The Bridges of Vietnam: From the Journals of a U. S. Marine Intelligence Officer

Preface • i

THE BRIDGES OF

VIETNAM From the Journals of a U. S. Marine Intelligence Officer

by Fred L. Edwards, Jr.

University of North Texas Press • Denton, Texas

©2000 Fred L. Edwards, Jr.

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

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Permissions: University of North Texas Press PO Box 311336 Denton TX 76203-1336

The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, z39.48.1984. Binding materials have been chosen for durability.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Edwards, Fred L., 1932– The bridges of Vietnam: from the Vietnam journals of U.S. Marine intelligence officer/ by Fred L. Edwards. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-57441-123-3 (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN 1-57441-138-1 (paper) 1. Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975—Personal narratives, American. 2. Edwards, Fred L., 1932—Diaries. 3. United States. Marine Corps—Biography. I. Title. DS559.5 .E28 2000 959.704’38—dc21 [B] 00-028678

Design by Angela Schmitt

Dedication This book is dedicated to the American and third-country forces who served honorably in Vietnam, to the ethnic warriors who fought alongside them, and to the loyal citizens of the former Republic of Vietnam. A special dedication goes to my wife, Pauline, our son, Fred C., and our daughter, Jerri, all who endured tougher times than I experienced during 1966 and 1967.

Contents Preface vii Chapter 1. Initiation 1 Chapter 2. Professional Education 39 Chapter 3. Internship 83 Chapter 4. Residency 116 Chapter 5. A Long Tunnel to Nowhere 158 Chapter 6. Sabbatical 183 Chapter 7. Transition 189 Chapter 8. Initiation 201 Epilogue 215 Appendix A. Selected Vietnam War Chronology 221 Appendix B. Terms and Acronyms 251 Appendix C. Bibliography 260 Sketch Maps Index

267

262

Preface

In response to the suicide of Admiral Jeremy Boorda, the Chief of Naval Operations, on 16 May 1996, retired Marine Lieutenant General Bernard E. Trainor wrote, “Within the armed forces the distinction between a combat veteran and one who has not seen combat is significant. It is a gulf that exists until one bridges it in a test by fire.” He added that, “When civilians first meet, they assess each other by dress, grooming, voice and other characteristics. When service people meet for the first time, they immediately look at the ribbons each wears.”1 Thirty-one years earlier, in 1965, I was wearing a red-and-blue ribbon for good conduct and a redand-yellow ribbon for having been on active duty during the Korean War. In March of 1965 a battalion of Marines landed in the northern part of South Vietnam, soon followed by two more battalions, all of whom spearheaded the deployment of the Third Marine Amphibious Force to I Corps. On 28 April 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered Marines into the Dominican Republic, for what would be almost a classic thirty-day amphibious operation. It seemed to me that every Marine in the Marine Corps was doing what he was paid to do except me. I had completed almost sixteen years of service. I was a senior captain, freshly graduated from a pair vii

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of intelligence schools at the U.S. Army Intelligence Training Center at Fort Holabird, Maryland, and slated for a four-year desk job at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in Washington. The only shots ever fired at me had been by my own sentries in 1960, when I failed to stop when challenged while checking posts at a place called Clarksville Base, in Tennessee. There was a strong possibility that I would retire upon twenty years of service without ever stepping foot in a war zone. During the Korean War I had possessed a military occupational specialty (MOS) that offered no assignments in Korea. As a corporal during 1951 and 1952 at the Marine Barracks at Great Lakes, Illinois, I had performed a monthly ritual. On the first working day of each month, I would snap to attention in front of Master Sergeant George A. Candea’s desk. “I want to change my MOS, and volunteer for Korea,” I’d say. George, a slim, hawk-faced, beribboned veteran of World War II, would raise his eyebrows, wrinkle his brow, and throw me a sarcastic grin. “Okay, Edwards, you’ve done your patriotic duty. Now get the fuck out of here and go back to work.” In spite of his customary response, George eventually told me privately that he, too, was professionally embarrassed because so many of his peers were in Korea. He concluded however that, if he could carry out his orders to shuffle papers in the States, I could by God carry out mine. Ten years later as a junior captain I took command of the Marine Detachment on the Essex-class carrier, USS Bon Homme Richard. President John F. Kennedy had decided to intervene in Vietnam, and was creating the U.S. Military Assistance Command, which Army General Paul Harkins would command. American military men in country2 would soon quadruple from 3,200 to 11,300. Big things were happening and I wanted to be a part of them. I convinced the ship’s captain that I should take a thirty-day indoctrination tour in Vietnam in order to become a contingency briefing expert for the pilots of the ship’s Carrier Air Group 19. With the skipper’s blessing, and a Val Pak suitcase and a set of orders in hand, I left the ship at White Beach, Okinawa, on Christmas Day of 1961. I hitched a plane ride from the U.S. Air Force Base at Kadena to the Marine Corps Air Station at Iwakuni, Japan, to seek further transportation into Vietnam.

Preface • ix

On the morning of 26 December, I queued up outside a Marine transport plane with a group of enlisted Marines wearing jungle uniforms and Aussie-style hats, and the new AR-15 rifles. At the ramp the loadmaster frowned at my conventional utility uniform and said, “You’re wearing the wrong kind of uniform, sir.” My written orders failed to change his mind, and in fact perplexed him. He said that I should check in with the G-1 (Personnel) office of the 1st Marine Air Wing (1stMAW). The assistant G-1, a conscientious lieutenant colonel, was willing to help, but not able. “Your orders show that you are assigned to a Navy ship. That means you belong to the Navy, and so far as I’m concerned, captain, you might as well be wearing Navy dress whites.” However, he agreed to take my case to his boss. Twenty-four hours later the G-1, a colonel, told me kindly, “I’ve seen the chief of staff, and he’s talked with the assistant wing commander. He said that the old man doesn’t want to take the chance of having to tell the Commandant of the Marine Corps that Captain Edwards, ship’s company on an aircraft carrier, got killed because we flew him down south to Vietnam and let him visit one of our units. Bring me a set of orders signed by a common superior and we’ll be glad to take you aboard.” “Who is a common superior?” I asked. He thought for a moment. “I’d say it’s the Commandant of the Marine Corps. He’s the one who signed the orders assigning you to the Bon Homme Richard.” His reply reminded me of when the master sergeant had told me ten years earlier to get back to work, although the colonel had spoken a bit more politely. Nevertheless, the result was the same, for the colonel knew that a captain in Japan—or anyplace else for that matter—just doesn’t pick up a telephone and call the Commandant in Washington asking for a personal favor. So I hitchhiked an airplane ride back to Okinawa and returned to the Bon Homme Richard. On the one hand, it would be easy to decide that I might have taken other avenues in 1951 or 1961 had I wanted badly enough to bridge the gulf. On the other hand, it would be just as easy to label my motives as idealistic, ego-driven, or just plain stupid. In any case, I would try again in 1965. This book describes precious little glory. Indeed, the word “glory” brings back the words of tough, gaunt, white-haired, forty-eight-year-old

x • The Bridges of Vietnam

Sergeant Major Doyle Berry, who in 1967 and 1968 helped me notify wives and parents in northern Nevada that their Marines would be coming home in boxes. Berry, who had just volunteered for a second Vietnam tour during his thirtieth year of service, and who had a son over there, said, “Major, sometimes I watch these movies about war, and hear all that ‘glory music’ in the background. Well, I’ve been in two wars, and you know something? I never heard any glory music either time. Not one damn note!” I recalled that during my first tour in Vietnam (which this book is about) I never heard any glory music either. But two years earlier, at the age of thirty-three, my biggest concern had not been glory. My concern had been whether the Vietnam War would be over before I could get there. I first had to escape Washington. I began by formally waiving my recent overseas date accrued aboard Bon Homme Richard. Otherwise, I would have had to wait until all other Marine infantry captains had been out to the Western Pacific before I would be eligible to return. With the waiver, I was assured that whenever I was transferred I would go to Vietnam. But that time might be four years away when my Washington tour expired. Then, in September of 1965, a manpower survey reassigned a group of Marine captains’ jobs elsewhere in DIA. The others involved were assigned to the new Marine positions, but one job had simply disappeared! By mathematics, I had no place to go unless I took a job belonging to another service. After a simple letter, and an unbelievably complex series of bureaucratic bargains, six months later I picked up my orders to Fleet Marine Forces Pacific, Western Pacific Ground Forces (WestPac), which meant Vietnam. I had won a chance to head for a war that would cost the United States more than $110 billion over its normal defense budget and produce more than two hundred thousand American military casualties from the more than two-and-a-half million who would fight there. The conflict would add more than fifty-eight thousand American military deaths to the ninety-five thousand French and French colonial warriors who had already died in Indochina. Over two thousand Americans would wind up missing, most of them to the very day I’m finishing this manuscript.3 Of course I didn’t know these numbers just yet, but the impact of what I had done hit me. I soberly realized that this bridge I was crossing was damned serious business for a happily married father of two.

Preface • xi

My orders to Vietnam gave me a three-month lead time, plus leave. Although I had been training for war for nearly seventeen years, I capitalized on that final three months to study for the final exam. I reviewed Marine Corps tactical and staff manuals. I paid special attention to my course materials from the U.S. Army Special Warfare Center: Special Forces, Counterinsurgency Operations, and Psychological Operations. I borrowed military textbooks of the French and Vietnamese languages, selected Vietnamese as the only viable choice, and learned some words and phrases. During working hours, I took daily trips to the pistol range in the basement of a DIA building at Arlington Hall Station, in order to cement my relationship with the .45 caliber automatic pistol. And I jogged every day through the summer heat of northern Virginia. In June I attended a strategic symposium where spokesmen from Lyndon Johnson’s administration outlined startling plans to continue our troop buildup in the war, year after year, while also following the President’s Great Society domestic program.4 In July I watched diminutive Marine Commandant Wallace M. Greene, Jr., march stiffly back and forth across a platform in the Pentagon and announce in a shrill voice that it would take one hundred thousand Marines to pacify I Corps, the northern portion of South Vietnam for which the Marines were given responsibility. He explained that we would expand our leadership base by commissioning hundreds of noncommissioned officers and promoting lower ranking Marines to take their places. Our mobilization was so pressed for time that he would effect the promotions immediately, and cull out the lesser qualified later. Within six weeks I would start meeting those old lieutenants and young sergeants. August arrived. From today’s vantage point I can look back at a picture of a Marine who had enlisted at age seventeen after graduating from high school, rose through the ranks to become an officer, and was nearing the age of thirty-four. When not overseas or on training exercises, perhaps twenty percent of his remaining time had been dedicated to his vivacious wife and growing children, and their home of the moment. Otherwise, he was totally immersed in the Marine ethos. Indeed, he had married on the Marine Corps birthday, and his wife, Pauline, had adopted the ascetic mystique that permeates the lives of those devoted to organizations that dare to be elite. He and his wife both had sprung from middle-class, conservative families with roots in England and

xii • The Bridges of Vietnam

western Europe. Both had been born during the great depression of the 1930s, and had lived as teenagers under the threat of nuclear annihilation. Each had fled the nest searching for—perhaps each other. She and he were fascinated with each other and the life they had created, except for one nagging void. He felt unfulfilled as a career Marine who had been excluded from the Korean War. Nearing the 20-year military retirement threshold, he didn’t intend to miss the Vietnam War, even if it killed him. So his wife courageously agreed to smother her fears and face the challenge of coping with a teenage son and daughter in the turbulent sixties, while he set out to fill that void. He would go to Vietnam embracing the Cold War doctrine that Communism was a deadly enemy. During his travels, he would carry a plasticencased, color photograph in his wallet showing an American Flag at one edge and a Marine Corps flag at the other, with a phrase printed between that declared “Fuck Communism.” And so in August, he moved Pauline and their children into their home in Oceanside, California, and inexorably awoke to the morning of the first day.

✯ As a middle-grade officer at the beginning of my initiation to the Vietnam War in August of 1966, I received these orders: “Visit every major ground unit in the country. Go to Special Forces camps, ground reconnaissance units, armored cavalry units, and waterborne reconnaissance units. Search everywhere for intelligence sources— long-range patrols, boats, electronic surveillance, and agent operations. Don’t get bogged down by dog-and-pony shows staged for colonels and generals. When I want special info, go get it and get back with it. Be prepared to brief me or the general as soon as you return.” The chapters of this book portray what I found and how I changed as I crossed personal bridges during my journeys. The postscripts, the notes, and the chronology in Appendix A add a perspective that extends from World War II through the end of the second Vietnam War. Read them in tandem with the chapters and you will find an uncanny similarity between them and my day-to-day experiences. Put the package together and you will see how people of high and low stature crossed their own bridges.5 Perhaps you will even find yourself somewhere in these pages.

Preface • xiii

Thus the purpose of this book is to present a comprehensive overview of the Vietnam War during a pivotal part of the conflict in 1966–67. I have done this by linking the experiences of one person with a historical background taken from in-depth research. My intention was to expand the scope for many who were there and their families, and provide a starting point for readers who wish to study those controversial times in detail. The first chapter may make the reader ask if the book was written in slow motion, but it offers a sample of one of the most inefficient enterprises ever created by human beings—war. Consider three married men in their thirties who are preparing to board an airplane, and one of them doesn’t even know he is going to war until he checks in at the airport. Imagine a professional serviceman knocking down doors to get to Vietnam and being told on arrival just to take a couple of days off until somebody decides to put him to work. And what about the job he is first relegated to? But read the chapter to see what happens. Then move along with him through the rest of the book. The genesis of the book was a postal glitch. For almost four weeks after arriving in the Republic of Vietnam, I was receiving no postal mail. (There was no e-mail in 1966.) I could send mail, however, so I started mailing journals to my wife to inform her and my children that I was safe. Eventually I learned that she was mailing copies to family members, so at that point I began referring to her in the journals as “my wife.” When preparing this book, I changed the original direct statements to her to read “my wife,” and added descriptions of people I encountered that she knew. Except for that and normal copy-editing, the journals themselves remain basically as written. Some journals contain duplicate dates because I dated them generally as I experienced them, but mailed each home on a separate day in order to keep the mail flowing. But there are many calendar dates during the latter part of the tour where there are no journals. This is because I began mailing audio tapes and writing fewer journals. The tapes, unfortunately, were discarded after I returned home. I did not write home about covert and clandestine activities, such as cross-border and assassination operations, which only in recent years have been declassified.6 I also did not write descriptions of combat activity that might have distressed my family. It would not be possible to honestly re-

xiv • The Bridges of Vietnam

call these omissions after more than three decades. Moreover, I believe the book fulfills its purpose without them. All characters referred to are real persons, although many names are forgotten, and a few names have been changed or omitted to avoid embarrassment to those persons or their families. Such modifications are so noted in the endnotes. If occasional words used in the journals appear to be from an earlier time, it’s because they are. As examples, in 1966–67 we used words such as “stewardess” and “Negro,” and generally referred to Americans in Vietnam as “men.” Other terms and acronyms specific to the Vietnam War are compiled in an appendix. During 1966 and 1967 I commanded no troops. This gave me more time for narcissism and paranoia than I would have had if my psyche had been shielded by the overriding responsibility of command. At least, that’s the way my reading of the book appears to me today. And that’s the way it was more than three decades ago.

1

When this book was written, General Trainor was Director of the National Security Programs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. The suicide of Admiral Boorda was reported to have been connected with combat V devices that the admiral had worn on two achievement ribbons awarded during the Vietnam war, until somebody questioned his right to wear them (Trainor, Bernard E., “Suicide over a Medal? Ex-General’s View,” New York Times, 20 May 1996, B6). 2 A term used during the war, meaning “in South Vietnam.” 3 The autumn of 1965 marked a major event in Southeast Asia that would lock opposing leaders into inevitable paths toward withdrawal for one and victory for the other. In We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young: Ia Drang; the Battle that Changed the War in Vietnam, Harold Moore and Joseph Galloway describe it. They write that, on 23 October 1965, the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) (hereinafter identified as 1stCavDiv) commenced operations in South Vietnam by moving forces west from its base camp at An Khe toward the Cambodian border. On 1 November the NVA 66th People’s Army Regiment crossed into South Vietnam from Cambodia, moving eastward along the Ia (River) Drang. As they met, the entire NVA B-3 Front, including 320th, 33rd, and 66th regiments, would be thrown into the battle of the Ia Drang Valley.

Preface • xv

The Ia Drang campaign began on 14 November 1965, and resulted in 3,561 NVA estimated killed and 305 American soldiers dead. At a kill ratio of twelve-toone, Army General William C. Westmoreland, commander of U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam, and his chief of operations, Major General William E. Depuy, decided that such attrition (body count) would defeat the North Vietnamese. In Hanoi, however, Ho judged Ia Drang a draw, which he saw as a victory. He would accept twelve-to-one losses until the American will to fight disintegrated, just as the French will had dissolved against his Vietminh (Moore, 236–39, 339, 345–46). Sheehan writes that, in December 1965, Marine Lieutenant General Victor Krulak determined that Westmoreland’s attrition strategy would fail, because it was the enemy’s game. Krulak cited the Ia Drang battle, where the NVA leader used “clinging to the belt” tactics, keeping his troops so close to the Americans that they could not use supporting arms to increase the twelve-to-one kill ratio. He noted that the French pullout also was due to attrition. He concluded that 10,000 Americans and 165,000 South Vietnamese soldiers would have to die “to reduce the enemy manpower pool by only a modest twenty percent.” He proposed a pacification program in lieu of the attrition plan, backed up by interdiction of Haiphong Harbor and the Chinese railroad lines. Sheehan states that Army General Paul Harkins had first introduced the attrition strategy in 1962, while commander of USMACV, using body count and aircraft sorties as a gauge of when the North Vietnamese would no longer be able to fight (287–89, 630–36). 4 One of the officers attending asked how the administration felt the electorate would react to this plan. The spokesman’s (name not remembered) answer: “President Johnson was elected in 1964 for four years. That means we will run things in this town for at least two more years. And this is the way we are going to run them.” 5 Even former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara crossed a bridge, in his own way. In his book published in 1995, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, he writes that the U.S. “could and should have withdrawn from South Vietnam” as early as 1963, and that “We of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who participated in the decisions on Vietnam acted according to what we thought were the principles and traditions of this nation. We made our decisions in light of those values. Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong”(xvi, 320). Although he was more than thirty years—and tens of thousands of American deaths—late, the chronology shows that he did try to persuade President Lyndon B. Johnson twice to turn back—and found himself transferred to the presidency of the World Bank. 6 See chapters that follow for information about these operations.

xvi • The Bridges of Vietnam

Captain Fred L. Edwards, Jr., USMC Hong Kong, September 1962

Initiation • 1

Chapter 1

Initiation THURSDAY 11 AUGUST 1966—THE FIRST DAY A quick goodbye to my wife in the blackness of predawn. My mind spins as I slide into a seat on the bus. The sun will never come up this day because the bus will lurch from Oceanside’s darkness into the Los Angeles smog belt, and will slip from there into the fog belt of San Francisco. The driver lets us out for lunch and I sip a glass of orange soda. Before returning to the bus, I buy a paperback book titled The Lost Command about a group of French paratroopers operating in Indochina, and later in Algeria.1 I spend the afternoon reading about a war the French lost, and about the warriors they abandoned. Confident we will do right what they did wrong, occasionally I doze. Nearing San Francisco, the bus passes several wineries that advertise complimentary tasting rooms. My wife and I had spoken of stopping at one of those, but never did. It hits me that we and our families should do what we want when we can, because we might never have another chance. I reach San Francisco in time to make the connection for Travis Air Force Base, but a mob of humanity has crowded around the baggage claim counter because of a redcap strike. I hear my bus to Travis being called away, and jump the line to get 1

