The Tet Offensive is the most remarkable example in all history of losing the battle but winning the war. In February 1968, to mark their New Year celebrations (Tet), the Viet Cong mounted an all-out assault, attacking every major base in the country simultaneously. Except Nui Dat where, apparently, our efforts had diminished their numbers so severely that they could only muster the strength to besiege the nearly, smaller ARVN outpost at Baria.
    Knowing this, we went north to assist in the defence of Bein Hoa, where allegedly the massive force that was supposed to capture Saigon would have to pass, coming off the Ho Chi Minh trail and following the power lines to their objective. Bein Hoa stood on the power line, blocking their way and we were out in the surrounding jungle, continually striking their leading edge. The contacts came fast and furious, several each day, and in the end we ran up about 40 VC killed, while we lost not one man, though many were wounded. All told, 26 Australians were killed, amongst several hundred allies, while the number of enemy dead was reckoned at about 100,000. For this huge cost, they managed to hold the old city of Hue for ten days until the Yanks took it back again, and besieged Khe Sahn, but that was nothing new. Otherwise, they failed to capture every objective. It was, as one Aussie put it, like shooting rats in a shithouse.

As if one wasn’t enough. As if Death needed a double. So ran the promo for Sergio Leone’s second spaghetti western For a Few Dollars More. The man with no Name was back, played with the usual laconic detachment by Clint Eastwood, to run rings around another bunch of nasties, in a mind-numbingly tangled series of dirty tricks and double-crosses. For this time he had a side-kick in the form of the magnificent Lee Van Cleef, playing a rare good-guy role in a cool amicable style.
    The most memorable scene was surely the one where Van Cleef lights his pipe by striking the match on hunchback Klaus Kinski’s hump, incurring astonishment and then the showdown he is seeking. The hat-shooting contest between the heroes was also terrific. Eastwood shoots Van Cleef’s hat further away every time he tries to pick it up until suddenly the next shot falls short—the hat is out of range—whereby Lee draws his Buntline Special and shoots Eastwood’s hat off, sending him walking after it. Terrific stuff.