The battle of Khe Sanh which took place from 21 January to 8 April 1968 commanded wide attention from the world media. For 77 days, Khe Sanh was under constant ground and artillery attacks by the People's Army of Vietnam.

Quang Tri is in the Central Region of Vietnam, bordered to the north by Quang Binh, to the East by the East Vietnam Sea, to the south by Hue and to the west by Laos (Savannakhet and Salavan Provinces). The provincial capital is Dong Ha City. Quang Tri has a coastline of 75km and the borderline with Laos of 206km.

By mid 1954, the French had realized that it had lost the war to the Viet Minh and would not want to fight further. The Geneva Conference was held on the 20th and 21st of July 1954 to solve the problems in Indochina producing a number of agreements to settle the war. The set of agreements was called the Geneva Accord.

After the Geneva Accord in 1954, the north and the south of Vietnam was temporarily divided at the 17th parallel and the Ben Hai River was the temporary military demarcation line. The Demilitarized Zone (or DMZ) of no more than 5km in width was created on either side of the Ben Hai River.