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Contact Info
Home Town Austin, Texas
Last Address Alexandria, Virginia
Date of Passing Oct 10, 2000
Location of Interment Arlington National Cemetery (VLM) - Arlington, Virginia
United States Army General. His father was United States Army Brigadier General Bruce Palmer Sr., and his grandfather, Major George Henry Palmer, received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery during the Civil War. He graduated sixth in his class from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1936, and served in the Southwest Pacific Theater during World War II. After the war, he became a tactics instructor in the infantry school at Fort Benning, Georgia. He was a 1952 graduate of the Army War College and was its deputy commandant from 1959 to 1961. He became deputy commanding general to General William C. Westmoreland in Vietnam in 1967 and United States Army vice chief of staff, again under Westmoreland, in 1968. General Palmer was the Army's acting chief of staff in 1972 and retired in 1974 as Commander in Chief of the Army Readiness Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. His other assignments included a tour as White House liaison officer to the Army's chief of staff and deputy chief of staff. After retiring from active duty, he served two years as executive director of the Defense Manpower Commission. From 1976 to 1984, he was a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a military member of the Central Intelligence Agency's military review panel and the agency's Center for the Study of Intelligence. His decorations included five Army Distinguished Service Medals, an Air Force Distinguished Service Medal, a Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star and Air Medal. He also held the director of central intelligence's National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal.
Description This campaign was from 30 January to 1 April 1968. On 29 January 1968 the Allies began the Tet-lunar new year expecting the usual 36-hour peaceful holiday truce. Because of the threat of a large-scale attack and communist buildup around Khe Sanh, the cease fire order was issued in all areas over which the Allies were responsible with the exception of the I CTZ, south of the Demilitarized Zone.
Determined enemy assaults began in the northern and Central provinces before daylight on 30 January and in Saigon and the Mekong Delta regions that night. Some 84,000 VC and North Vietnamese attacked or fired upon 36 of 44 provincial capitals, 5 of 6 autonomous cities, 64 of 242 district capitals and 50 hamlets. In addition, the enemy raided a number of military installations including almost every airfield. The actual fighting lasted three days; however Saigon and Hue were under more intense and sustained attack.
The attack in Saigon began with a sapper assault against the U.S. Embassy. Other assaults were directed against the Presidential Palace, the compound of the Vietnamese Joint General Staff, and nearby Ton San Nhut air base.
At Hue, eight enemy battalions infiltrated the city and fought the three U.S. Marine Corps, three U.S. Army and eleven South Vietnamese battalions defending it. The fight to expel the enemy lasted a month. American and South Vietnamese units lost over 500 killed, while VC and North Vietnamese battle deaths may have been somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000.
Heavy fighting also occurred in two remote regions: around the Special Forces camp at Dak To in the central highlands and around the U.S. Marines Corps base at Khe Sanh. In both areas, the allies defeated attempts to dislodge them. Finally, with the arrival of more U.S. Army troops under the new XXIV Corps headquarters to reinforce the marines in the northern province, Khe Sanh was abandoned.
Tet proved a major military defeat for the communists. It had failed to spawn either an uprising or appreciable support among the South Vietnamese. On the other hand, the U.S. public became discouraged and support for the war was seriously eroded. U.S. strength in South Vietnam totaled more than 500,000 by early 1968. In addition, there were 61,000 other allied troops and 600,000 South Vietnamese.
The Tet Offensive also dealt a visibly severe setback to the pacification program, as a result of the intense fighting needed to root out VC elements that clung to fortified positions inside the towns. For example, in the densely populated delta there had been approximately 14,000 refugees in January; after Tet some 170,000 were homeless. The requirement to assist these persons seriously inhibited national recovery efforts.