2 • The Bridges of Vietnam

my Val Pak suitcase and footlocker from behind the counter. I volunteer a sharp-looking Army sergeant who has the time to help, and we reach my bus just before it pulls away. My words to the sergeant are the first I’ve spoken since saying goodbye to my wife back in Oceanside. On the bus to Travis, I sit next to a Marine second lieutenant ground officer named Ed, who was just commissioned at Fort Meade, Maryland, and transferred to WestPac Air Forces.2 He is one of the hundreds that the Commandant declared we would commission from the ranks to fight this war. Ed, straw-haired and pale-eyed, has two roles to learn at once— how to be an officer, and how to fight a war. He looks like a small, scared, skinny kid, but he’s going out to do a man’s job. Travis at ten o’clock at night is like Grand Central Station on a holiday weekend. Through the throngs, I see a short, skinny Army private at the head of a check-in line who needs shots. He pulls off his shirt and undershirt, gets painted with Merthiolate from shoulders to elbows, and gets needles popped into both arms and both shoulders. A shiver goes down my spine and I swallow twice. You can’t look more vulnerable than him. He’s going to get sick and sore from those shots, and this is just the beginning of his year. I commence last telephone calls. My father tells me he is proud of me, and speaks of new orders mailed special delivery to his house telling me to report to Commander U.S. Military Assistance Command, Republic of Vietnam, whatever that is. Saying goodbye, I search out the Marine Corps liaison counter and hand my orders for WestPac Ground Forces to an Air Force sergeant on duty. I ask if he knows of a change to my orders. He raises his eyebrows, and points at an empty desk nearby bearing a nameplate, “Marine Liaison NCO.” “All I do is process passengers,” he says. “If you think you have a reason not to carry out your orders, we will assign your seat to somebody else and you can present your case to the gunny during regular working hours after 0800 tomorrow.” As a senior captain, I have no intention of telling a gunnery sergeant that I don’t think I really am supposed to go to Marine Corps Ground Forces WestPac, so I decide to just carry out orders I have and fly to Okinawa for staging. After I complete my phone calls, I meet two other Marine captains. One is Chuck Dawson, returning from a Marine Barracks tour in Iceland, where he was with his family.3 Chuck, five-foot eleven, blond-haired and

Initiation • 3

blue-eyed, looks like he hasn’t seen the sun in three years. He had thought he was going to Okinawa for duty and was surprised to see his orders modified to the 1st Marine Division (1stMarDiv) in Vietnam. He complains that he has had no time to get into shape, and has received no updated training. The other captain is Don Lohmeier, coming from Fort Meade, and also going to the 1stMarDiv. Don, five-foot nine, slim and dark-haired, is an ex-enlisted man. He is a serious talker who is as ready for war as any Marine can be who is jumping off for the first time into the unknown. Young Ed, the second lieutenant I had met on the bus, joins us. Smiling guardedly, he informs us that he has learned he will go to Iwakuni, Japan. His future will be quite different from ours. With a couple of hours to pass before flight time, we head to the Air Force’s nearby slop-chute, called the “Long Branch Saloon.” Jammed with some 200 empty wooden chairs and tables, and dimly lighted, it looks more like a barn than a saloon. At this time of night its only occupants are the bartender, who is leaning on the bar talking to an off-duty Air Force sergeant. The clock hands point straight up, and at midnight of the first day I eat the first food since breakfast back home in Oceanside—a toasterheated sandwich—and follow it with a sixteen-ounce schooner of beer. Outside, it is as dark as it was when the day began. Postscript Chuck Dawson’s attitude surprised me, because I had thought that all Marine officers on duty outside of the Fleet Marine Force (the Marine Corps’ operating force) kept in shape, physically and professionally, on their own initiative, particularly with the Vietnam War buildup. Note the difference between Chuck and another professional. Almost seven years later, in January of 1973, Marine Lieutenant Colonel Gerry H. Turley and I clasped hands at the Vietnamese Marine Corps Division Command Post at Huong Dien (see sketch map 1). My long-time friend spoke with excitement but without bravado about his part in a heroic defense against the North Vietnamese Easter offensive during March and April of the previous year. “Fred, this is what I learned. Plan for the moment that may never come. Prepare yourself for a higher level of courage than you think you’ll ever need. Your time may never come, but if it does, you’ll be ready, and you’ll carry it with you for the rest of your life.”

4 • The Bridges of Vietnam

FRIDAY 12 AUGUST 1966—STAGING THROUGH OKINAWA This day starts at midnight in the Long Branch Saloon at Travis. Our second schooners of beer grow warm and stale, like the thick air in the bar. At 0200 we return to the terminal. At 0230 we board a Boeing 707. At 0300 we are airborne. After a sandwich and a snack, I find blessed sleep from 0400 to 0800. As always on WestPac flights, time gets confused. At Anchorage, Alaska, where we refuel, my watch reads 0800. Local time is actually 0400, but the sun is up. We leave Anchorage and land at Tokyo at 1600, but now local time is actually 0800 on Saturday, 13 August. Nobody tells us why we’re in Japan. We will change planes in the morning light without the aid of passports or visas. A spokesman says we weren’t supposed to leave the plane in Japan, and warns us to keep a low profile when we do because of political necessity. Do not attract attention to your uniform. Do not stray on your hike between airplanes, do not pass go, do not collect $200. It’s like sneaking through the back alleys of the world in order to go to war. Two hours later we land on Okinawa in a steady drizzle. It is now early afternoon. We are in the middle of a tropical storm center that is destined not to move during our entire stay on the island. I step down to the tarmac, which is hot, with steam rising from it like wisps of ground fog. My uniform soaks up humidity like a sponge. In the terminal foyer, the first Marine I see on Okinawa is Keith Lowe. Keith and I were fellow sergeants a long time ago in Washington, D.C., and later at the Marine Barracks at Great Lakes. He’s now a short, wizened, weathered man of thirty-seven. He asks if I am coming to Okinawa for duty, and I reply that I’m only passing through on my way to Vietnam. He slips off his green raincoat and points to a chevron on his khaki shirt sleeve. His second comment to me after fifteen years is, “Well, I finally made gunnery sergeant.” A data processor, Keith missed the Korean War like I did. He probably is never destined for Vietnam. A thought hits me that I might have completed my career like him, but our paths have diverged. After a handshake and a few more words, I tell him I will call while I’m on the island if I have time. But I never have time. Outside the terminal, troops from the plane are milling around in the drizzle, because nobody met them. A captain wearing Naval Aviator wings

Initiation • 5

and I find a bus and driver, and we herd the troops aboard. The aviator is a helicopter driver named Pete Samaras. Oily with sweat, we follow the troops aboard, and the bus takes us to the transient facility at Camp Butler. Troops and officers passing through the transient facility are solemn, somber, and serious, either poised for war or returning from war. I hear no laughter from those going either direction. Their quietness is funereal, yet somehow the association with them eases a certain tightness that has been in the pit of my stomach since the day I first read my orders. At the BOQ,4 Pete and I meet Second Lieutenant Karl Anderson, a short, blond-haired Marine who is another ex-enlisted man. Karl is a communications officer for the 9th Engineer Battalion. He is returning to Vietnam from emergency leave and has good scoop about Vietnam, which Marines here call “Down South.” Since he’s the only Marine officer we’ve met who is freshly out of country, we interrogate him about everything from uniforms, to whether the VC will chop off your finger for your wedding ring. After a heavy evening meal of meat loaf and potatoes, followed by two beers at a bar occupied by whispering officers, Pete and I fall into our racks at the BOQ for the first sleep in twenty-three hours. Postscripts The term, “VC,” used for the first time in this book, exemplifies the anomalies of the entire Vietnamese conflict. In Vietnam: A History, Stanley Karnow writes that in December 1960 Hanoi founded the National Liberation Front in the south to organize various groups opposed to Ngo Dinh Diem, president of South Vietnam. Diem labeled the movement “Viet Cong” (Vietnamese Communist) as a pejorative, hardly worthy of notice (230–39). Sheehan states that, on their part, Americans liked the word “Viet Cong” because it contained the word “Communist,” which would attract notice. The Americans had even called the Vietminh, who had won the war in the north, “Viet Cong” (189). As the war in South Vietnam progressed, Americans there shortened “Viet Cong,” to “VC,” which often became “Charley.”

Karl Anderson described exactly what the war was like in the spot of jungle where he worked in support of one small unit, but I subconsciously trans-

6 • The Bridges of Vietnam

ferred his information into a niche in my mind that might be titled, “The way it is throughout South Vietnam.” This was the same trap that befell high-level visitors from Washington during “fact finding” missions to Vietnam. For example, in Lost Victory: A Firsthand Account of America’s Sixteen-year Involvement in Vietnam, William Colby writes that on 6 September 1963, Marine Major General Victor “Brute” Krulak and Joseph Mendenhall (from the State Department) had flown to Vietnam and returned with diametrically opposed reports for President Johnson. Krulak, who had toured the provinces, gave a positive military and political report. Mendenhall, who had visited the urban areas, reported that civil government was breaking down and that the war against the Communists could not be won with the Diem regime (Colby, 142). Incidentally, Karl Anderson couldn’t answer our question about whether the VC would cut off a finger to get a wedding ring.

SUNDAY 14 AUGUST 1966—PLANNING MY FUNERAL At 0900 I go to the admin office to pick up my personnel jacket, previously sent to Okinawa as required by my orders. A red-eyed, pale-skinned first lieutenant lounging at a desk laughs and gestures toward a four-drawer file cabinet overflowing with papers. “Rifle through that if you want to, or just go on down south without your jacket like everybody else does. Wherever it is, it’ll eventually catch up with you.” Considering our “processing” so far, you would think that the Marine Corps had never made a major deployment since 1775. The lieutenant finds my name on a roster and endorses my orders to the Third Marine Amphibious Force (III MAF). “What’s that?” I ask. “Beats me,” he says. “Probably some senior command that will assign you to a battalion.” Pete stops by to say that we’re due to go south on a commercial flight Tuesday morning, day after tomorrow, and that no footlockers will be allowed. At this stage who cares? We’ll just empty our footlockers into paper sacks. Pete heads off in search of sacks. Within thirty minutes he is back, and reports a change in flights. We will go on a Marine Corps GV Hercules (C-130) at 0300 tomorrow. Footlockers allowed after all. We compress the pre-departure countdown to fit the rest of the day.

Initiation • 7

At 1400, I drop my pants and shorts, and get gamma globulin shots in front of sixty enlisted Marines. The shots are not as bad as the tales I’ve heard of hospital corpsmen digging chunks of meat out of huge hypodermic needles after each shot. I wouldn’t let the troops know if they were that bad. At 1700 my roommate and I visit my old friends, Warren and Sally Bost, who run a serviceman’s center on the island. Warren, a retired lieutenant commander, looks and acts like a short Clark Gable, rather than the Navy chaplain who was my shipmate aboard USS Bon Homme Richard. In those days, he and I conducted memorial services aboard the ship for naval aviators who went down during deployments. Back in EastPac, when the ship was in dry dock in Bremerton, Washington, he taught my wife and me to sail. Now Warren has done his time, and I’m getting ready to do mine. I ask him to be prepared to give a burial service for me if necessary. He says he couldn’t give one without my help, just like on Bon Homme Richard. I tell him, “Don’t worry. I’ll be there.” We look deeply into each other’s eyes for a long time as we shake hands. Pete and I leave the serviceman’s center and go into town for a final sukiyaki and fried rice. Afterwards, we stroll around in the dark, lonely, eternal drizzle until packing time arrives. A few hours are left for sleep and then we’ll be going south. Postscripts In contrast to the lieutenant’s cavalier attitude about processing through Okinawa, a major in a sharply-creased khaki uniform held a mandatory fifteen-minute briefing at 1000 that day for all company-grade officers who had arrived the previous day. At the briefing, he apologized profusely for not having had someone to meet us and the troops at the airport and for not having been available on Saturday. He said that he and his first sergeant had just returned this Sunday morning from a liaison trip down south. While he was gone, his executive officer was supposed to have filled in, but had received an unexpected extension of emergency leave in the States. The major, who had been awake all night, refused to leave until he had answered every question posed by the eight of us. Then he departed to attend a similar meeting being held by his first sergeant for the troops.

8 • The Bridges of Vietnam

I would next see Warren Bost and his wife Sally in March of 1973, immediately after my second Vietnam trip, when they came aboard the amphibious command ship USS Paul Revere at Okinawa as my guests on a dependents’ day cruise. In 1982, gray-haired Warren and silver-haired Sally were house guests of ours in the United States. Although Warren had promised to officiate at my funeral if I was killed in Vietnam, I was not notified in time to attend his in 1997.

MONDAY 15 AUGUST 1966—GOING INTO COUNTRY The alarm clock is set for 0220, but Pete and I are up before it rings. Rain drips steadily off the roof past our open windows and splashes into puddles on the ground. The rain hasn’t stopped since we arrived on Okinawa. It no longer bothers us because our uniforms are soggy constantly anyway from the heat and humidity. At 0330, a bus arrives at the corner outside the BOQ to take us to the airfield. It is packed with enlisted Marines. I’ve known Marines like these for seventeen years. Their average age is nineteen. When they are not on duty, they generally are clowning and acting like all nineteen-year-olds. But this dark morning they are quiet, calm, and serious. It is a shock to see these kids who are going to be men in combat. But then I remember that I have always expected these men to be Marines—and they have always met my expectations. Suddenly a Marine in the rear of the bus starts sobbing, and tells his buddy that he wishes he was anywhere but here. He says he can’t swim, but he would even rather be drowning in the ocean off Okinawa than have to go through this. “Don’t worry,” his buddy says. “ Don’t worry. You’ll come back.” The bus stops in front of the terminal building. After finding a halfpint of chocolate milk apiece for breakfast, Pete and I are on the C-130 going south. No turning back now. For the next five hours I am again impressed, and distressed, with the serious attitude of these kids. I figure out that we’ve been averaging thirty killed in action (KIA) each week. I calculate this for the time we’ll be here, and for the number of replacements going south daily. I discover that, by the odds, only one passenger

Initiation • 9

in our airplane will not be coming back with us next year. Those aren’t bad odds. I talk with the pilot and co-pilot—both Marine captains—before landing. “Do you have precautions to protect these daily flights from MiGs?” “Yes, we do.” They explain the system.5 Then they say that ground fire is the more important problem, adding that the last two pilots attempting to fly the forty-five miles from Da Nang to Chu Lai were both hit. The French never could keep Highway 1, Bernard Fall’s “Street Without Joy,” open from Hue, fifty miles northwest of Da Nang, to Quang Tri, further yet.6 We haven’t yet tried to keep the forty-five miles open between Da Nang south to Chu Lai. We fly between the two points. Postscript I could understand the non-swimmer Marine who had preferred to take his chances on the ocean instead of going in country, because, at that time, I believed that every man committed to a combat zone for the first time operated with a foreboding that he wouldn’t come back. Later, many men told me that they had no doubts about returning. I had felt the opposite way since the day my letter requesting early assignment to WestPac was approved. I hadn’t worried my wife about my foreboding. However, my calculation of the odds of returning alive was terribly wrong. Michael Maclear wrote in The Ten Thousand Day War that 5,008 Americans died in 1966. That equates to three times my estimate. Furthermore, he reported the 1967 total at more than 16,000, which would be the most of any year of the war (147–50).

MONDAY 15 AUGUST 1966—ARRIVING AT DA NANG We’re on the ground. Hot. As airfields do, it lies in a huge expanse of flat land. Marble Mountain overlooks us like a nascent Asian pyramid. Impressions of thousands of Marines and Vietnamese working their hearts out together here at Da Nang. Ear-crushing roars from combat aircraft continuously departing and returning from missions. Wreckage here and there from the last mortar attack. But momentarily unbelievably peaceful. Pete gets his expected orders to a helicopter squadron. Then comes the irony. My orders to III MAF mean exactly that. I am scheduled to be assigned

10 • The Bridges of Vietnam

to the staff of the Third Marine Amphibious Force (Lieutenant General Lewis W. Walt). In a way it’s a relief. But, again, it is such a bitter pill. A lieutenant colonel from my flight is also assigned to III MAF. He and I are driven to a place called Da Nang East in a carryall protected from grenades by chain-link fence wiring over the windows. We roll through the large Asian city of Da Nang where I see a population mobilized at all levels for war. I instantly fall in love with the Vietnamese people and their culture. At Da Nang East, we drive into a fenced compound. And the final irony. The MAF headquarters where I will work has fans, concrete floors, running water, and house girls to make our racks and do our laundry and shoes daily. The colonel and I eat a heavy noon meal at the officers’ mess. First three-course meal I’ve eaten since I left home. The irony increases. The MAF adjutant says to loaf for a couple of days until the G-1 gets a chance to look at my records. So, at 1630 I am sitting in the Officers’ Club which overlooks a beautiful Asian river, with the city of Da Nang on the far side. I feel pretty damn sorry for myself. This is as bad as duty in Washington, D.C. After the third cold beer I feel better. I have discovered (1) that I can probably pick a job in the bush after my first six months here, and (2) the ironical fact that, as I sit here watching a peaceful city that nears the close of its working day, and watching the red and purple rays of the sunset on the river, I now rate the Vietnamese Service Medal. After the evening meal I retire to my upper rack in the company grade BOQ to put this series of events on paper.

TUESDAY 16 AUGUST 1966—THE THIRD MARINE AMPHIBIOUS FORCE (III MAF) The III MAF was never intended to exist. Our original contingency plans called for a Marine Expeditionary Corps (MEC) headquarters that would support forces to be built up in the Tourane (Da Nang) area of Indochina. As the Marines went ashore everything went according to plans and we established the III MEC headquarters. However, we soon perceived that the Vietnamese compared our term “Expeditionary” with the old French Colonial Expeditionary Forces. So

Initiation • 11

we changed our name.7 We also changed our language policy towards the Vietnamese, and switched from French to Vietnamese where possible. As I sip morning coffee on the patio, I see that the III MAF headquarters compound is big, and it looks like it’s here to stay. The headquarters and the office buildings are of newly poured concrete. The enlisted barracks and officer BOQ’s are frame structures with screens over the windows to keep out insects. More barracks are being built around-the-clock by Vietnamese labor, and the sound of carpenters hammering screens in place is unending. American and Vietnamese flags fly at equal height on tall masts in front of General Walt’s separate headquarters building. Only the officers’ mess and two other buildings existed at Da Nang East when the French were busy losing their war in Indochina. During that era the present-day III MAF headquarters was a French naval headquarters. The club, or mess, is some 250 feet long and parallels the river. The river laps against a concrete seawall constructed outside of the glasspaneled wall of the bar, allowing a tourist’s view of river traffic and the city of Da Nang. Because most of the Indochina war was fought in what is now North Vietnam, Da Nang was relatively secure when the French were here. When the U.S. Marines arrived, they moved the river fifty yards away from the officers’ mess by constructing a concrete patio on the river side of the bar. The view from the inside remains. During the dry season, officers can watch movies on the patio, and sometimes see live entertainment. A passing Marine officer tells me that not long ago a Vietnamese band played here, assisted by lovely Vietnamese girls. By the end of the closing number the girls had stripped down to G-strings. They finished their act by sitting on the laps of the Marines in the front row of seats—chairs occupied by full colonels. One full bull colonel with eight months of celibacy in country locked his arms around his girl, clamped his eyes shut, and sat there in ecstasy until three colonels and a flash of stage lights brought him to his senses. The west side of the compound faces the river, which is about 500 yards wide, and alive with Vietnamese boat traffic. Helicopters whop-whopwhop in and out of a landing pad near the mess. Military vehicles and boats add to the sounds with constant arrivals and departures. Although all seems peaceful, a sentry is on duty on each side of the

12 • The Bridges of Vietnam

building, watching the river. It seems incongruous, until a Marine captain who stops by for a cup of coffee tells me that at night each sentry has orders to shoot into any branch or clump of weeds floating nearby, or any other shadow which he might see. The captain confides that three days ago a sentry fired into a floating bush and the bush fired back. The sentry’s canteen was shot away and he returned fire until the bush sank and quiet returned. ’Tis a funny war. Imagine sitting on a riverside patio on the Potomac in Washington, D.C., and trying to discern which one of the thousands of people on the river is the bad guy. May God help us that we never have to play this game in our own country. I am thankful that we are playing it here instead, and that our families can live a normal life in public places in the United States.8 Beyond Da Nang city to the west is Da Nang Airfield where I landed yesterday. This morning I see all types of military aircraft arriving and departing. Beyond the airfield, eight miles to the west, lies Marble Mountain, brooding inscrutably over all the activity. On the river I see U.S. Navy utility boats entering and leaving Da Nang. Oriental boats of all descriptions are also in transit. A forty-foot working sailboat, with sails cased, crosses in front of me, chugging down-river under the power of its one-lunger9 motor. Dozens of smaller boats are being propelled by Vietnamese couples, who stand up and scull on alternate sides of their boats. One of these boats passes fifty feet in front of me, and I wonder if this couple has a grenade. So does the sentry standing on the beach. Not this time. But the sentry and I know that the VC have a standing offer of a certain amount of piasters to anyone who will throw a grenade. Two nights ago a sentry in a smaller compound between here and Da Nang was wounded in just this way. Although working hours at the headquarters are supposed to last until 2145, some slack takes place. Each day commencing at 1100, ten percent of the headquarters may go to Da Nang city on liberty. Sergeants and below must return by 1800. Officers and Staff NCO’s may stay until 2400. Within the compound the Officer and Staff NCO clubs are open from 1630 to 2200 daily. During the dry season each club shows a nightly movie. Human beings react quickly to perks and creature comforts. At this time yesterday morning I was on an airplane, expecting to be living in the

Initiation • 13

jungle for a year. This morning I awoke peeved because I have to sleep in a squad bay filled with lieutenants until the building with the captains’ rooms is completed. But who knows what the next several months may bring.

