Among the Americans fighting were future writer Larry Heinemann and future film director Oliver Stone. The PAVN violated the New Year's truce in the New Year's Day Battle of 1968. was 31 January at the start of the Tet Offensive when 246 Americans were killed in action.

The deadliest day of the Vietnam War for the U.S. The year also became the deadliest of the Vietnam War for America and its allies with 27,915 ARVN soldiers killed and the Americans suffering 16,592 killed compared to around two hundred thousand PAVN/VC killed. The year was the most expensive in the Vietnam War with the American spending US$77.4 billion (US$ 651 billion in 2023) on the war. troop numbers peaked in 1968 with President Johnson approving an increased maximum number of U.S. These reversals on the battlefield (the VC would never again fight effectively as a cohesive force) failed to register on the American home front, however and fueled what would ultimately prove to be a propaganda victory for Hanoi. PAVN/VC troops throughout the South, from Hue to the Mekong Delta, attacked in force for the first time in the war, but to devastating cost as the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and American troops killed close to 37,000 of the ill-supported enemy in less than a month for losses of 3,700 and 7,600 respectively.

Hanoi erred monumentally in its certainty that the offensive would trigger a supportive uprising of the population. At the end of January, the PAVN and VC launched the Tet Offensive. The military operations started with an attack on a US base by the North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Viet Cong (VC) on January 1, ending a truce declared by the Pope and agreed upon by all sides.

The year 1968 saw major developments in the Vietnam War.

Us navy in the vietnam war