Lo Khac Tam
Lo Khac Tam is a former Vietnamese lieutenant general who fought for the army of North Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
War years
In 1965, Lo Khac Tam was a second lieutenant in the North Vietnamese army, and led a platoon of soldiers down the Ho Chi Minh Trail to the Ia Drang Valley. Tam was one of the first one hundred graduates of the North Vietnamese military academy who volunteered to lead soldiers into South Vietnam.Tam and his fellow soldiers arrived in the Chu Pong mountains. The Vietnamese forces engaged American forces on 14 November 1965 when American 1st Cavalry helicopters arrived at Landing Zone X-Ray in what became known as the Battle of Ia Drang. Tam stated that his soldiers fixed their bayonets to prepare for the battle, but that they suffered substantial losses that were psychologically shocking to their forces. Tam stated that one lesson the Vietnamese learned was that in order to fight the Americans, they needed to be at close quarters.
Tam would later see combat fighting against US Marines near Con Thien and the DMZ, and then at the fall Saigon.