WEDNESDAY 17 AUGUST 1966—THE 3RD MARINE DIVISION (3RDMARDIV) AT DA NANG

Captain Doug Devine flies a HU1E (Huey) helicopter gun ship with machine guns and rockets attached. Although he normally operates from a strip near Marble Mountain, he has drawn a one-day assignment at HQ III MAF as armed escort for General Lew Walt’s personal helicopter. With short, well-combed hair and a crisply starched utility uniform, Doug is the epitome of a VIP shotgun rider. Doug offers to take me on an orientation flight through the 3rdMarDiv’s Tactical Area of Responsibility (TAOR), so we stroll out to the nearby III MAF helo pad. Doug climbs into the pilot’s seat, and I strap into the co-pilot’s side. My headphones will receive but I cannot send, so he explains that he will give me a running commentary. The crew chief, a staff sergeant, loads his machine guns, and we go airborne. We fly down the river towards the bay, over the city of Da Nang, and past the headquarters of the US Navy Swift boats. On the bay I see ships backed up like ducks in a pond, waiting to unload. “Not as congested now as it was in the beginning,” says Doug. We take a peek at Elephant Pass, which leads into Laos from the west end of the TAOR. Doug explains that we keep Marine recon patrols out there, occasionally making contact with VC. The might of the 3rdMarDiv in the field spreads out underneath me as we fly low near Da Nang Air Field in order not to interfere with the flight pattern. Doug advises that Da Nang has averaged one plane per minute, take-off or landing, since the strip was built. I get a good view of Monkey Mountain, a group of three little teats sticking up on the coastline. I remember fellow captain Ed Badolato, who was over here and back before I arrived, telling me that the first group of

14 • The Bridges of Vietnam

Marines to arrive at Monkey Mountain was Company A, 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion (3rd Recon Battalion). The commanding officer sent a platoon-sized patrol up the main hill. The patrol thought they saw “VCs all over the place,” and opened fire. Then they climbed up the hill for a body count. The Marines were hilarious to discover that they had shot the hell out of a bunch of apes. Hence, “Monkey Mountain.” We pass near the 3rdMarDiv’s command post, and the commanding general’s quarters on top of a hill that overlooks miles of flat plain to the south. Doug points out the forward edge of the division’s TAOR near the southern horizon. He says that some day the TAOR will expand until it meets the 1stMarDiv’s TAOR at Chu Lai, forty-five miles distant. The French never succeeded in opening the “Street Without Joy,” which is Highway 1 to the northwest. But the Marines will open Highway 1 to the south. Flying toward the 3rd Medical Battalion’s field hospital, I see an occasional Vietnamese hut with the roof blown off. Then we swing back to the bay. Some 500 feet below, a Vietnamese man waves from his boat. When it gets dark an hour from now, will he shoot instead? We return to the helicopter pad at HQ III MAF, and walk fifty feet for a cold beer and a hot meal. A strange war. At dinner Doug relates a fire team story. A fire team, consisting of four men, is the smallest Marine infantry unit that can move by fire and maneuver. Normally it is led by a lance corporal or corporal, and contains a scout/grenadier, an assistant automatic rifleman, and an automatic rifleman. Not long ago, Lew Walt, along with a brigadier general and two colonels, flew out to one of the subordinate units to observe the start of an operation. Walt and his crew decided to lead the sweep, and did so from start to finish. Marines say that this was the highest paid fire team in Marine Corps history. Such is the nature of this strange war.

FRIDAY 19 AUGUST 1966—THE 1STMARDIV AT CHU LAI

I have been assigned to the III MAF G-2 shop. My boss is a lieutenant colonel who tells me to make an orientation visit to Chu Lai, and to famil-

Initiation • 15

iarize myself with the 1stMarDiv’s operating area. A major from III MAF G-2, who is nearing the end of his tour, will escort me.10 It would require a full-fledged operation to go to Chu Lai by road, so we will travel the forty miles by air. This is the safe way, so long as the plane doesn’t go down in Charlie’s territory. In case it should, we each wear .45 caliber automatics and pouches of ammo. I comment, “We could really put up a mighty wall of steel with interlocking bands of fire from two pistols.” My escort is a short-timer and looks worried. Our route from Da Nang East to Da Nang Airfield takes us through the city of Da Nang, which is starting a new day. Families are bathing in the river. Pedestrian men wearing uniforms from several countries compete with our jeep for space. Local force Vietnamese militia are riding to work on bicycles. Children are walking to school, many of whom are wearing the type of straw hats that you’ll see in our western movies. The traffic forms a classic mass of oriental confusion. Bicycles, automobiles, military vehicles, and pedestrians are all going both directions on a single lane road. Our driver is good (lucky), and we average twenty-five miles per hour. At the airfield, a Marine at the check-in counter says there will be a one-hour delay to load PX supplies aboard for Chu Lai. I check, but see no hair spray in the cargo.11 The supplies stowed, we climb aboard and our C-130 takes off to the north. This puts us almost immediately over the bay, and out of small arms range. Planes taking off to the south climb over land, and get holes in them. No big thing unless the holes are in you. In fifteen minutes we arrive at Chu Lai, again approaching over water. It’s difficult to believe that a year-and-a-half ago Chu Lai did not exist— not even the name. This area was a stretch of barren, uninhabited, tropical beach. Then Lieutenant General “Brute” Krulak decided to build a second combat base, to take some of the logistical load from Da Nang, and he picked this area. When told that there was no name listed on any map by which to call this desolate place, he replied that, sure there was: it is called Chu Lai. Chu Lai is a Chinese phonetic name for Krulak.12 Today the Chu Lai operating area is the home of 30,000 men of the 1stMarDiv. Supporting the division is a jet strip where a Marine attack aircraft squadron and a helicopter group are based, our very own close air support.

16 • The Bridges of Vietnam

The area boasts one of the most beautiful half-moon swimming beaches you could ever want. The swimming is fully segregated, meaning for Marines only. My escort says that no indigenous personnel are allowed on the beach because the VC have targeted the Chu Lai combat base.13 The terrain resembles that of Camp Pendleton’s sand, scrub, and cactus. There is considerably more green vegetation here than in southern California, however, because of six months of rain each year. Today Chu Lai is hot and sandy, and quite primitive by III MAF standards. A briefing at Division G-2 is like a reunion. Several officers I know have the same jobs they had when I was detached from the division’s 1st Reconnaissance Battalion (1st Recon Battalion) in the States eighteen months ago. These officers soon will be rotated home for awhile, but many NCO’s will remain voluntarily with the division, because enlisted men can extend their tours more easily than officers. But the division will remain, because it’s here to stay. The atmosphere is thick with tired tenseness. These Marines know the enemy. They know the guerrilla, the main force Viet Cong, and the North Vietnamese soldier. They know that it will require more than one tour of duty to get anywhere in this war. It is surprising to discover that an estimated one million Vietnamese reside within the wilderness of the division’s TAOR. Which ones are guerrillas? That is the problem. We can estimate the percentage who are Charlies, but day-to-day operations must determine exactly which ones are Charlie. Again I realize just how much longer this war will take than many people back home realize. My escort’s business requires him to remain a few days, so I return to the runway to catch an incoming C-130 that will turn around. We take off over land, and in twenty minutes are back at Da Nang. When I report back to my boss at MAF G-2, he tells me that the next plane that left Chu Lai after mine collected some holes. Quite hard to get used to this kind of war. Postscript The 1stMarDiv had been inserted into Charlie’s territory, had secured a combat base, and was expanding outward. This expansion would initiate the Marines’ planned lengthy part of the war—an integrated civic action program designed to eventually place the Vietnamese in control of their ham-

Initiation • 17

lets, villages, and provinces, so we could go home for good. The Marines I met in the division wouldn’t guess how long that might take, but merely talked in terms of returning for tour after tour until retirement. The division actually stayed in Vietnam until 14 April 1971, when, as part of President Richard Nixon’s “Vietnamization” of the war, III MAF and its subordinate commands were redeployed from Vietnam. The division returned to Camp Pendleton to be welcomed home by Nixon on 30 April. I had returned to Camp Pendleton in 1971 prior to my second Vietnam trip, and participated in the homecoming parade as commanding officer of the division’s 1st Shore Party Battalion, which had already returned.

SATURDAY 20 AUGUST 1966—IDENTIFYING AND LOCATING THE ENEMY

My first official work day starts when my alarm rings at 0430. I shower and shave under a night light, and arrive at the empty G-2 office at 0500. My job is to consolidate all intelligence summaries affecting III MAF into a single daily Intelligence Summary (IntSum) for distribution to our subordinate units, and to our senior commander, COMUSMACV (General Westmoreland) in Saigon. This IntSum serves to identify and locate the enemy. My work day will be over when I have the summary ready for reproduction. Two of our G-2 captains and two G-3 captains are assigned to the Operations Center next door as watch officers, and take turns presenting morning briefings. It seems reasonable to me that the officer preparing the IntSum should know what the operations briefers are telling commanders and key staff officers. I certainly wouldn’t want to report an enemy regiment located exactly where a Marine rifle company commander just reported his company was picnicking. So at 0830 I walk across the sidewalk between our buildings to hear the morning briefing. Upon my return at 0900 my boss takes me into his private office and closes the door. “You don’t have time to attend those briefings,” he says. “It’s better to stay on your side of the sidewalk.” He is a lieutenant colonel and has been in country much longer than I, so I assume I have a lot to learn. Indeed I do. After working straight through to 1600 to get the draft IntSum ready,

18 • The Bridges of Vietnam

I am damn tired and I stop by the club for happy hour drinks at ten cents apiece. After two drinks and the evening meal, I return to the office. My boss is waiting for me and again takes me behind a closed door. He tells me he doesn’t like my draft IntSum at all, so I revise it to fit his requirements. I decide I’m not going to like working this way seven days a week for thirteen months. In fact I am going to hate it. I didn’t waive my overseas date and perform other machinations in order to come to Vietnam, and cut and paste at a clerk’s desk eighteen hours a day. Like an answer to a prayer, the situation changes. As I return to my office, the personnel officer, a captain, comes in to tell me he has just received a dispatch modifying my orders. I am to be detached tomorrow and will report to Commander U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam (COMUSMACV) in Saigon for duty. There’s something vaguely familiar about these orders, but I can’t remember what. He sticks his head back inside the door. “By the way,” he says, “your name is on the major’s list.” It takes several hours for the implications of the orders to sink in. When I get time to re-read the dispatch, I find that the tour of duty down there is only twelve months, and that my return date will be July 1967 instead of early September. I will be wearing wash khaki uniforms daily, and will be renting an apartment or hotel room. It will cost me $200 a month. It’s a strange war. As this long workday is ending, I hear a siren, and see an ambulance across the river heading for a smoke-filled street. A report arrives that the VC have lobbed two grenades into the Allied NCO club in Da Nang. This is Saturday night, and the club has standing room only on Saturday nights. At 2230 I return to the company grade officers’ squad bay, but am delayed in getting to sleep because of a fire fight at Da Nang Air Base across the river. Flares flash, rifles crack, and 30-caliber machine guns sound off. The lieutenants in the squad bay wonder when the III MAF compound will get its turn. They agree that the monsoon, which starts next month, will be the time. But I will be in Saigon, perhaps locating and identifying the enemy. Postscript In the journal I did not elaborate on the second closed-door conversation

Initiation • 19

because I did not want to publicize my incipient conflict with my boss or to disclose the identification of the 324B division. My draft IntSum stated that the presence of the NVA 324B division had been reported in country, based upon separate prisoner interrogations by a USSF team and a US ARVN advisor. My boss stated that we would not report a new enemy unit every time a prisoner said he was from a new organization. He concluded by saying, “A report like this would bring half of MACV from Saigon up here breathing down our necks.” I judged that I was working for somebody who just didn’t want to rock the boat, so I merely made a mental note not to report new enemy units without checking with him. I did not know at that time that there was a serious schism in doctrine between III MAF Marines and the MACV headquarters. This schism would continue, as is shown later in this book, and I would be more deeply involved. Was 324B really in country? In The War in the Northern Provinces, Army Lieutenant General Willard Pearson relates that 324B infiltrated Quang Tri Province from the DMZ in June and July, was driven back across the DMZ by Operation Hastings, and returned in late August, precipitating Operation Prairie to protect the populated eastern part of the province (9–11).

SATURDAY 20 AUGUST 1966—COMRADES IN ARMS I: CAPTAIN PETER N. SAMARAS, HELICOPTER PILOT

The Marine captains I’ve met over here consider their thirteen-month Vietnam tours, followed by two years in the States, and return, to provide excellent career opportunities. They are here because they have decided to make the Marine Corps a career. They are in the forefront of a new Corps. I’m no doubt influenced in my attitude because I’ve been a captain for five years, and feel that a captain, or “skipper,” is probably the best commissioned rank in the Marine Corps. And for me, rifle company commander is the best job. The rank and the job come into their own in combat. However, I’ve been selected for major, and perhaps will feel differently after I become a field grade officer. However, captains who are naval aviators think that flying is the best job. Just as ground captains don’t always command rifle companies, naval aviators don’t always get to pick the type of airplanes they fly.

20 • The Bridges of Vietnam

Consider Captain Pete Samaras, with whom I flew into country. Pete is a fleshy, talkative man of thirty-five, who keeps his dark hair longer than ground officers do. He had heard that he should wear a utility field uniform into country, and all he owned were flight suits and khaki. So he bought a brand new set of utilities, which he was wearing when I met him, along with a new pair of the World War II, low-topped boondockers that pilots sometimes wear in the field. If we had a Bill Mauldin in this war, he would have put Pete in one of his cartoons. Pete flew helicopters up to eight years ago. Then he flew jets until he was passed over for the rank of major last year. We need helicopter pilots very badly here, so he was moved back to choppers and ordered here. When Pete and I staged through Okinawa, he told me that if he should be passed over a second time this year, he would be forced out of the Marine Corps by June 30th. That means he would get home early, but he would have to find a civilian job quickly in order to support his wife and six children. If he should make major, of course he would fly choppers over here for a full tour before going home to continue his Marine Corps career. During our final night in Okinawa, Pete and I talked of Johnson and McNamara, and the war. Like most military men I have met who are personally affected, Pete said he wanted to go all the way in this war. He knew that he might die on any of the missions he would fly each day. He accepted this, concerned only that such a death would not be for nothing. With lips tight and dark eyes flashing he said more than once, “I have plenty of insurance for my family, and I don’t mind dying, but I don’t want to die for nothing. I want to be certain of this.” Because I was fresh from a tour of duty in Washington, I was able to give him a small insight into the national aims and policies I had been exposed to. When the selection list for major came out yesterday, I was highly pleased to see Pete’s name on it. He will stay with us for the full tour. I hope that I will see him on the flight home next year.

SATURDAY 20 AUGUST 1966—COMRADES IN ARMS II: A HAPLESS GUNNERY SERGEANT

Initiation • 21

A gunnery sergeant here at the III MAF G-2 office is not a happy Marine.14 Earlier this year, he had completed nineteen years and six months of active duty, including combat service in Korea, and two thirteen-month unaccompanied tours on Okinawa within the previous five years. He declined a commission as a second lieutenant, because, he related to me, “Shit, captain, I’m almost forty years old. I wasn’t going to go running around the boondocks getting my ass shot at for thirteen months as a platoon leader.” In accordance with the regulations, he submitted a “letter of intent to retire,” and made plans for civilian life. The response was a set of orders to Vietnam. He reminded his personnel monitor in Washington that the Marine Corps couldn’t do that. The monitor told him that the Marine Corps certainly could, because he had not received the letter of intent until the day after he had cut the gunny’s orders. “Sorry about that, gunny,” said the monitor. Thirteen more months, please. When the gunny arrived at III MAF, the only job open was for one rank less than his. So when I arrived, he was waiting out his thirteen months by working in a staff sergeant’s job. Now that I’m leaving for Saigon, he probably will be cutting and pasting the daily intelligence summary. I hope he doesn’t report any new enemy divisions, or I might be part of half of MACV that will be coming up from Saigon breathing down his neck.15

SUNDAY 21 AUGUST 66—COMRADES IN ARMS III: CAPTAIN RONALD B. TUTTLE, AERIAL OBSERVER

I’m being detached from III MAF today, but can’t get a flight from Da Nang to Saigon until tomorrow, so I have a day off. I visit an old friend, Captain Ronald B. Tuttle, at Marine Air Group 11 (MAG 11). I worked with Ron when we were both in the 1st Recon Battalion at Camp Pendleton eighteen months ago. He is an intense, slim, twentyfive-year-old who is five-foot, ten-inches tall, with an oval face and shortcropped dark hair. His wife is a willowy, pretty woman with brown hair that falls halfway to her waist. Ron and his wife, and my wife and I spent many a Friday night happy hour together at the officers’ club at Pendleton and later in Oceanside restaurants.

22 • The Bridges of Vietnam

Ron volunteered to become an Air Observer, and was accepted just in time to leave his wife, pregnant, and deploy to Vietnam with MAG 11. He says he likes the thrill of “screaming down towards enemy emplacements in an F-4 at hundreds of miles an hour,” and that he’s happy knowing that, as a professional officer, he’s paying his dues to his country. Ron returned from a flight north earlier this morning, and I find him taking a nap inside an air conditioned ready-room trailer. He has the afternoon free, so we strap on a pair of pistols and walk over to Dogpatch. MAG 11, located on the west side of Da Nang Airfield, has just opened a PX one mile from the MAG compound. To get there you must go through part of the outskirts of Da Nang. Vietnamese shops have sprouted like miniature carnival booths along both sides of this dirt street. The squalor must be seen and smelled to be understood. This is Dogpatch. In Dogpatch we see hundreds of Marines wandering through the shops, wearing sweaty, dust-streaked field uniforms and carrying rifles. We also see a few Vietnamese servicemen and an occasional South Korean marine. Numerous male Vietnamese civilians are scurrying around. They must be either deserters or night-time VCs, or they would be in uniform. Although I’ve seen enough of the Far East to be comfortable almost anywhere, Dogpatch is different. It takes Ron and me ten minutes to figure out why. We are different. All the other Marines are enlisted men, and almost all are privates and privates first class. The Vietnamese pay too much attention to us. I hear a shopkeeper whisper, “Dai Uy” (captain). We want to get a beer, but we decide that we just can’t trust these people. They will treat the troops safely for two reasons: money and intelligence collection. But if they get a chance to serve some beer with a bit of local contaminated water to two captains, one an aviator, we are sure they will. We buy no beer. We also buy no Coca-Cola. We also do not turn our backs. We stop at a shop that has USMC jungle boots for sale. We need jungle boots because the supply system has none. But these are used boots. From whose feet were they taken? We don’t buy any. We later arrive at a shop where new boots are on sale. These boots have the original USMC quartermaster tags attached. What kind of a black market is this? We decide to buy no boots.

