Many people would know Khe Sahn from the classic Australian song of the same name by Cold Chisel or for references in Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA. Khe Sahn was the site of a very bloody battle fought in the Vietnam War. In 1968, Khe Sahn was one of the most remote outposts of the war and ended in one of the biggest sieges of the war between the American Forces and the People’s Army of Vietnam. Today Khe Sanh’s horrid history has been mostly overgrown with wilderness except areas including the old airstrips which were poisoned during the war. The old combat base now houses a small museum of relics from the war and the area is extensively farmed for with coffee and banana plantations. There are several tourist operators from Dong Ha which offer tours to Khe Sahn and the DMZ and give you a good insight into this terrible time in Vietnam’s history. Just as a post note the term sappers refers to the people who extracted sap out of rubber trees.
