| Ben Tre Thành phố Bến Tre |
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| Ben Tre Bridge | |
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Ben Tre
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| Country | Vietnam |
| Province | Bến Tre Province |
Bến Tre () is the capital city and municipality of Bến Tre Province, located in the Mekong Delta area of southern Vietnam. It was upgraded from town to city on 11 August 2009.
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One of the most famous quotes of the Vietnam War was a statement attributed to an unnamed U.S. officer by AP correspondent Peter Arnett. Writing about the provincial capital, Bến Tre, on 7 February 1968, Arnett cited an unidentified U.S. military official as follows: "'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it', a United States major said today. He was talking about the decision by allied commanders to bomb and shell the town regardless of civilian casualties, to rout the Vietcong."[1] The quote became distorted in subsequent publications, eventually becoming the more familiar, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it."[2] The accuracy of the original quote, and its source, have often been called into question.[3]
Arnett never revealed his source, except to say that it was one of four officers he interviewed that day. United States Army Major Phil Cannella, the senior officer present at Bến Tre, suggested that the quote might have been a distortion of something he said to Arnett.[2]The New Republic at the time attributed the quote to U.S. Air Force Major Chester L. Brown.
In Walter Cronkite's 1971 book, Eye on the World, Arnett re-asserted that the quote was something "one American major said to me in a moment of revelation."[4] However, one American veteran of the campaign, Captain Michael D. Miller, wrote in his 2006 book, Saving Bến Tre, that he heard the comment being made by one Major Booris at a press briefing.
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