Initiation • 23

We pass a “Turkish bath,” and a seven-year-old boy in the doorway sees Ron’s wings on his flight suit and makes motions with his hands to portray an airplane going down out of control. Ron says under his breath, “I sure will be going down. But I’ll be diving down, to drop a load of napalm.” At an outdoor barber shop we see a Marine trooper who is as dirty as a pig-pen. His loaded rifle is leaning against a three-foot wall, within reach. He is lying back in a barber chair, being shaved with a straight-edge razor by a Vietnamese. We pass little cubby-holes, enclosed on three sides, with curtains hanging across the front. Each is subdivided into even tinier rooms at the rear. In some countries these are called “cribs.” In most parts of the Far East the term for their use is “short time.” Members of the oldest profession are on duty inside these cubby-holes. Most are dressed in styles that westerners like to believe is authentic Far East, but are really straight out of a Class B movie. At first glance the women appear more attractive than other Vietnamese women I have seen. Then I realize that these women actually are deformed by Vietnamese standards, because they have European characteristics that set them apart from their smaller (four-foot-eleven) Vietnamese sisters. We decide they are part French. Regardless of the women’s antecedents, I see many American Marines buying the momentary friendship of a member of the female sex. Reaching the end of Dogpatch, we double back to see the other side of the street. Ron remembered to bring chewing gum, and becomes quite active at the business of giving it away to the children. We enter a higher-class establishment than we have seen so far, and are handed wood chairs to sit on. We are immediately besieged with sales people. We feel uneasy about refusing a dozen shoe shines offered by kids aged four to seven. But why have combat boots shined when you are walking through an inch-thick layer of dust and sand? Sales girls troop by offering silk paintings at eighty to one hundred piasters apiece. There’s nothing we can do with them, so why buy them? The price of beer is fifty Ps. At the rate of 118 to a dollar we say no, and leave. We find a sidewalk engraver. His first price is 100 Ps to engrave a name on Ron’s cigarette lighter. The final price is fifty Ps. When Ron pays him, we see some $200 in American green, MPC (U.S. Military Payment Certificates, or “script”), and Vietnamese Ps in his wallet.

24 • The Bridges of Vietnam

We walk back to the MAG 11 compound. After a final hand clasp with my old friend, I trudge back to III MAF headquarters. Postscript After Ron completed his Vietnam tour in F-4s, he was assigned as an instructor at Glynco Naval Air Station in Georgia. Two weeks after I returned to the States, I leafed through a current issue of Navy Times while movers were loading my family’s furniture for shipment to our next duty station. An article about a training crash caught my eyes like a magnet snatches iron. The article reported that on 13 July 1967, the day before I left Vietnam, Ron and four other Marines aboard a T-39 jet crashed while in a low-level training flight over the Okefenokee swamp. All five were killed. My final handclasp with my old friend had been just that.

MONDAY 22 AUGUST 1966—MOVING TO SAIGON16

It seems that in order to go anywhere in the Far East on an airplane you must get up in the middle of the night and skip breakfast and lunch. This day, which starts at 0430, is no different. It is still dark as I and the other passengers going to Da Nang Air Base draw weapons and climb aboard a carryall. Just outside the gate of the III MAF compound our headlights flash on two Vietnamese girls wearing American-styled formals. They toss out their thumbs playfully like hitchhikers. I imagine they are in the oldest profession. However, they might be employed by the VC. We don’t slow down, and as we drive by I’m glad that the open windows of our carryall are covered with steel netting. It will keep out grenades. Small-arms fire cracks through the night like periodic drum beats as we approach the pontoon bridge that spans the river. During hours of darkness, the sentries on the bridge have orders to shoot anything in the river that is not water. Our driver turns out the headlights as he starts across, so as not to illuminate or blind the sentries. As we leave the bridge at the Da Nang side of the river, a temporary quiet is broken by a Vietnamese sentry directly beside the road, firing an entire carbine magazine. He re-loads while a sobbing, slobbering, middle-

Initiation • 25

aged Vietnamese civilian standing beside his bicycle spouts out a torrent of angry, terrified Vietnamese expletives. Apparently he was going to work on his bicycle and damn near got killed by a nervous sentry. At the airstrip the other Marines and I turn in our weapons. Along with a group of Vietnamese servicemen and three Korean Marine officers, we board a Canadian-built C-123 Caribou, sort of a miniature C-130. The Marine lieutenant sitting on the nylon seat beside me tells me that the Korean Marine officers, wearing bleached out herringbone utilities provided by the U.S. Marine Corps, are good, sharp professionals, all combat veterans from the last shooting war. We drop off passengers at places with names I learned from my study before coming in country—Quang Ngai, Qui Nhon, and Nha Trang.17 At Nha Trang we disembark during refueling. C-123 aircraft are taking off and landing every thirty seconds. It is hard to conceive of the magnitude of this war. Also at Nha Trang, I realize that we are getting close to the big city of Saigon, because a new, unpainted, cinder block building is visible from the airstrip. It is the officers’ club and it even has slot machines. Back aboard for the last lap. From the air the Saigon River looks just like the shots on evening television. When we land at Tan Son Nhut Air Base on the outskirts of Saigon, I find it is hotter than up north. And if Da Nang was a very large and modern oriental city, Saigon is an immense oriental metropolis. I procure an Air Force sedan by dialing a phone number posted in the terminal. My driver is Vietnamese, and speaks little English, so it takes time to find the place where I am to report. I have been in country exactly one week, have received a VIP tour of two Marine divisions, have had a birds’-eye view of the Vietnam coastal cities, and am reporting for duty the second time. I will be briefed at Koelper Compound, and then will go to what I’m told is an important and interesting job at MACV J-2 (Intelligence).

THURSDAY 25 AUGUST 1966—BOARDING SCHOOL

Koelper Compound (pronounced “Kelper,” but often mispronounced “Kolper”) was named for Captain Don Koelper, USMC, who earned the

26 • The Bridges of Vietnam

Navy Cross posthumously for warning a theater filled with Americans that a bomb was about to detonate. They lived. He didn’t.18 Every American advisor assigned to Vietnam is supposed to attend a three-day briefing at Koelper Compound before being assigned to an ARVN (Army of Vietnam) unit. Many in my group are here for their second tour of duty. A few have reported in for their third. One is here for his fourth time. All who complete their new tours of duty in country will come back to Koelper Compound to de-process prior to returning to the States. The compound is a walled 300-foot by 150-foot complex with buildings facing inwards to a courtyard. At the front gate is a joint U.S.-Vietnamese guard post. The guards enforce the policy for all U.S. installations in Saigon, by allowing no vehicles to stop in front. The compound includes all facilities required to equip an advisor preparing to go to the field, including an administrative and classroom building, a quartermaster and weapons issue and receipt building, a tiny PXsponsored hamburger joint, and a hotel for some 200 occupants. Because of my rank (selected for major), I expect a good location for my three-day stay. And because of my rank I get one. I rate a room outside of grenade and claymore range—on the fifth floor. The elevator doesn’t work—ever. That makes for a long way to carry a footlocker and a Val Pak. Each room accommodates three men, who live like Marines live on a troopship. Our bathroom is something else. It’s a shower stall with a toilet stool added onto the shower floor. That’s because the real toilet in our room doesn’t work. I soap down in the shower and the water stops. I find that water is pumped to a reservoir on the roof, and enters the plumbing on a gravity system. Whenever the electricity fails, the water supply quits. This is normal in Saigon. The next time I start a shower, I’ll be sure that I have a basin of water in reserve. This time I just wipe off soap with a towel. The water that does drip through the plumbing smells like urine, and is not safe for drinking or even for brushing teeth. In the bathroom we keep a quart-sized liquor bottle filled with water safe enough to brush teeth but not safe enough to swallow. I lived better at III MAF. The charge for this hovel, where we are required to reside, is twentyfive Ps per day (twenty cents) and that’s about what it is worth. I have only one roommate, an Army captain named Paul F.19 He is a parachute rigger who was in the recent operation in the Dominican Re-

Initiation • 27

public. The first night he and I step onto the balcony to watch flares being dropped, and listen to firing on the outskirts of the city. It’s still hard to get used to this war. Before being allowed outside the walls and into the city, we must receive a security briefing. An Army sergeant first class tells us, “Gentlemen, Saigon is the only secure area in Vietnam. This means that you will not carry weapons unless required when on official business. However, do not go out by yourself, or you might be knifed. Do not go in groups of more than three, or you will be grenaded. If you hail a taxi, be sure you can open the door from the inside to escape before you climb in. When you move in to your BOQ, if you hear shooting outside, do not go to the window to watch, because you will be bombed.” Do not pass go. Do not collect $200, etc., etc. Although the security briefing is hard to comprehend, the meaning comes home with the first day’s report that six Americans in a jeep were WIA (wounded in action) from a tossed grenade. Based upon the average number of incidents per year I figure that my chances of being grenaded during the entire year are only one percent. My roommate has been expecting to be assigned near Saigon. On the second day he gets orders to Kontum Province, at a place near Pleiku. This shakes him up. There’s real war up there. During my three days I receive a complete country-wide strategic appraisal and intelligence study of South Vietnam. The final briefing is by Air Force Brigadier General Huey (just like the helicopter), who is impressive as he says, “Gentlemen, welcome to the first team of professionals here in Vietnam.” He explains that as we become acclimatized to the alternating heat and monsoons, we will probably begin to like the weather. He reminds us that the Vietnamese military counterparts we will meet are fighting year after year, while we are here only for a twelve-month tour, so we should understand why they take daily siestas, and why they observe weekends and holidays off. Meanwhile, we should go full speed for the entire twelve months. Because we are the first team. At day’s end I learn that I will next move temporarily to the Five Oceans Hotel (BOQ), and check in to MACV headquarters to get my duty assignment. I also learn that there will be no financial hardship, as I will be drawing an extra cost-of-living allowance called a COLA.

28 • The Bridges of Vietnam

THURSDAY 25 AUGUST 1966—WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE VIETNAMESE DON’T WANT US HERE?

At the Five Oceans dining room this evening I happened to sit with two Negro Army lieutenants. One had just arrived and was eager to get in the war. His buddy had gone through forty-four fire fights, and was carefully waiting out the final eight days of his tour. He was bitter about the Vietnamese people. He said that he and many other Americans over here believe that the Vietnamese couldn’t care less about the war. He believes that the Vietnamese don’t even want us here, and that if we would leave, the war might end. I’ve noticed since arriving in Saigon that the Vietnamese here certainly don’t show any respect for us. Isn’t it their war that we’re fighting? Postscripts I found the departing soldier’s comments about the Vietnamese very difficult to accept. During 1961–63 my comrades and I often had frequented the streets of major Asian cities in uniform, confident that we were respected because our presence was wanted. After all, I felt, weren’t we the protectors of the free world? So I wanted to ascribe his attitude to his being a lieutenant who just hadn’t been privileged to see the big picture. I also felt that he was off-base by referring to his eager buddy as an “FNG,” which he explained meant “Fucking New Guy” (and which I later would learn was a widespread contemptuous term). However, although I found his attitude implausible, I couldn’t discount his background of forty-four firefights. I didn’t record either of their names because I didn’t think the departing soldier wanted his name linked with his pejorative comments. Perhaps I was like his comrade, an FNG who would learn later. Two days later, a poll in the States would be reporting that fifty-four percent thought the U.S. role in Vietnam was a mistake (see Chronology, 27 August). Further, in Red Thunder, Tropic Lightning: The World of a Combat Division in Vietnam, Eric Bergerud would quote U.S. 25th Infantry Division (25thInfDiv) soldier Dan Vandenberg as saying, “I think one of the biggest disappointments over there was the attitude of the Vietnamese peasants. None of them seemed to give a shit about us. The feeling was mutual: We didn’t even think they were people.”

Initiation • 29

FRIDAY 26 AUGUST 1966—SAIGON: “THE PEARL OF THE ORIENT”

Saigon is a city of unknown millions that once was called the “Pearl of the Orient.” Twenty-five years of war has changed that. The city is difficult to describe, because part of it can be seen, part is heard, some is smelled, and the resulting impact must be sensed. Many of Saigon’s major streets resemble ten-year-old streets in the U.S. that have had no maintenance since their construction. The few center lines that exist are meaningless in the smoky, barking traffic jams that seem to never go away. Imagine Los Angeles without freeways and without through-streets. Then reduce the number of traffic lights to ten. Now retain the same number of vehicles that Los Angeles has, but make only twenty-five percent of them automobiles. The remainder will be bicycles, motorbikes, pedicabs (like a rickshaw, except powered by a bicycle chain drive), and small wagons pulled by Mongolian ponies (these hold four Americans or nine Vietnamese20), and military vehicles from a half-dozen countries. Additionally, picture all of these vehicles weaving in and out, with no regard to traffic lanes, and crossing into oncoming lanes whenever they want to pass . . . and not bothering to stop at any street corner without lights. Now, eliminate mufflers from the motorbikes, whose owners constantly gun them AARGH, AARGH, AARGH, spouting oily clouds of blue smoke into an already thick, sticky bag of air that envelopes the city. Add to this a mob of pedestrians constantly crossing the streets, coming within inches of twenty to thirty vehicles in order to do so. Where you would find sidewalks for pedestrians in the States, you’ll find only gray and black dirt in Saigon. Men and boys urinate on the dirt, and occasionally an old woman will squat down, slip the leg of her black cotton pajamas up, and make a stream of orange water. Dogs defecate there. I am told that, when the rains come, knee-high water washes all this through the walkways and streets, and into the nearby houses and shops that are built on the ground. You’ll find a community water hydrant every block or so. Women squat there and wait their turns to fill their two huge, rectangular cans with water. Once filled, they fasten them to either end of a long pole, which they place over one shoulder, and take them back to their houses. The pole is a “chogy” stick, which is seen throughout much of the Far East.

30 • The Bridges of Vietnam

The rhythm of the flexing stick is harnessed to a peculiar walking gait to the point that you don’t know whether the woman is driving the stick or the stick is driving the woman. The water the women bring to their families is the same water that Americans cannot put into their mouths, not even to brush their teeth. Saigon is much dirtier than the cities of Japan and is probably the filthiest oriental city I have seen, including Hong Kong, Manila, and even Olongapo at Subic Bay in the Philippines. Every few blocks you’ll see a place on the dirt where people bring their garbage, creating stacks half a block long. Rag pickers go through this by hand to see what they can find, braving a stench so powerful that it shrinks your nostrils and chokes off your breath. Occasionally a truck arrives and the driver shovels some of the garbage into it and drives away. The open air markets stink as much as the garbage piles, yet families often squat beside either, preparing and eating their meals of grassy vegetables and a bit of rice. I sometimes see a woman pick grass for meals from the same empty lots that are used as community toilets. Occasionally you will see a man or woman wearing western style clothes. However, in the slum district, which seems to be seventy-five percent of the city, most of the men wear shorts, or perhaps underwear shorts, shower shoes, and maybe an underwear shirt. Most of the women throughout the city wear the ao dai, the Vietnamese woman’s national dress, although some wear cotton pajamas. The children, who might wear anything—or nothing—throng around an American if he acts friendly toward them. It’s awfully difficult to put up with five or six kids with snot on their faces, sores on their bodies, and God knows what on their hands, trying to hold hands with you. But these are the hearts we must win. Add to all of this a few VC with grenades, and the magnitude of urban guerrilla war unfolds. Postscript A description of Saigon that was included with a map I bought from a kiosk in the city in 1966 estimated the population of the fifty-one-square kilometer complex at two million, with one-and-a-quarter million of these being Vietnamese, more than a half-million Chinese and the remainder “from East and West.”

Initiation • 31

The description continues: “Saigon, the charming political and cultural capital of the Republic of Vietnam, is among the most attractive cities in the Orient. Saigon is the cleanest, most fascinating city among Oriental capitals, with wide streets shaded by tall trees.” Sheehan explains that in 1966 the U.S. had begun a nationwide construction program to build 10.4 million square feet of warehousing, 5.4 million square feet of ammunition storage, tank-farm capacity for 3.1 million barrels of petroleum products, 39 million cubic meters of dredging, 2,550 miles of new hardtop road, and 434,000 acres of land clearing. He writes that Americans had flooded Saigon, and sanitation services collapsed because the workers quit en masse and sought out high-paying jobs at the base construction sites, leaving garbage to accumulate into heaps a half-block long (622–27).

FRIDAY 26 AUGUST 1966—TEMPORARY BOQ

If Humphrey Bogart had starred in a movie called “Saigon” instead of “Casablanca,” his gin mill would have been in the Five Oceans. The Five Oceans is a once-plush, sprawling, Southeast Asian hotel that has suffered because of the war. Like all American-occupied quarters, the windows are crossed with tape to prevent injuries from flying glass. And, like all coopted hotels, the occupancy rate is 100 percent, while the maximum room occupancy has doubled or tripled, or perhaps quadrupled. But the Five Oceans is far nicer than Koelper Hotel. The rooms are air conditioned! Each room boasts of a ceiling fan! The plumbing works most of the time! We have a refrigerator! On the top floor is a former dining room that is now the Officers’ Mess and bar. This is living in luxury! I have four roommates in the two adjoining rooms of our quarters. One is an Army lieutenant colonel named Paul who is the Construction Chief for MACV.21 He tells me he is involved with a major project for the Marines at Khe Sanh, but that he can’t say anything about it. Later I overhear him murmuring to his roommate that the Marines don’t have enough heavy equipment and firepower in I Corps to survive without Army support. Paul’s roommate is an Army major who surprises me by explaining that he is a veterinarian, then surprises me again by advising me that just last week twenty-three Marines were treated for rabies infection from dog

32 • The Bridges of Vietnam

bites. One additional Marine also was treated, but not because of a dog bite. He was bitten by a cow. The flat also houses another Army major whom I haven’t met, and a Korean officer who speaks no English. Paul tells me that Korean officers in the BOQs are not unusual, because President Johnson has declared that all Free World Military Assistance Forces (FWMAF) personnel will rate the same privileges as U.S. personnel. Thus the Five Oceans lodges Koreans, as well as Filipinos and Thais, all here for the same purpose. I will live here only until a permanent room shows up in two to six weeks, and so am assigned to a cot in a corner of one of the rooms. Nevertheless, it is nice to unpack for the first time since leaving the States. As I get a khaki uniform ready to wear, I find that the black dress shoes I took off just a week ago have grown a white coat of mildew. If I had stayed at Da Nang, they certainly would have rotted during the oncoming year. The living conditions are good, and I am ready to start my job. Postscripts In amplification of the remarks of Paul, the Construction Chief for MACV, about Khe Sanh, Sheehan writes that Westmoreland was determined to place the Marines at the DMZ to draw out the NVA forces for a decisive battle. The Marines were just as determined to continue their Combined Action campaign in the villages to the south (629–43). Sheehan states that in September, Westmoreland sent Seabees to improve the dirt airstrip at the special forces outpost at Khe Sanh, and ordered Walt in I Corps to send in a battalion of Marines. Sheehan cites Khe Sanh as another case of Westmoreland’s insistence upon trying to fight the Vietnam War the way the U.S. Army fought World War II in Europe (640). See more on this in “Identifying and Locating the Enemy II,” in Chapter 3.

