to the 26th Marines, President Lyndon B. Johnson (C) congratulates Sergeant Major Agrippa W. Smith (L) while Colonel David E. Lownds (R) looks on.]
There are several reasons why Khe Sanh did not become another Dien Bien Phu. The first and most obvious being that the Americans possessed the overwhelming supporting arms which were not available to the French. Contrary to the predictions of many critics, air and artillery were decisive and more than made up for the numerical superiority of the enemy. Over 100,000 tons of bombs and 150,000 artillery rounds were delivered--and delivered intelligently--by the Americans during the siege. Much of the credit goes to the regimental commander and his staff who knew how to coordinate their different sources of firepower to achieve maximum results. The NVA learned this during the five major attacks against the base and hill outposts.
The ability to keep Khe Sanh resupplied was another major factor. The NVA encirclement did not coincide with the monsoon season by accident. With Route 9 interdicted, the fate of the garrison hinged on the success or failure of the airlift and apparently the North Vietnamese anticipated that it would fail. The fact that the airlift was successful in the face of heavy enemy fire and the foulest weather imaginable is indeed a tribute to the aircrews and recovery personnel but the resupply effort went much deeper than just delivering the goods. The Force Logistics Command at Da Nang augmented by U. S. Army sources at Cam Ranh Bay was responsible for the mountain of supplies and material which sustained the 26th Marines. An excerpt from the works of Winston Churchill which was selected as the motto of the Force Logistics Command best describes the vital role these logistics agencies played: "Victory is the beautiful colored flower. Supply is the stem without which it could never have blossomed."(225)