Meadows and his company of 160 Marines were holed up in an American compound in the South Vietnamese city of Hue. They were ... had no experience fighting in an urban setting," Bowden says.

Then-captain Myron Harringto uses a radio during the assault on Dong Ba tower, in back, in Hue City ... to retake the city. Huế was a uniquely awful setting for an urban fight.

Vietnamese troops did most of the fighting and dying ... grenade during the Battle of Hue, part of the Tet offensive, in February 1968. Policy mattered, too. In Vietnam, freelancers were easily ...