Although Paul told me that U.S. and third-country troops were designated as FWMAF troops (and I received an FWMAF pendant at MACV, complete with logo, to attach to my pocket when in Saigon), the other participants have since generally been referred to as “third-country” or “show the flag” forces. Their total complement was about 65,000, provided by the Republic of

Initiation • 33

Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand. All were subsidized by the U.S. except for the New Zealand and Australian contingents. The Koreans’ 40,000 troops were assigned to its Capital (“Tiger”), and 9th Infantry (“White Horse”) Divisions; and its 2nd Marine (“Dragon”) Brigade. Thailand’s 11,000 troops were in its Black Panther Division. The Filipino civic action group, PHILCAG, was comprised of 2,000 men. If my memory is correct, the Australian Task Force (ATF) provided two infantry battalions, supporting artillery, helicopter and fixed wing transport support, and a Special Air Service (SAS) squadron or detachment, for a total strength of 4,500 (more about the SAS in later journals). The relatively smaller New Zealander detachment operated with the ATF. During the period 1965 to 1973, third-country losses were 4,407 Koreans, 469 Australians and New Zealanders, and 350 Thai. See Chester Cooper, The Lost Crusade: America in Vietnam, 266–67; Bruce Palmer, The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam, 51–52; Maclear, 218; and Westmoreland, 163, 259. Also see “The Visit to Cam Ranh bay,” Newsweek, 7 November 1966, 24.

FRIDAY 26 AUGUST—COMRADES IN ARMS IV: PROFESSIONALS ALL

Tonight I ate dinner at the Five Oceans with two Army officers who take care of our dead. One is a mortician at the Central Mortuary. The other flies bodies to the Mortuary, and also to the States. They explained that the Vietnamese don’t embalm; they just place the bodies in wooden boxes. The Americans, on the other hand, use airtight plastic body bags, something like you get at the cleaners, only stronger.22 Very interesting discussion. The dinner special was a slice of veal and a baked potato.

Gray-haired Paul McAvoy, who reported in to J-2 when I did, calls himself the oldest second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps. He is a World War II Marine with four island assaults under his belt and two Purple Hearts on his chest. He was out of the Marine Corps for ten years, and returned as a father of six children. He will celebrate his forty-first birthday in Vietnam. A good Marine, he is a typical professional. Most I have met out here are.

34 • The Bridges of Vietnam

For example, I was in a jeep at Tan Son Nhut Air Base this morning when the outdoor loudspeaker system announced an emergency request for AB Positive blood. Within three minutes I reported to the building that had been announced, but was already too late. Eight other Americans with this relatively rare type of blood had beaten me to the head of the line. Yes, Brigadier General Huey, who spoke at our Koelper Compound graduation, was right when he called this the first team.

FRIDAY 26 AUGUST 1966—J-2 MACV

Checking in at J-2 is like homecoming week.23 In one office is Army Major Tom Dooley, a slim, brown-haired, serious worker I knew from the Army Security Agency in Washington, D.C. In another is Army Major Zanghi, a chunky, black-haired, ebullient man I had met at Fort Holabird. In yet another I encounter Marine Major Burhans, a recon Marine with a topnotch reputation. In the office where I’ll work is forty-five-year-old Navy Commander Bert Nelson. Bert, six feet tall and 185 pounds, is a thorough-thinking, conscientious officer with a gravelly voice. He is a naval aviator, who was part of ship’s company on the USS Bon Homme Richard when I commanded the ship’s Marine Detachment. Bert completed a seven-month WestPac cruise in March 1961, and in April joined the USS Bon Homme Richard to return to WestPac for two more cruises. After attending a high-level school for eight months in the States, he joined the USS Midway and went back to WestPac. When he was detached from the Midway, he was eligible for shore duty, so he requested shore duty in Vietnam. That means that Bert will have lived five of the last six years over here. He gives me ironic news concerning a Marine major who spent twelve months here, then extended six months to be reassigned to the Marines at III MAF. He is the major who was killed in the mortar attack at Da Nang last week. There must be an object lesson for somebody here. Burt says that working hours are twelve hours per day, except only nine on Sunday. Emergencies are something else. He repeats what I had learned at Koelper Compound—that the South Vietnamese stop fighting

Initiation • 35

at Saturday noon, and come back to work on Monday. I can’t blame them. They have been fighting for more than twenty-five years. I will work for U.S. Navy Commander Teddy R. (Ted) Fielding, a member of a well-known haole (Caucasian) family in Hawaii. Commander Fielding is pale-skinned, with fine, reddish tinged, light-brown hair, a hawk nose and watery blue eyes. He stands an erect five-foot eleven. His mild, gentlemanly demeanor and soft voice belie a tiger who was with the Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) during the Korean War, and who has just finished a year as captain of an intelligence-gathering ship off the coast of Vietnam. After he left his ship, he returned to the States to get married and take a well-earned leave. He got married, but cut his leave and honeymoon short in order to volunteer for shore duty in Vietnam. He and I will form a Surface Surveillance and Reconnaissance Section, of the (Aerial) Reconnaissance Branch of the Intelligence Operations Division. Ted’s UDT experience and my Marine Corps reconnaissance background will be integral to our mission. Ted’s boss, Army Colonel John T. Little, was in a Special Forces assignment during an earlier tour here. He is a short, powerfully built man with a leathery face and black, stubby hair. At forty-five he carries not one ounce of unnecessary weight. Colonel Little puffs on an ever-present cigar, and rasps, “I want you two to visit every major ground unit in the country. Go to Special Forces camps, ground reconnaissance units, armored cavalry units, and waterborne reconnaissance units. Search everywhere for intelligence sources— long-range patrols, boats, electronic surveillance, and agent operations. Find shortfalls and find duplications. You’ve got enough rank and training to know what information to get and how to get it without getting bogged down with dog-and-pony shows that they stage for colonels and generals. And don’t worry about code-word compartmentation. I’m not going to get you that kind of clearance or you wouldn’t be allowed to go where I want you to go. You have enough clearance and need to know to learn everything about intelligence collection in this war.” He takes another puff on his cigar. “When I want special info, go get it and get back with it. Be prepared to brief me or the general as soon as you return.” Looks like I’ll get to see a bit of the war after all. We’ll start by visiting

36 • The Bridges of Vietnam

damned near every division and separate unit in Vietnam between Monday and Friday of next week. Should be quite an experience. It’s time to break out the field uniform once again. Exactly two weeks since I arrived in country, and I’ll get up at another ungodly hour on another Monday morning to catch a plane. I still haven’t received any mail, and if I get none by Monday, I’ll have to wait another week until I return. I also have been unable to find Marine Corps major leaves for my collars anywhere in Vietnam. Hope I find a pair before my appointment arrives. Postscript The new section at MACV which Commander Ted Fielding and I named was created to establish staff cognizance over long-range ground reconnaissance, waterborne intelligence operations, and agent operations conducted by military personnel (excluding CORDS operations, which will be summarized in Chapter 2). In The Role of Military Intelligence 1965–1967, Major General Joseph McChristian, who was the J-2 at MACV, does not identify the section in the book’s organizational charts, possibly because the section dissolved after Ted and I, with our somewhat unique combination of qualifications, rotated back to the States. Some people who have served on high level staffs have later said, “I worked for Patton . . . or Eisenhower . . . or Westmoreland,” and some indeed had been assigned to work directly for the general they cited. However, there was never any question in my mind that Ted Fielding was my boss, and I could not have asked for finer. Indeed, I never even talked personally with General Westmoreland until three years later. He then was Chief of Staff of the Army, being hosted by Nevada Governor Paul Laxalt, and I was representing the Marine Corps in northern Nevada as Inspector-Instructor for a Marine reserve unit. In any case, mine was not to be a tour of duty spent at the same desk for a year. I would see the war from a point of view given to few officers of my rank. I was going to meet warriors of all types throughout the area of operations (AO). Some I would meet would die. Many would be well known or would become prominent. Most I would never see again. But I would remember them all.

Initiation • 37

1

Probably written by Alastair Revie. Now out of print.

2

Last name forgotten.

3

Name changed.

4

Bachelor Officer Quarters. I didn’t report the warning system used to detect MiGs because it was classified

5

then, and I don’t remember it now. Because the C-130 pilot and co-pilot were so unconcerned, logic would suggest that it would have been an array of electronic aids at sea, on the ground and in the air, backed up by attack aircraft on standby at Da Nang air field. I believe they told me that both of the wounded pilots survived, and that the co-pilots landed the aircraft on schedule. 6 7

See sketch map 2. Although I had thought that the Marines had changed the name of III MEC to

III MAF, in A Soldier Reports, General William Westmoreland writes that the change was made by the American embassy in Saigon immediately after the first Marine battalion landed on 8 March 1965 (125). More than three decades later, the Marines, with new worldwide missions, would return to the term, “Expeditionary.” 8 9

Tragically, terrorism from within and without our country is changing this. A motor with one cylinder.

10

The names of my boss and the major who escorted me to Chu Lai have been

forgotten. 11

An earlier scandal in Saigon had erupted over the loss of thousands of cans of PX hair spray delivered from the States. With almost no American women in Saigon, where did all the hair spray go? To Vietnamese prostitutes and girlfriends. 12

Westmoreland writes that the name derived from the Vietnamese pronunciation (127–28). 13

Probably because I was concerned with security, I didn’t report that at Chu Lai

was one of the largest ammunition storage sites I had ever seen, serving the Marines’ artillery and air. The inventory stayed fresh, because it was constantly moving in and back out to the users. A friend pointed out that an infiltrator or two could blow the entire beach to bits. 14 15

The gunnery sergeant’s name was not recorded and cannot be remembered. Although I hadn’t reported the “half of MACV” statement in a journal, it seems

obvious here that my boss’s admonition to me had rankled and stayed in my memory. 16

The trip by air along the coastline from Da Nang Air Base to Saigon’s Tan Son Nhut Airport was about 525 miles, or 844 kilometers. 17

See sketch maps 1 and 2.

38 • The Bridges of Vietnam

18

Westmoreland identifies the theater as the Capitol Kinh Do. He states that

Koelper was one of two men killed, and was posthumously promoted to major. Fifty others, including women and children, were wounded (44). 19 I didn’t include Paul F.’s last name in the journal because I didn’t want to disclose his full name in connection with his destination which, so far as he and I knew, might have been classified. I cannot remember his last name. 20 21

By my personal count. I didn’t journalize Paul’s last name or the name of the major mentioned in the

following paragraph, and cannot remember their names. 22

By the end of the war probably every American who watched the evening news on TV could recognize a body bag. 23

I learned later that when MACV became a joint command the Marine Corps

was assigned its share of intelligence billets, but had not filled them due to overriding ground forces commitments. When this information reached the appropriate level, an order went to the Marine Corps personnel monitors to fill those billets immediately. Hence the modification of my orders and those of several others.

Professional Education • 39

Chapter 2

Professional Education MONDAY 29 AUGUST 1966—A NEW USE FOR A BARF BAG

It seems that every Monday of this war I am rising at some ridiculous hour in order to catch a plane. Last Monday I went south. This Monday I’ll go north, but not nearly as far as Okinawa. I swallow my two weekly Aralin pills to guard against malaria, and depart to meet Ted Fielding. It feels good to be wearing a pistol again. Ted drives a Jeep he’s picked up somewhere, and we brave the morning rush to Tan Son Nhut Air Base. At the airport we search for a check-in counter for Navy flights that he has learned about. We find that the Navy uses an exclusive part of the terminal for an operation called “Market Time.” Market Time is the Navy’s coastal interdiction effort, generally using Vietnamese junks and Navy Swift Boats. (Coast Guard and Navy vessels take over in deep water, in an operation called Game Warden.) The Market Time administrative flights are daily milk runs between Saigon and Da Nang that stop at any intermediate points where there’s a need and an airstrip. These silver and white C47s primarily serve Market Time interests, but they will take other passengers, a fact not generally known. 39

40 • The Bridges of Vietnam

Our plane is the first C-47 I’ve been aboard since I took one from the Big Island to Oahu in 1958. The C-47 is older than most of the pilots who fly it. During WWII it was called a “Gooney Bird.” Under Navy terminology it was called an R4-D, “R” standing for transport, “4” meaning the fourth transport plane made for the Navy, and “D” indicating that it was the fourth major modification made to the R4. After we are airborne, the pilot, a medium-sized man with neatly combed brown hair, slightly protruding brown eyes, and a quiet smile, comes back to the cabin to ask each passenger how he’s doing. He is wearing a tailored, starched Navy utility uniform. His short-sleeved shirt has “Hester” embroidered over one pocket and golden naval aviator wings over the other. His collars bear the gold leaves of a lieutenant commander. After he is satisfied that everybody is relaxed, he returns to the cockpit. We make a stopover at Cam Ranh Bay.1 The first Marine recon man ashore at Cam Ranh found nothing but a beautiful, large, sheltered bay— and a few VC. My friend Captain Ed Badolato participated in that operation, before the Marines made their “first” landing at Da Nang.2 Today Cam Ranh Bay is rapidly becoming the largest port and logistical area for American forces in Vietnam. Viewed from the air, the size is stupendous. Several stops later we lumber down to an unnamed landing strip cut into a level spot in the jungle. The strip is so short that landing is like trapping aboard an aircraft carrier. It’s so narrow that this two-engine cargo plane’s wings extend beyond the matting, and slice through the air, skimming over expanses of green grass interspersed with bedraggled Army troops lounging around pup-tents, machine gun emplacements, and individual foxholes. The take-off is something else again. The troops have gathered to see if we will make it. We do. I learned during my tour on the Bon Homme Richard that naval aviators are probably the best pilots in the world. I begin to sense worrisome intestinal warnings. My BOQ breakfast has digested, so I figure that the local Chinese food I ate last night in Cholon must have given me a bit of a bug.3 When the pilot checks his passengers again, I ask if there is a head. He says, “No,” and I ask when we will stop again. “Da Nang,” he replies. “I don’t know if I can wait that long.” He smiles calmly and says, “If it gets serious just ask the plane captain for a barf bag and go back to the utility compartment aft.” He points to

Professional Education • 41

what looks like a broom closet. “You’ll have privacy back there.” By ten o’clock we are two hours away from Da Nang Air Base. Suddenly I have to go. I mean now. I jump up and signal the plane captain, who hands me one of those little waterproof paper bags for airsickness. While two queasy-looking Korean captains watch me with condescending eyes, as if I were airsick like them, I scramble to the broom closet in the tail section of the plane just in time to rip off my trousers and shorts and let brown acid spew into that little bag I’m holding underneath me. I carefully fold and seal the top of the bag and ask the plane captain to toss it outside, which he does. As we continue just off the coast at 12,000 feet, we see a fire fight down below, with Hueys racing in to fire into clouds of smoke and dust. It’s hard to understand the kind of war that sends men through hell down there while we fly along peacefully up here. At Da Nang our driver takes us on a quick tour of the Navy facilities. We pass a white masonry building called the White Elephant, which houses naval activities headquarters. We check into temporary BOQ rooms at a gray concrete structure called the Gray Elephant Hotel, then eat our noon meal at the Stone Elephant Officers’ Club. I guess they had run out of colors by the time they named the officers’ club. Then I take my boss to the III MAF headquarters at Da Nang East for a briefing about I Corps. Postscripts Ted Fielding and I had been charged to examine all surface surveillance activities affecting the conduct of operations in South Vietnam. By so doing, we could discover voids and overlaps in intelligence collection; we could pass along operational techniques between similar organizations, and we could make credible reports to Ted’s boss. Ted, who had operated behind the lines during the Korean War as a UDTtrained (Underwater Demolition Team) expert, had to familiarize himself with long-range patrolling on the ground. For my part, as a recon-trained Marine, I needed to see, first-hand, Navy operations inshore as well as how other services conducted their trade. Thus this chapter was titled “Professional Education.” After this first stop at Da Nang to visit the Marines, we would work our way down the country.

42 • The Bridges of Vietnam

Market Time operations were coordinated by Coastal Surveillance Centers at Da Nang, Qui Nhon, Nha Trang, Vung Tau, and An Thoi. By 1966 more than two dozen U.S. Navy vessels, forty-four Coast Guard cutters, and eightyfour Swift Boats were engaged, as well as land-based Navy patrol aircraft. (See Thomas Cutler, Brown Water, Black Berets: Coastal and Riverine Warfare in Vietnam, 78–86.) I apparently was mistaken about Game Warden’s share of inshore activities, which will be described in connection with a visit to the Rung Sat Special Zone and the Mekong Delta on 13 January 1967.

The briefing about I Corps at III MAF headquarters was given by the G-2, a colonel. The lieutenant colonel who was my former boss did not appear. The G-2 reviewed the enemy situation map, now showing elements of the NVA 324B Division in country. He concluded that we needed to visit the reconnaissance battalions organic to the two Marine divisions to get the type of information we were seeking, and obtained permission for us to do so. (Protocol and ongoing combat operations allow staff visits only to units directly subordinate to your own command, with advance notice. To visit their units requires their permission, and so on.) For the visits, see the journal for Wednesday 31 August.

TUESDAY 30 AUGUST 1966—DINNER WITH AN ADMIRAL

This is a social visit because the admiral is Ted Fielding’s friend and former boss. As a company grade officer, I have made calls on generals and admirals, and I have known officers who later became flag officers. I’ve never been asked by one to just drop by for dinner. But, like everything else in this war, things are different here. A steward shows Ted and me into the Admiral’s quarters just before eight o’clock in the evening. The building looks like it was a small hotel when the French were here. The steadily droning window air conditioners make it damn cold. The admiral is in starched khaki. That is the Navy way. Ted and I are in utilities, our field uniform. That is the Marine Corps way.

Professional Education • 43

The steward serves drinks in the parlor while the admiral makes small talk with my boss. After a second drink we go to the dining room. It’s unreal for three grown males to be served by stewards at a table that will seat fourteen, almost like we’re playing tea party. But the admiral enjoys our company, because he often eats alone. Imagine a table for fourteen with no guests for dinner. After dinner as we retire to the lounge, I leave my calling card on a tray we pass in the hallway. The lounge boasts a player piano. When the admiral received orders to go to Da Nang unaccompanied, he had no idea of the living conditions here, nor did he know whether there would be electricity. He told his wife that no matter what the situation was, he was bringing his player piano. He operates the piano with a foot pump in such a way as to control the rhythm of the music. The piano rolls are longer and more varied in music style than I have encountered in Shakey’s Pizza joints in the States. I vow to own one of these pianos someday, after many things more important have been done. After the piano recital, we resume our discussion. The admiral tells us that Da Nang port is off-loading more supplies at present than the Saigon Military Harbor is handling. And this is happening before all the new piers at Da Nang are even completed. He also comments upon the PX and USO situation, and says that six Red Cross girls are here to perform USO services for 80,000 servicemen in the area. He says that the town of Da Nang has been out of bounds for six months, except for official business trips, which must terminate by the onset of the nightly curfew at eight o’clock. These measures have cut inflation and black marketeering down to almost nothing. The admiral also says he is working on shutting down Dogpatch. He says that our relationships with the local people seem to be about perfect now. I reflect that, if we could do this in Saigon, we might really have something going. The admiral has his own personal bridges to cross. He was initially ordered here for a six-month tour. After arrival he was told to expect twelve months. Recently he has been told to expect eighteen months, but not to count on leaving even then. At least a poor trooper over here knows that in thirteen months his war is over.

44 • The Bridges of Vietnam

Our visit terminates when the admiral says he must get back to work for another four hours. So ends another episode in the strange war over here. As I sit finishing my after-dinner brandy with this polite, socially correct gentleman, I reflect that fourteen hours ago I was manipulating a paper bag at 12,000 feet. And I haven’t even had a shower yet. Postscript I thought I had forgotten my vow to someday own a player piano like the admiral’s until I saw one for sale in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1970, and bought it on the spot. I obtained it from the wife of an American who was flying for Air America out of Bangkok. She said his being over in Southeast Asia gave her the chance to get rid of the big, ugly thing. I wonder whether the admiral’s wife might have sold his if he had left it in the States. When the admiral said that Da Nang was out of bounds except for daytime business, I didn’t tell him about the III MAF policy of letting ten percent of the headquarters go to Da Nang on liberty each day. This might have been an old policy that hadn’t been rescinded, or it might have been a case where somebody was blinking his eyes. Never kick a sleeping dog, particularly in the Far East.

WEDNESDAY 31 AUGUST 1966—THE 1ST AND 3RD MARINE RECON BATTALIONS

As I write down this date, it hits me that the month of August is over. A long month. If all goes well, after only ten more months I’ll be going home. That’s better than waiting twelve more months as I was originally expecting. The 3rd Recon Battalion is in the Da Nang TAOR. The battalion command post (CP) rests on a prominent hill, which is visible from all of Da Nang Air Base and Da Nang city. It is directly above the 3rdMarDiv PX, and overlooks a large green valley. Adjacent to the battalion commander’s home and office is a helicopter landing site where his patrols are launched and returned. The battalion CO is a major who was lucky enough to be on hand at the right time to fill a lieutenant colonel’s job. The executive officer is a captain, selected for major, like me.

Professional Education • 45

The CO, as do all commanders, has his problems. For example, the percentage of casualties received by the battalion since it arrived in country fifteen months ago is astonishing. The statistics are mollified by the fact that most of his wounded are returned to duty. Another alleviating factor is that many of the statistics include two separate wounds on the same trooper. Ironically, to the CO, three Purple Hearts (three separate wounds) to the same person means the same mathematically as one KIA, since the third wound automatically rotates the man to the States, leaving the command with a vacancy. The WHOP, WHOP, WHOP of a helicopter signals a returning patrol, which offloads at the nearby helicopter pad. Many times as a Recon Marine in the States have I known the exhilarating exhaustion of returning from a tough mission. But these troops are not in the States. They have been in VC country for four days. Their field uniforms are black with water and sweat. Their bodies are covered with leeches, even in the most personal of places. They are hungry and thirsty. The whole bit. Before leaving the pad, they turn in hand grenades and ammo to the patrol leader. They then start down off the hill. They will debrief for two hours, then will get their gear ready for the next patrol. Tomorrow they will go to China Beach and lie in the sun to get rid of fungus, jungle rot, and immersion skin. The day after, they will do cleanup work in the battalion area. The following day they will receive their next patrol order. The senior man of this group is a sergeant. It was one thing to attend a top-level meeting at the Pentagon and watch the commandant, General Wallace M. Greene, Jr., march his fiveand-a-half-foot frame across the stage, declaring in a high-pitched voice that it would take 100,000 Marines to secure I Corps—and the job would have to be done by corporals and sergeants. It is another thing to see the magnitude of the job we have given these corporals and sergeants. We eat lunch in Reasoner Hall, named after Captain Reasoner, late of “A” Company, 3rd Recon Battalion. He had commanded the company for 10 days before he was killed in an ambush. Down at the Chu Lai TAOR is the headquarters of the 1st Recon Battalion. The CP is nestled in sand dunes near the beach. A recon Marine tells me it’s a country club, saying that during the rainy season the recon battalion area is the only place in Chu Lai that does not turn into mud. However, the “country club” includes an ammunition dump for the en-

46 • The Bridges of Vietnam

tire III MAF complement of attack aircraft, as well as ammo supplies for all the infantry forces at Chu Lai. Several snipers have been located and killed in this area at night. What if a VC sapper team should blow the entire dump? The recon Marine says that anybody in the battalion not on patrol would just jump into the ocean until it’s all over. This is my old unit, and my visit is filled with nostalgia as I see familiar faces. Major Frank Riney, who introduced me to Marine reconnaissance at the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center in Bridgeport, California, is the battalion executive officer. Frank, Hawaiian-born, halfCherokee Indian and half-Hawaiian, is a dark, lean, six-foot-tall professional. He gives me a set of major’s leaves when I tell him I expect to be promoted, but cannot find any golden leaves in country. Captain Charles D. Small, a major selectee, comes in from a jogging workout around an improvised track. Dark-haired and six feet tall, he has lost weight over here, and is fit and trim. He is CO of H&S Company, a job I once had, and waiting out the final eight days of his Vietnam tour. The leader of the patrol that was just inserted thirty-five miles inland is Second Lieutenant St. Clair. He was a staff sergeant when I commanded Company B in the States.4 Most of the lieutenants are like St. Clair—newly commissioned, former high-ranking NCOs. Unlike many unrestricted officers fresh from college and Quantico, these are men with years of reconnaissance experience. The senior officers in the battalion brag that the average age of their second lieutenants is thirty-four years. Frank Riney says that he plans to write an article for the Marine Corps Gazette entitled, “The Most Decorated Platoon in Vietnam.” After one patrol the patrol leader was recommended for the Medal of Honor, seven members received Navy Crosses, three or four received Silver Stars, and all the rest received Bronze Stars. Six or eight of the patrol members also received Purple Hearts. I plan to read that article when it is published. The grenade that exploded in the Gray Elephant Hotel where I was sleeping last night seems pretty insignificant down here.5 Ted Fielding and I finish our business, swap a few sea stories, and then Frank Riney drives us in a jeep over to catch our plane for the next part of the I Corps tour.

Professional Education • 47

Postscript The action by “the most decorated platoon in Vietnam” had occurred on Hill 488 (488 meters high), renamed Howard’s Hill after Staff Sergeant Jimmie E. Howard. In Strange War, Strange Strategy, Walt reports that Howard’s eighteen-man patrol on top of the hill was attacked by an NVA battalion the night of 16 June 1966. When his patrol expended all their hand grenades, he had them throw rocks down on the attackers, and jeer at the enemy, to show that they were far from beaten. The next morning, Howard and twelve men were still alive, only one unwounded. With attack aircraft on station and rescue helicopters standing off, Howard called in a last air strike before he allowed the patrol to be lifted out, leaving only the remnants of a North Vietnamese battalion still alive (161–63). As I remember, Howard had completed fourteen years of service at the time. He shortly afterwards was promoted to gunnery sergeant. He also received his Medal of Honor. I don’t believe that Riney ever wrote the article. I met Howard in 1971, while he was serving as the senior special services NCO at Camp Pendleton. Instead of shooting NVA, he was shooting baskets on the basketball court. He was then a master sergeant, and nearing his time of retirement. This experience of Howard’s patrol points out a necessary change in doctrine that Ted and I found during our visit to the two recon battalions. In the States I had been taught to operate with standard-sized patrols, whether the mission encompassed pure intelligence gathering, prisoner snatching, sabotage, calling in supporting arms to destroy enemy formations, or preparing a landing zone to receive friendly forces. In I Corps, however, it came about that the mission dictated the size, equipment, and operating methods of the patrol. Although this may sound logical, it can require a profound change in individual capabilities and training. For example, a classic long-range patrol is trained to operate in enemy territory very slowly and with extreme silence, with each member trusting that he knows exactly how he and the other members will react to any situation. But if, for instance, the size of the patrol is doubled, the variables affected can become geometric.

48 • The Bridges of Vietnam

WEDNESDAY 31 AUGUST 1966—SPECIAL FORCES IN I CORPS: THE C-1 DETACHMENT

This is my first contact with U.S. Army Special Forces in Vietnam. They explain that not only do they man outposts beyond the limits of the TAOR, but that their troopers are advisors to (instead of commanders of) Vietnamese units located within these outposts. To somebody like me who doesn’t trust any Vietnamese not to be a VC, I can only say that these people earn their money.6 A reaction force of Vietnamese is billeted at the Special Forces headquarters. These are the troops, along with their Special Forces advisors, who will be thrown in first when an attack occurs against one of the outposts. Backing up the Special Forces reaction forces are General Walt’s Marines. He has promised the Special Forces that there never will be another A Shau in I Corps.7 Behind the camp is a sandy beach overlooking the river. Nobody swims there any more, because four days ago two Special Forces men went to the beach to take a sun bath. The VCs killed them and threw their bodies into the water. Yes, the Special Forces troopers earn their money.8 Postscript USSF could operate with A Teams (smallest), B Detachments, Companies, and a Group Headquarters. In August 1966, Fifth Special Forces Group, with headquarters near Nha Trang, maintained a series of border surveillance outposts, called CIDG (Civilian Irregular Defense Group) camps, and generally advised by A Teams. By that date the CIDG camps were backed by Mobile Strike Forces (known as Mike Forces from the phonetic alphabet) which were held in reserve at corps level. Troops were mainly Montagnards from the highlands, and Nungs who had emigrated from China. In August 1966 the CIDG complement was 2,500 USSF and 40,000 to 45,000 tribesmen. This meant that Colonel Francis J. “Black Jack” Kelly, the CO of Fifth Special Forces, was responsible for more troops than Army major generals who commanded divisions of 16,000 to 25,000, and in effect exercised a form of control over all of South Vietnam on the ground equaled only by his superior, COMUSMACV. Add to this situation Kelly’s clandestine and covert missions that were directed from outside of MACV (to be dis-

Professional Education • 49

cussed later), and the seeds for discontent between USSF and the regular Army commands become obvious. There will be more about this later. Based upon the journal, C-1 at Da Nang would have been the Mike Force assigned to I Corps. Hence, if the Mike Force was committed to assist a CIDG camp under attack in I Corps, and the Mike Force needed backup, C-1 expected III MAF Marines to be on call as reinforcements, as reported in the paragraph in the journal that follows. Later during my tour, a U.S. Special Forces officer in Nha Trang told me that a Mike Force rifleman earned about 5100 Piasters monthly, which was forty-three dollars, plus 400 Ps for family allowance and 1000 Ps for jump pay. Of this he paid 300 Ps for rations. If he should die, the next of kin would receive 2000 Ps for burial expenses and full pay and allowances for one year. In some units he could quit at any time by turning his rifle over to the nearest Special Forces trooper. From my viewpoint, this philosophy and the relatively generous pay created a top-notch, dependable fighting man. The following lines were over the bar at the Special Forces C-3 unit at Bien Hoa: I see as the eagle, clear and from afar. I listen as the deer, head cocked and alert. I think as the snake, silent and unblinking. I walk as the panther, lithe and sinuous. I crouch as the lion, muscled and ready. I kill as the mongoose, swift and silent. I die like a man. I am Mike Force. (Author unknown.) See Stanley Kutler, ed. Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War, particularly 503; John Plaster, SOG: The Secret Wars of America’s Commandos in Vietnam, particularly 44, 177; and Westmoreland, particularly 59, 78, 147, 289.

THURSDAY 1 SEPTEMBER 1966—THE SWIFT BOAT

Ted Fielding and I have gotten ourselves assigned to a Swift Boat in order to see how the Navy’s coastal interdiction program fits into the overall surface reconnaissance scheme. Swift Boats form the interface between the Vietnamese junk fleet and the Coast Guard’s deep-water

50 • The Bridges of Vietnam

vessels. They reportedly also conduct clandestine missions in North Vietnamese waters, where the press generally describes them as “PT Boats.” The Patrol Craft, Fast, is an aluminum-hulled vessel some thirty-threefeet long, with a draft of two-and-a-half feet. She makes well over twenty knots. The armament on ours consists of an 81mm mortar, .50 caliber machine guns, and small arms. A lieutenant junior grade named Dave and his crew of six men will patrol their section of the coast for twenty-four hours. After another twentyfour hours off, they will patrol again for twenty-four hours. Dave’s third passenger is a Navy lieutenant named Dick, who is the Senior Naval Advisor to Coastal Defense Group 13. Dick has been on a scrounging trip, and will be dropped off with his supplies when we reach his headquarters, forty miles north of Da Nang.9 He invites me to go ashore when we arrive, if I can arrange for Dave’s Swift Boat to come back and pick me up. “No problem,” says Dave.10 The boat shoves off through gray water in a morning rain that is coming down thick and fast. If the rain continues, few fishing boats will be out today, but it will be a good day for “Charlie.” To be safe from small arms fire, Dave plans to keep 2,000 to 3,000 yards offshore while heading for our assigned area. We slam so hard into choppy waves that the small of my back hurts and the fillings in my teeth ache. As we leave Da Nang Harbor, the sun pops out, humid heat envelopes the boat, and the crew makes an amazing transformation. They strip down to shorts that they have cut from Navy dungarees. They strap knives and pistols onto their belts. This is just like Terry and the Pirates. We will spend the day boarding suspicious looking junks and looking for Charlie along the coast. Across the now bright-blue waters to port are the tracks of the national railroad, curving around a small headland. Paralleling it is Highway 1, easy to spot because it has been defoliated.11 Dave points out a place on the highway where a convoy was ambushed a week ago. We reach our assigned patrol area and check in by radio. Although the bluffs overlooking the coast are pockmarked from fire fights, today’s patrol remains dull and quiet. When we arrive off of Coastal Defense Group 13’s headquarters, Dick and I transfer ashore, with plans for me to be picked up several hours later.12

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Returning from CDG 13, I find that Ted has been picked up by a passing Swift Boat, and will find his own way back to Da Nang. At dusk my boat pulls into a small bay. The crew breaks out the .50 caliber machine guns. A couple of patrols ago they came in here and fired a few rounds into the nearby hillside in order to zero their sights. The hillside answered back. Since then they have come back during each patrol, daring Charlie to come out. Today is a bit different. Marines are operating not far away, and we are here to provide fire support. The crew fires two rounds into the hillside, like two claps of thunder, each quickly followed by a thunk, and gets no response. We anchor and wait. As evening darkness slips into the valley that stretches north of the hill, flares pop up between 500 and 1,000 yards from the beach, and helicopters fly through smoke rising into the fading twilight. This is Operation Pawnee, launched to drive the VC out of the area before election day. The crew and I hope that they drive Charlie out to the sea where we can intercept him, but we don’t have such luck. After we eat dinner, friendly 105 howitzer fire erupts in the AO. The Marines ashore radio us that they had four VC spotted just before dark. Could we fire illumination rounds into the area where they were last seen? Indeed we could, and off go some 81 millimeter (81mm) illumination rounds. But no VC are found. Almost had some excitement. We hear by radio that a Swift boat near Hue has received small arms fire. Our crew wishes it was our boat. It would break the monotony of a dull patrol. Using no lights, running by radar and luck, our Swift boat starts back to Da Nang Harbor, where it will turn around to continue the next leg of the patrol. Dave offers me the helm, and just as I take the wheel, a radio message warns us of a nearby unidentified boat. As I steer on the course Dave gives me, he pushes both throttles forward and we go slamming along at nearly top speed. The crew breaks out armament and ammo, checks charts and distances, and reviews recognition signals. I just keep steering the boat, watching the compass and the radar. Soon a blip appears on my radar scope. I’m closing on the damn target, and I’m not sure that I know how to change power to the two engines and whatever else I must do. Dave challenges the boat by predesignated light signals, and gets no answer. Then he gets the wrong answer. He is

52 • The Bridges of Vietnam

excited and busy behind my back, while I am wondering if anybody remembers that I am a Marine who might not even know port from starboard. Finally, at 150 yards we accomplish recognition by voice radio and I veer off in my speedboat, banking her like an airplane. The target was a South Vietnamese motor patrol boat, also running dark. The skipper had been on patrol so long that his recognition signal documents were outdated. He hadn’t answered by voice until the last moment because his English was poor. The excitement over, we turn back on course for Da Nang, which we identify under a cascade of flares. A crewmember says that the VC are terrorizing Da Nang again. Another crewmember wishes to hell that they would try to terrorize us. This is the way of this war. Whenever Charlie does show his face, everybody in the area jumps at the chance to ding him. Postscript The data I reported about the Swift Boat were provided by the skipper (Dave). Cutler writes that the Swift Boat was a fifty-foot vessel that displaced nineteen tons and had a draft of three-and-a-half feet. It had twin screws powered by two diesel engines, which generated a maximum speed of twenty-eight knots. He adds that Swifts had been used in the Gulf of Mexico to transport crews to and from offshore drilling rigs (85). The Boston Publishing Company editors write that, under OpPlan 34-A, SOG operated Swift Boats and Nasties (heavily armed assault boats) out of Da Nang to conduct operations in North Vietnamese waters (48, 76). Also see Boston Publishing Company, 48–49, for a report of the Gulf of Tonkin incident during the period 31 July–4 August 1964. Boston editors relate that SOG-directed Nasties conducted raids in North Vietnam during that period not knowing that the U.S. Destroyer USS Maddox was in the area on an intelligence collection patrol. The consequent North Vietnamese attacks reported by Maddox provided the basis for a Congressional resolution used by President Lyndon Johnson to conduct the Vietnam War. The controversy over the facts of this incident aside, it underscores the importance that Ted Fielding and I placed on our mission to eliminate, or at least illuminate, overlap of intelligence operations in 1966 and 1967.

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THURSDAY 1 SEPTEMBER 1966—THE JUNK FLEET

The map shows Coastal Defense Group 13 to be located on an inland bay, or lagoon, that is some five miles long from north to south, and three miles wide. The CDG junk fleet is home-ported at the eastern and southern edge of the bay, just inside the narrow neck. The junk fleet is the South Vietnamese contribution to the Swift boat effort. The junks execute patrols close to shore, covering river mouths, lagoons, and fishing fleets. Their radios keep them in contact with their headquarters, with their American naval advisors, and with nearby Swift boats. The CDG junks come in three models. The original is called “sailonly,” the newer is “motor-sail,” and the newest, or possibly oldest, is called “motor-only.” Each is about thirty feet long with a hold (where VC hide on civilian junks), and a small cabin aft for living quarters. Lashed down on the main deck forward is a U.S. .30 caliber light machine gun, ready for action on its tripod. A Navy lieutenant named Dick and I approach the lagoon on a Swift boat. Dick is twenty-eight years old, but is prematurely gray around the temples, and looks thirty-five. When we get within a mile of shore, the boat fires four rounds from its .50 caliber machine gun. This is the signal for Dick’s assistant, a Navy lieutenant junior grade, to come up on his radio. He does and is told to send out a junk. Our Swift is not allowed to approach any closer. Dick asks the jaygee about their beer supply, and is told that they have none. Dick tells him to go into the local hamlet and buy some. In twenty minutes our junk, a motor-only Yabuta, arrives. It is adorned with the typical fierce red eyes on each side of the bow. Dick and I climb aboard and the junk’s Vietnamese skipper heads toward the lagoon. Dick explains that the hamlet is safe, but that the rest of the area is VC. He hasn’t been attacked yet, but expects to be mortared any time from the high ground across the channel from his headquarters. I wonder just what in the hell I am doing here when I don’t have to be. At the entrance of the lagoon we thread our way through countless staked-out fishing nets, and leave the cool ocean breeze astern. We arrive off of Dick’s “headquarters.” The junk skipper cuts his motor, and silence is overpowering. I ask Dick what he has for defense, and he says, “barbed wire,” and laughs. I discover that he actually has an 81mm mortar, a pair

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of light machine guns, and several BAR’s, all of which are manned by offduty members of his six or eight-boat “fleet.” Why “six or eight?” It depends upon how many boats and crews happen to be around when he needs them. Stepping ashore, we walk into a compound that looks like a masonry version of an Indian wars fort in the American West. In place of a protecting wall, however, are strands of barbed wire stretched between the four watch towers that occupy the corners of the compound. Dick’s uniform becomes trousers and jungle boots. His jaygee assistant’s uniform is white canvas tennis shoes, cut-off dungaree trousers, and a dungaree jacket with sleeves cut off. Shades of the South Pacific. Dick’s home, which he and his jaygee share with two enlisted assistants (who are in Hue, scrounging for radio parts), is a six-foot-by-eightfoot bare masonry room with two double bunks, and an open rectangle for a window. Under the bunks are stashed cases of C-Rations. On a shelf are a few cans of Spam. He has the luxury of a small refrigerator that is powered by butane. Washing water comes from the hamlet, which is directly across a foot bridge over another small neck of water on the opposite side from where we docked our junk. Drinking water, ammo, and everything else needed for existence, survival, and fighting arrive the same way I did. The remainder of the building contains quarters for the Vietnamese officers who command the fleet. They are resting, because it is the noon siesta. Forming a “U” facing towards the masonry building are the barracks and working places of the Vietnamese enlisted sailors. It is so peaceful and quiet here in this beautiful, placid lagoon that it’s hard to believe that the word “Viet Cong” actually exists . . . until the radio starts bringing in Marine tactical transmissions. They are conducting Operation Pawnee two ridges to the south. Two Ontos are disabled.13 The battalion commander has temporarily lost contact with Company “K.” I hear the commander of Company M, 3rd Battalion, Fourth Marines, calling battalion headquarters. I was executive officer of that company once when I was a young first lieutenant in Hawaii. I wonder who this present-day company commander is. The odd coincidences of this war never seem to end. We tire of listening to the radio, and Dick pulls some of the hamlet beer from the refrigerator. It carries the French name, “Bier Larue.” In

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spite of the luxurious refrigerator, the beer is still warm. But it has a good flavor and goes well with a Spam sandwich. Dick spent his previous tours on destroyers. He has been married only eight months, and this separation hurts. Like all advisors, he is a volunteer. And, like most advisors I have met, he is very bitter about the attitude of his Vietnamese counterparts. He says, “I wanted to be an advisor to see with my own eyes what Vietnam is all about.” He has been here only three months, and he has seen. He has seen that in the villages the basic governing unit is the family. Anybody who is not part of the family is fair game for cheating, lying to, or otherwise being mistreated. He knows that we aren’t going to change these people in just a few years. He first discovered this when he bought some nails from his Vietnamese sailors to build himself a rustic bookcase. He later discovered that the nails had been pulled from the ammunition crates which he had given them, packed with ammunition for their own self-defense. He had taught them that the crates had to be kept intact for immediate handling in case of an attack. Dick is intelligent, quick thinking, energetic, and filled with initiative. The Vietnamese trust him and respect him. But he is not a member of any Vietnamese family unit. He is waiting out his remaining nine months in Vietnam with stoic patience. However, he has accomplished one of his minor goals. He says, “I personally know something of the situation here in Vietnam. I would not trade any portion of the year here.” When he returns to the States he will be eligible for shore duty and a desk job. This he does not intend to do. He is a doer and not a thinker, and says he will resign his commission. He hopes to find a job that offers the same kind of challenges that his sea duty and his advisory duties have. I hope his wife understands. It must be hard for a woman who is married to a strong-willed individualist. She has to be as strong as he is. Paintings and photographs of the South Pacific sometimes show toilets built over the water, just like the one here. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to use one of these, and today I get to find out. I walk across a narrow plank over the water, and climb up to a structure on stilts that is six feet above the water. At the top I see that it is the hulk

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of an eight-foot long wooden boat, with four holes bashed in the bottom. The boat shakes and rocks while I carry out my business. Neither the guards at the lookout towers nor the villagers bother to watch. But the fish watch, for they are hungry, and they take advantage of a midafternoon meal. Soon it’s time to leave this deadly, boring paradise.14 As a signal, we fire four rounds into the VC hillside. The Swift Boat comes up on the radio, and I head back out to sea. Dick’s contemporary up the coast has received a Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, and a Purple Heart. I wonder what Dick’s fate will be in the coming months.

SUNDAY 4 SEPTEMBER 1966—THE PX IN CHOLON

Shopping is something else again here in Saigon. The local market offers very little that is worth buying, and what it does offer is prohibitive in price. For example, tailor-made suits of dubious quality and workmanship are on sale for $60 to $80. The same types of suits can be bought for $30 to $40 elsewhere in the Far East. Shoes are on sale for about $8, but they are made mostly of cardboard. The leather parts have been tanned with urine, and smell like it. Even if the merchandise was a good buy, servicemen presently are under a continuous curfew, except when traveling to and from American installations. So the only shopping choice is the Army-run PX. Buying at the PX helps staunch our gold hemorrhage. Today is Sunday, and my “weekend off” starts at 1600. Since the PX doesn’t close until 1800, today I will do some much needed shopping. Because of losses and other results of mismanagement, prices at the PX are scandalous. I write this because officers of all services who were here when the Navy ran the housekeeping chores for Saigon have complained to me that everything fell to pieces when the Navy left. So shopping becomes a matter of finding the time, regardless of rain, to search for items in the PX that best meet my needs, regardless of price or quality. An Army officer told me that MACV is called “the only Unified Command in the Army.” I believe him when I enter a barn-sized store in the compound called “uniform sales.” The barn is almost filled with Army

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clothing. One bin the size of a horse-trough contains a jumble of Navy and Air Force items. Marine Corps? Sorry about that. When I left the States, I expected to wear dress shoes only on the flight to Vietnam and the return flight, so I brought only one pair. Because of daily rains I need an extra pair in order to give each pair a chance to dry. Wouldn’t it be simpler for the MACV headquarters staff to live in tents outside the city and wear field uniforms with jungle boots? I find a pair of Army enlisted shoes (they come only in “normal, narrow, and wide” widths) which will have to do.15 $8.40 for these, which sell for $5.00 in the States, but at least I have a second pair of shoes. And now to the main PX building, where I sort through a dozen pairs of wash-and-wear civilian trousers on a shelf. The pair I wore from Oceanside to Travis Air Force Base has long since been frayed and filled with holes. I find a single pair within my size range, and snatch it, regardless of color or price. Outstanding! I have a new pair of civilian trousers! I have found no U.S. Navy rank insignia (to wear in place of the Marine Corps ones I also can’t find). And I’ve found no ribbons of the type I rate. But I have a pair of trousers that do not have holes. War is hell. I search out the beer sales room and buy one of my three authorized cases per month. I notice that the beer and soft drinks sell for the same amount per case. I then go to liquor sales, where I buy one of my three authorized bottles per month. I am momentarily disturbed to see American civilian construction workers buying their monthly shares of liquor. Other purchasers are foreigners, perhaps servicemen in civilian clothes. But what the hell. A grenade or a claymore will kill them just as fast as it will kill me. And, again, their buying in the PX helps the gold outflow. As I walk the two blocks back to my hotel with my purchases, I’m as tickled as a kid with a new toy. In the room I try on my trousers and they fit! In the States I might have spent days finding the pair I wanted, but here it took ten seconds and I am satisfied. I’ll break in the shoes by wearing them to the BOQ dining room tonight. Once again it has been proven to me that all material values change in this strange kind of war. The shopping trip is over, but I’ll go back again when I can. There might be some new tidbit I can buy which will add something to an otherwise colorless day.

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Postscript I suggested in the journal that the staff live in tents outside the city and wear field uniforms. Westmoreland writes that in fact a new MACV headquarters was opened near Tan Son Nhut in August 1967, but it was in prefabricated metal buildings. He states that this moved thousands of American servicemen away from the local population, and facilitated the return of requisitioned buildings while cutting piaster expenditures and reducing American exposure to incidents (248). He doesn’t mention whether it facilitated individual purchases of service-unique uniforms and accessories.

WEDNESDAY 7 SEPTEMBER 1966—FIRST MAIL CALL AND FIRST SHOTS FIRED IN ANGER

Mail call today is an outstanding event for me, for it’s the first time I’ve received mail since arriving in country almost a month ago. There is a letter from my wonderful wife. God, I love her. She explains that she has been typing the journal entries that I have been writing and mailing daily, and has been sending copies to other family members. She enclosed a letter from my grandparents, who have been receiving copies. I am so very pleased that they enjoy the type of local gossip which I have been writing. I will try to continue to relate interesting experiences. Another letter arrives and attracts the attention of two colonels who examine the quite striking style of penmanship on the envelope. (Everybody in my office is a colonel or major except me and an Air Force captain. I feel sorry for him because he’s going to be the only captain when my promotion comes through any day now.) I quickly recognize that the writing belongs to my uncle, Bill Stewart, who prints with an artistic cursive flair. Bill’s letter includes a clip of a U.S. weekly news magazine’s descriptions of the recent accidental zapping of Army troops by the Air Force. The article explains that VC troops were only fifty yards from the U.S. lines when the Air Force planes attacked. There are no histrionics in the article, which pleases me, because this is exactly the way the military professionals out here saw it and feel about it. A subsidiary article describes the free nightly war shows observable from the roof-top patio clubs here in Saigon. Again the article strikes very

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close to home. I have watched such exhibitions several times from such vantage places as the Brinks Hotel BOQ and the Rex Hotel BOQ. As a postscript to today’s diary entry, I would relate that the other day our airplane was shot at and I didn’t even know it. We were returning from Da Nang on a Navy C-47, and I was trying to sleep. I noticed most of the passengers gawking out the windows, but decided that they only were eyeballing some landmark that I had already seen many times. My boss, thinking I was asleep and not wanting to awaken me, didn’t mention the ground fire for several days. No big thing. No hits. The infantry battalions take hundreds, sometimes thousands, of unfriendly rounds daily. But it is always important to realize that any single round could be significant. Postscript A major from J-2 told me that at one time MACV staff officers in Saigon were allowed to carry weapons. One night the VC and the ARVN engaged in a firefight on the street below one of the BOQs, and officers on the rooftop patio-bar started shooting indiscriminately down into the street. Since then, Americans assigned to MACV needed written authorization to carry weapons. Every trip I made outside of Saigon had to be backed up with written orders, which included authorization to carry a weapon. I customarily traveled with a loaded .45 caliber automatic, two extra magazines, and a U.S. Navy survival knife. Outside of Saigon, other weapons were available from the units I visited.

THURSDAY 8 SEPTEMBER 1966—MOVING DAY

It seems that ever since I wrangled orders for Vietnam, most of my time has been taken up either with flying or moving. Today I am scheduled to move from my temporary BOQ at the Five Oceans to my “permanent” BOQ. I might also go on the waiting list for another “permanent” BOQ if I don’t like this one. The idea seems to be that if you move enough times you don’t care how bad your accommodations are—you just don’t want to move any more. The first step is to inspect the new home, which is located in the heart of Cholon.

60 • The Bridges of Vietnam

Cholon is the Chinese section of the Saigon-Cholon complex.16 The women here do not wear ao dais. They wear Chinese-style slacks—made either of brocade or of plain black cotton—and Chinese-style blouses, generally with stiff collars, like miniature versions of the Marines’ leatherneck-topped dress blues. Many of the stores have Chinese names, and the advertising in their windows is in Chinese. In general the Chinese appear to live better in Cholon than do their Vietnamese counterparts in Saigon. The odors are less severe, and the people look cleaner. But by no means does this sector of the city compare favorably with any part of Japan that I have seen. I find my new home—The Hong Kong Hotel BOQ—on a street named Ngo Quyen just off of Dong Kanh. It looks safer than the Five Oceans, because each corner of Ngo Quyen is blocked off by cement-filled barrels, and only Americans are allowed to drive past the barrels. To enforce this is a U.S. Army guard, armed with an M-16 and wearing an MP arm band, who sits in a sand-bagged booth in front of the hotel. My room number is 620, and remembering Koelper Compound’s stairclimbing I am apprehensive until I see an elevator. Great! But when I enter the room I am damn glad I didn’t lug along my footlocker and Val Pak, expecting to move right in. The room, originally built for a standard double bed, contains two single beds with a cot between—all showing signs of use. Two student desks, two armoires, and assorted footlockers leave just enough room for one occupant at a time to walk between the beds. Typical example of billeting in Saigon. I tell the Army sergeant first class at the hotel desk that I couldn’t even get my footlocker into the room, and that there’s no space for yet a fourth bunk. He gives me a “ho hum” attitude, so I grab the telephone and ask him who I should call to straighten it out. After completing many calls over the oriental telephone system, I am assured by a lieutenant colonel that there will be room for me to move in tomorrow.

FRIDAY 9 SEPTEMBER 1966—SECOND MOVING DAY

I telephone for an American vehicle. Because the drivers are Vietnamese, I ask if it will park outside the lobby of the Five Oceans. In a single-pitched, no-emphasis voice, the Vietnamese girl I am talking to says, “You-go-to-

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the-tailor-shop-on-the-corner-and-when-you-see-American-taxi-you-get-onbecause-American-can-go-through-gate-to-hotel-but-if-Vietnamese-drivergo-through-without-you-American-guard-will-shoot-him.” It’s so true that I laugh, and she laughs with me. When we reach the Hong Kong, for the first time in months the elevator is out of order! And it’s not just six flights of stairs I will be climbing with my gear. The European-styled room numbering system (French) has numbers 1 to 99 on the ground floor, 100 to 199 on the second floor, etc., which makes my room, 620, on the seventh floor! Naturally. There are now only two beds, and one is empty. Three round trips via the stairs moves me in. Then a shower, fresh dry khaki to replace my sweat-soaked uniform, and back to work. After working late, I return to my new home at 2300, and the coincidences of this strange war once again amaze me. My roommate is none other than Navy Lieutenant Commander Leo C. Hester, the pilot who so helpfully provided me with a paper bag on the flight to Da Nang some ten days ago. He and I talk and drink scotch until 0200. Huey gunships and fixed wing aircraft are whooshing rockets and carrumping bombs on the western edge of the city. From our sixth-seventh floor window we watch a splendid display of aerial flares. Unlike when I was watching from afar in Saigon proper, we are now on the outskirts of the city. This night war show is better than anything I have seen in the movies. I mean it’s big, big screen, with big stereo sound. When the air strikes finally end, I go to sleep to the soft music of my roommate’s FM radio, and spend a night being cold because I am too near the air conditioner. Another moving day is over. And the strange war continues. Postscript As my tour continued, I would become more and more professionally incensed over the way the American military infrastructure was operating. However, in this instance I discovered that the previous day’s three-bed fiasco was a simple case of comedy. One of Leo’s passengers on a Market Time flight had been an Australian officer who had no place to stay, so Leo had offered him the spare bed. He arrived with another Australian, and “found” a cot for him. Leo was pleased that I had made the phone calls,

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because he hadn’t known how he was going to get the two Australians to leave.

SATURDAY 10 SEPTEMBER 1966—COMRADES IN ARMS V: LIEUTENANT COMMANDER LEO C. HESTER, NAVAL AVIATOR

Lieutenant Commander Leo C. Hester likes to fly and has been doing it for a long, long time. He says that he has been passed over for promotion to commander more times than his full lieutenants have years of service. Officers passed over twice at his rank normally must retire when they complete twenty years of service. But Leo has managed to stay in the Navy and keep flying. Unfortunately, his eyes began to fail, and he had to start wearing glasses. He was told that he no longer could fly from aircraft carriers. This cut deeply, because the ultimate in naval aviation is to fly jets from carriers. Because of his experience, and because of his peculiar status of remaining on active duty after numerous passovers, Leo no longer is required to fly—either for qualification or for flight pay. He could take a desk job and automatically draw flight pay. But Leo maintains two distinct tenets in his professional philosophy. He acquired the first when he achieved twenty years of active duty: He had no desire to leave a military profession that had been his life for most of his productive years. The second tenet is that Leo likes to fly. Leo now has twenty-six years of service, and his wife has been expecting him to retire for the last six of them. But he has stayed on. And when he got the opportunity to come to Vietnam and fly, his philosophy required him to do so. For his third war, Leo flies a C-47 cargo and passenger plane on scheduled administrative milk runs up and down the coast. Some of his passengers are Navy captains and admirals whom he taught to fly. Others are hitchhikers like me. Leo is satisfied that he is doing necessary work here in Vietnam. Leo is one of many professionals who are fighting this war.

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SATURDAY 10 SEPTEMBER 1966—COMRADES IN ARMS VI: A TALE OF TWO MARINE CAPTAINS

I flew into country with Chuck Dawson and Don Lohmeier. Both originally had been ordered to Okinawa for duty. When they reported to Travis Air Force Base for transportation, they received modifications to their orders, directing them to report to the 1stMarDiv in the field in Vietnam. Chuck is a newly-promoted captain, fresh from a Marine Barracks tour in Iceland. He has been away from the infantry a long time, and he certainly didn’t plan to become acclimatized to Southeast Asia in just a few days. He hoped that he would have several months in country before he had to lead troops in this war. In contrast, Don Lohmeier was eager to command a rifle company immediately. When I met Chuck and Don at Travis, and discovered I was destined for III MAF, whatever that was, and they were going to the 1stMarDiv, I envied them both. Later at III MAF headquarters when I was ordered to report to COMUSMACV for duty, I doubly envied them.17 As Chuck and Don reported in at each level—from the 1stMarDiv, to the First Marine Regiment, to the 1st Battalion—they were told, “A rifle company is yours if you have the guts to ask for it when you first arrive in country.” However only one rifle company was open in the 1st Battalion. Chuck and Don stood at ease, hands clasped behind their backs, in front of the battalion commander. While Chuck outlined his qualifications to the old man, Don kept his fingers crossed behind his back. And Don got his rifle company! A rifle company in combat is the dream of all company grade officers. Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, First Marines— A-1-1—is something like the first in the Corps. During his first nine days Don participated in three minor combat operations. He was getting his feet on the ground when something went wrong. One of Don’s additional military specialties is in the intelligence field. And somebody, somewhere, suddenly remembered this. On his tenth day Don was ordered to COMUSMACV for duty in J-2 Intelligence. At least he had nine days before he went to Saigon. And of course we know who took over his rifle company—Chuck. Rots of Ruck, Chuck. Sorry about that.

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MONDAY 12 SEPTEMBER 1966—THE SCHOOL SOLUTION DOESN’T WORK HERE

The day I reported to MACV J-2 for duty, Army Colonel John T. Little remarked that a certain province was a wellspring for VC infiltration. The province chief was loyal to Saigon, although he was not suffering any attacks by VC units.18 Meanwhile, VC supplies were sluicing through the province like water from a burst hose. Little took a puff on his cigar, and said in his rasping voice, “Give it some thought when you get the time. Maybe you can come up with a solution.” I did, using knowledge I’d gained from the Army’s Special Warfare Center courses. I produced an eight-page population control plan that included a sealed ID card for every resident, using either Polaroid photography or a thumb print for positive identification. Travel would be restricted to destinations proven necessary, and items being carried would have to be approved in advance. Residents and their ID’s would be checked at fixed and roving checkpoints by ARVN troops, augmented with U.S. troops as necessary. The checkpoints and patrols would operate throughout the province. The crux of the plan was an automatic kill policy. After a certain hour at night, anybody moving who wasn’t assigned to the security forces would be shot. Before implementation, this unalterable policy would be explained very carefully to each family. It was a tough plan, but the war is tough on the Vietnamese now, and will continue to be tough until it’s over.19 Although it might take months to commence the plan, once completed it could become a model for other provinces, one at a time. Colonel Little calls me to his office to discuss the plan. He is wearing a daily-fresh, board-stiff wash-khaki uniform with combat master jump wings over his left pocket. His desk is bare, except for a writing pad and pen, my plan, and an ashtray containing his usual half-smoked cigar. He points at the plan. “You did a lot of work on this, captain,” he rasps. “Technically it’s excellent. But I couldn’t consider it for this province. I know the province chief. He will never approve a policy that involves automatically killing his own people. They are his friends and family, and they are why he is chief.” “Yes, sir.” He picks up his cigar. “How long have you been in country?” he asks.

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“Almost a month, sir.” He puffs and thinks, and puffs and thinks, eyes peering into mine. “Keep learning until you’ve been here at least three months. But don’t stop working on things like these.” I almost expect him to add, “son.”

FRIDAY 16 SEPTEMBER 1966—2ND BATTALION, 28TH U.S. INFANTRY REGIMENT, 1ST INFANTRY DIVISION.

Ted Fielding and I will visit the 2nd Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment, to ascertain how an Army infantry battalion employs ground reconnaissance, and whether it might need external reconnaissance assets.20 We leave Saigon on a Huey, flown by an Army warrant officer. We can’t fly high because of a slight overcast, so we fly close to the deck. It’s interesting to fly twenty feet above the jungle at ninety knots, but this way we present a minimum target from our flanks. When we reach the rice paddies, we really hug the deck. Every so often we clip off a piece of a bush or small tree. If the Vietnamese farmers we fly over didn’t crouch low, we would probably hit them with our skids. We pass over an area where a platoon of VC often operates, but today an ARVN patrol is down there, so our gunners relax a bit. I don’t relax because I don’t trust this damn fool’s driving. He’s not flying through the air. He’s driving across country! We arrive at the command post of the 1st Infantry Division (1stInfDiv), “The Big Red One.” We must check in here, near the village of Di Anh (pronounced Zee Awn), before flying to our ultimate destination of An Khe. At Di Anh is a working party of twenty-five Vietnamese women and girls. They are being supervised by a U.S. Army private first class. I learn that they receive eighty-five Ps per day to do any labor that is necessary around the division headquarters. About seventy-one cents. Some are undoubtedly VC. But these scrawny little things mucking about in the mud with shovels are wives, mothers, daughters, and girlfriends of somebody. And they are earning eighty-five Ps more per month than they did before “Big Red One” arrived. It is a short flight to the 28th Infantry Regiment. The regimental head-

66 • The Bridges of Vietnam

quarters sits right in the center of a rubber plantation at An Khe. It is occupying a building complex that was once a French research center for the rubber industry. The trees themselves are disappointing. I had subconsciously expected to see latex flowing into a container beside each tree, and maybe an old rubber tire factory nearby. But these are just trees. They have bled a lot from every place that has been cut by a nail or knife, but there are no containers to catch the sap. We take a jeep down the road to the 2nd Battalion. The battalion has been in garrison for a week now, and is gearing up for another operation. For the time being, however, the officers and troops are living well. The battalion CP and the battalion commander’s quarters are situated in an old villa. The only inconvenience is the periodic blast of friendly artillery which is supporting another battalion deployed a few thousand meters away. Intelligence reports indicate that An Khe will be attacked. But to these people An Khe is in the rear echelon. So they stay relaxed. Our business finished, we head back to the little airstrip at the regimental headquarters. Thirty minutes later we have flown over the VC territory and are back in Saigon. I felt safer in the field with my pistol than in Saigon with it. Who knows? Postscript “Big Red One” was commanded by Major General William E. DePuy. While Westmoreland’s operations officer in 1965, DePuy had planned the strategy of attrition, which resulted in body count as the benchmark of U.S. operational successes. DePuy was promoted to lieutenant general in 1972 (Moore & Galloway, We Were Soldiers Once, 339). During our visit, we had learned that this Army infantry battalion employed its own local security in the same way and for the same reasons that a Marine infantry battalion does. Although this might sound like it was an unnecessary trip, it wasn’t for my Navy boss, Ted, who learned a great deal about observation posts, listening posts, combat patrols, and recon patrols.

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FRIDAY 16 SEPTEMBER 1966—THE 25TH U.S. INFANTRY DIVISION “TROPIC LIGHTNING.”

Unlike the Marines who have a recon battalion with each division, the Army divisions came into country with no organic ground reconnaissance capability. Ted Fielding and I want to see how they compensate for this, and how they employ their organic cavalry units. We start with the 25th Division (25thInfDiv). The division headquarters is located at Cu Chi, thirty minutes from Saigon by helicopter.21 Until this year the division was called “Hawaii’s Own.” But in January it came out here to spend a few years. The air strip is emblazoned with a huge sign that says, “Aloha—25th U.S. Infantry Division.” A Hawaiian tourist route marker greets us at the division command post. It has a color picture of King Kamehameha, and, underneath, the words, “Headquarters, 25th Division.” I last saw this sign at Schofield Barracks on the island of Oahu ten years ago. The division is still staffed with troops of Hawaiian and Japanese descent, and the spirit of Hawaii permeates the area. The NCO club is called “Waikikian,” and is indeed a Polynesian-type hut. Even the division’s operations are tagged with Hawaiian code names. These people have adapted themselves. They had to fight their way in here and they have had to fight to stay. Their patrols go out no more than a couple of thousand yards to make contact. But they are here to stay, and their living conditions are excellent. The Division Ambush Academy exemplifies the professionalism of this division. Each officer instructor is hand picked, and must have earned at least a Silver Star from Vietnam service. Every rifle platoon in the division will go through the academy’s four-and-a-half-day course. The final examination for each platoon consists of an actual ambush of VC. I learn that the VC had mounted almost every major hotel blast in Saigon from this area, and that this is why they insist upon staying. But they have bombed no hotel since the 25thInfDiv arrived. I talk with a battalion commander and his staff, who have just brought the unit back from a thirty-five-day operation. The commander is a major, and I envy the hell out of him, because he is having the professional time of his life. His battalion’s morale and esprit are outstanding, as seems to be the case throughout the division. They are winning, but they all know that it’s going to take a long time.

68 • The Bridges of Vietnam

And all the officers and NCOs I talk with know that they will have to return at least once, maybe twice, or perhaps three times. Some will resign. Some will retire. The remainder will constitute a hard-core group of professional experts. They will win. Before departing I receive a certificate making me an honorary member of the 3rd Squadron, 4th United States Cavalry. If I ever had to fight as a member of an Army unit, I would be pleased to fight with this one— “MacKenzie’s Raiders.” But all good things must come to an end, so I head back to Saigon, riding into the sunset on my trusty cavalry steed, Huey. Postscript During this visit, we learned that the division was thinking of converting one of its armored cavalry troops to a LRRP unit, and had selected a decorated captain to put it together. An earlier note about the Marines’ tailoring the size of their patrols to fit the mission applies even more here, because the armored cavalry philosophy is the opposite of LRRP philosophy. During the session, we confirmed some of the captain’s ideas and injected a few of our own. If this is the visit I believe I remember, we also interviewed an armored cavalry troop commander from within his command post vehicle. (The cavalry’s term for a company is a troop and for a battalion is a squadron.) The captain proudly reported how he liked to go out looking for trouble, then punch through and destroy his attackers.

THURSDAY 22 SEPTEMBER 1966—COMRADES IN ARMS VII: CAPTAIN PETER M. MCDOUGALL, AUSTRALIAN SPECIAL AIR SERVICE

My new partner, Peter McDougall of the Royal Australian Special Air Service (SAS), will accompany my boss and me for briefings about U.S. Special Forces operations and methods of employment. We also will check in with the I Field Force headquarters at Nha Trang. Peter is five-foot eight, with blond, kinky hair and blue eyes. He is tough and wiry, with pale skin that turns rubicund in the sunshine. He is twenty-five years old, but looks twenty. After taking two years of specialized training with the SAS, he deployed to Indonesia, then to Borneo

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where he trained indigenous troops for two years. He has just arrived from the in-country SAS Squadron for an exchange tour with the Americans. At Tan Son Nhut we board a U.S. Army Caribou, a twin-engine aircraft which indeed looks like a winged water buffalo.22 The assortment of passengers is exceptional. I am the only Marine. My boss is Navy UDT. Peter is wearing his Australian uniform with a camelcolored beret. Various members of the U.S. Army and a few members of U.S. Special Forces are seated nearby. There are even two Air Force officers on board. Also aboard is Brigadier General Lee, a Korean Air Force officer, with several members of his staff. They, like the other Korean officers I have seen over here, seem to be extremely squared away, hand-picked professionals. When I find members of all the U.S. Armed Forces as well as the Free World Military Assistance Forces together in one airplane, I realize that I am traveling with a composite of hundreds of years of military experience and professional know-how. I also realize that the arm-chair strategists at home who feed the press cannot possibly have the insight into this war and its political implications as do these professional leaders. I am traveling with mature people, of varied experiences, from several countries. They have a collective opinion of what is right. They have a common goal, and they are prepared to die for that goal. An idea hits me: “Can so many million people in so many countries be wrong?” The trip in the Caribou is a bit unconventional because the tail section rear door is left open. This not only gives us cool air at 2,000 feet and higher, but also offers us a view of the ground which we have just flown over. After an hour and a half we land at Nha Trang, and taxi to the former French civilian terminal, now manned exclusively by the Vietnamese Air Force. I debark in a warm, quiet place reminiscent of Hawaii, complete with bougainvillea. The town of Nha Trang resembles a clean and pleasant colonial tourist resort, which indeed it was when the French were here. A jeep takes us to an old three-story masonry building which houses the headquarters of I Field Force Vietnam. The third floor G-2 office we

70 • The Bridges of Vietnam

enter faces the brilliant blue bay of Nha Trang, and is filled with a fresh bay breeze. Americans are swimming in the bay and sunbathing on the beach, and I feel a little stupid wearing my pistol. I had thought I was going out in the bush. Instead I am seeing just one more face of this war here in Vietnam. The G-2’s representative takes Ted Fielding, Peter McDougall, and me to lunch in a former hotel, and I marvel at how much better living conditions seem to be here than in Saigon. However, I have a suspicion that these staff officers in their air-conditioned dining room just might not be in touch with the real war taking place a few thousand meters away. And the similarity of this situation to the behavior of the French earlier is dangerously close. However I am not here to talk to staff officers, but to visit some of the doers of this war. The next stop will be 5th Special Forces Headquarters, located in greater Nha Trang. Postscript When we were in Saigon, Peter McDougall and I often would jog together at the national track near the Five Oceans Hotel, but he would run four miles while I was running three, then would run another two or three extra. After we became very close friends, I asked him one day how he could run so much faster. He said, “Fred, I know you’re tough, so no offense, but I’m just tougher than you, myte. I can sleep all night in the frost with only my shorts on, and I can work all day in the desert without water, and I don’t feel it. A lot of us grew up that way in Australia.” You never know when an Australian is putting you on, but Peter’s record at the track makes me think that he wasn’t.

THURSDAY 22 SEPTEMBER 1966—HEADQUARTERS 5TH SPECIAL FORCES GROUP AT NHA TRANG23

The 5th Special Forces Group was formed at Fort Benning, Georgia, on September 21, 1961. They were targeted for Vietnam. Their “A” Teams infiltrated Southeast Asia rapidly, and soon were followed by their “B” Teams, or lower echelon headquarters and support units. The “C” Teams (higher echelon) followed, and the group headquarters moved into country in the spring of 1965.

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The headquarters is holding a rare troop formation while an “A” Team keeps the high ground to the south secure. This special occasion is a celebration of the fifth birthday of the 5th Special Forces Group. All hands are wearing their famous green berets, and even the unit guidons are of “Special Forces green.” A brief history of 5th Special Forces is read, followed by a special promotion presentation. We retire to the officers’ club for a happy hour and birthday celebration. Beer flows like monsoon rain while the juke box blares “The Ballad of the Green Beret” over and over. Peter McDougall yells into the ear of the Special Forces major who is escorting us, “Hey myte, how can I go about getting a pair of those jungle boots?” The major sees a Special Forces lieutenant walking past our seats at the bar, compares his foot size with Peter’s, and shouts, “Lieutenant, this Australian captain needs a pair of jungle boots.” Without a word, the lieutenant takes off his boots, hands them to Peter, and walks back to his table in his socks. Later we are escorted to the dining room as special guests to partake of a steak dinner that equals any I have ever eaten. The atmosphere, as in all elite outfits, is one of cooperation and “can do.” Most of the officers are on their second or third tour, and I meet a warrant officer who is completing his twenty-fourth straight month in country. I find that many personnel here were assigned to the headquarters after sustaining wounds in the operating area. Many of the waitresses are dependents of the Montagnards who are stationed here. I notice that they actually smile and joke with us and with each other, and realize that the ones in the bar had done the same. I have never seen this friendly attitude from locals before in Vietnam. I notice that the Montagnard women are taller and more filled out than the Vietnamese. Their appearance reminds me of American Indians. The following morning we visit the camp facilities. At the advanced patrolling school the buildings are named for Special Forces men who were killed in action. The school teaches that these men probably knew more about patrolling than any other persons in Vietnam, but that each made one simple mistake, generally due to carelessness or overconfidence. Instructors in the classrooms refer to these men by name and spell out the weaknesses that killed them. They pull no punches. This makes believers of the students.

72 • The Bridges of Vietnam

Ted and I visit Project Delta, which inserts patrols composed of Special Forces troopers and indigenous troops that are specially trained to operate in enemy areas. We also discuss several other organizations with Greek names such as Omega and Sigma, each tailored for a specific mission. At the barracks compound where the indigenous forces live, I meet many survivors of the hell of A Shau. We lost that battle and have never gone back. After two days with the 5th Special Forces Headquarters, I find that I would like to be part of this effort. The major escorting us says that it can be arranged, but warns me that I would be too senior to take an active part. I would be condemned to staff work, just as I am doing now. He says, “Look what I’m doing right now.” Sorry about that, he who would be promoted to major. Postscripts The paragraph about Omega and Sigma was written very guardedly because of the extreme sensitiveness of the subject at that time and for many years thereafter. The following is an explanatory update taken from non-classified sources referenced at the end of this postscript. Project Delta was an in-country long-range reconnaissance patrol (LRRP) organization. LRRPs generally consisted of two to three USSF and seven to nine indigenous troops, who were Nungs, Montagnards, or members of other ethnic groups. Some patrols, however, were beefed up to platoon size or larger. Projects Omega and Sigma were used for out-of-country missions. Shining Brass operations used either Omega or Sigma assets against the NVA in eastern Laos for intelligence collection, ambushes, mining, raids, and prisoner snatches. In March 1967 the code name of Shining Brass was changed to Prairie Fire. Omega and Sigma assets also were used in Project Daniel Boone, a crossborder operation in Cambodia. Daniel Boone began on 27 June 1966, with infiltration officially beginning in May 1967. Although Omega and Sigma assets were initially on-loan from USSF to SOG, in late 1967 and early 1968 they were formally absorbed by SOG, and were moved out of Nha Trang. See Plaster, particularly 30–31, 44, 47–48, 74, 97, 98, and 104–5. Also see Boston, 80.

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Operation Phoenix should not be confused with the foregoing, because Phoenix was a completely different organization. We learned of it when my boss happened to hear the term, “Provincial Reconnaissance Units” (PRUs), which sounded like they were reconnaissance organizations we should know about. He ferreted out enough information about PRUs to learn that their mission included assassination of members of the Viet Cong infrastructure in South Vietnam. He briefed me and concluded that this was a police and civil operation outside the jurisdiction of MACV J-2 where we were assigned. In A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam, Neil Sheehan writes that Operation Phoenix commenced in 1967 as a program of CIAsupported assassination squads (PRUs), formerly known as Counter Terror Teams (18, 732–33). In War in the Shadows: The Vietnam Experience, the Boston Publishing Company editors state that Phoenix was under the sponsorship of Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS). CORDS was headed by Robert W. Komer, who held the rank of ambassador. The organization coordinated various Vietnamese intelligence, military and police units as well as CIA and U.S. military intelligence personnel (Boston, 58–72).

FRIDAY 23 SEPTEMBER 1966—1ST BRIGADE, 101ST AIRBORNE DIVISION; 3RD BRIGADE, 25TH INFANTRY DIVISION

Ted Fielding, Peter McDougall, and I are continuing to collect information about long-range patrol assets and their operational methods. Today it’s back to Army infantry units. At 0745 we board a Beaver at the air strip at Nha Trang. A Beaver is like a beefed up version of a Piper Cub, and is big enough to carry four passengers, or three and a co-pilot. It is unique on a cross-country flight like this because it gives a more personal view of the countryside than a larger, faster airplane. I ask the Army pilot how long he has been in country, and he says, “Three days.” I tell him where we want to go, and lend him what he calls a “road map” before we strap in. I hope he can read it correctly. The Beaver’s engine turns up to a full roar. The airframe vibrates and bounces as we start down the strip. Although the vibration continues, the starboard wheel ten feet from my window sends a message that we are

74 • The Bridges of Vietnam

airborne as it begins to free-wheel. We rise higher and fly directly over the great white Buddha that overlooks Nha Trang. We arrive at Tuy Hoa (Tooey Wah) in forty minutes, taxi onto the matting, and debark. We are at the headquarters of the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division (101st A/B Div). The last time I saw this famous “Screaming Eagle” insignia was when I was stationed at Clarksville Base, inside Fort Campbell, Kentucky.24 So we meet again, here in Vietnam. I confer with four former Marine NCOs who are now doing an excellent job in reconnaissance as soldiers of the 101st. They are still Marines at heart. That’s why they came to meet me the instant they saw my uniform. This entire unit is now battle-hardened and professional, much different than it was at Fort Campbell. But all units gain professional maturity over here. We leave Tuy Hoa and fly over the jungles and clearings of the Central Highlands of Vietnam. Many an area shows the results of previous battles. And now we approach the Catecka Tea Plantation.25 The headquarters of the 3rd Brigade of the 25thInfDiv is located at the plantation, but the pilot has difficulty finding it, because there is no formal airstrip. He finds an open area of dirt which he thinks is suitable for landing. I wasn’t sure it would be, but I’m still here to relate it, so it was satisfactory. The pilot must be interpreting my road map fairly well, otherwise who knows where he might have just set us down? The 3rd Brigade has been here 116 days. They are stretched thin, but they are doing their job, and have even managed to chase a North Vietnamese division across the border into Cambodia. Some day they hope they will be allowed to go after them. Some day they also hope to be relieved by a new, complete U.S. division. Eventually their operating area might well be covered by three U.S. divisions. This war hasn’t even started yet. Late in the afternoon we bounce off the dirt and fly to Pleiku, where we land on a new, concrete airstrip and debark. Two silver-bright Air America planes are on the feeder strip. The Air America pilots are soldiers of fortune who have been here since before the beginning. A C-130 shuttle-flight arrives, and we mount our trusty steed and sail off into the sunset. Back to Saigon to be an armchair warrior again.

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SUNDAY 25 SEPTEMBER 1966—PUFF THE MAGIC DRAGON

Puff is an interesting animal, designed especially for this war. To create a Puff, we must begin with a C-47 “gooney bird,” an aircraft that is an oldy but a goodie. (The C-47 that my Saigon roommate flies was built in 1941, and three of its crew members were born in 1941. The bird probably will be around long after they are gone.) Once we have the C-47, the next step in Puff’s creation is the Gatling gun. We take a bunch of 7.62mm machine gun barrels and construct a 20th century model, which is electrically operated, and fires 2,000 rounds per minute. We mount three of these guns in the port side of the C-47, and set them to fire downwards at a fixed angle. The pilot’s selection of altitude will determine the location of the target area on the ground that will be “hosed down.” We now pack this old cargo plane to the ceiling with ammunition. Every sixth round is a tracer, so that we can see where we are shooting at night. With its three Gatling guns, Puff has the capability to fire 100 rounds per second. That rate of fire sounds like a jackhammer operating at ten times its normal speed. And that rate of fire will put three bullets into every square foot of the target area. When Charlie dares to come out at night, at sixteen tracers per second he’ll be met by a blazing stream of fire belching down from above. Hence the Vietnamese call this a “dragon ship.” And it is truly Puff the Magic Dragon.26

SUNDAY 25 SEPTEMBER 1966—SOME ADULTS CAN GO HOME EARLY

A major named James Demetrius, who is not a pilot, has been in the Air Force for seventeen years.27 During most of that time he served as an instructor. James had never been separated from his wife and children before he was ordered to Vietnam. He was assigned to a desk job here in Saigon, where he worked for three months. Then his fellow workers began to find suicide notes. James had learned the meaning of despair. We all do when separated from home. A professional serviceman must overcome despair. James didn’t.

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We sent James to the hospital. He was diagnosed as having an “adult reaction to a situation he could not otherwise correct.” He is going home early. He will probably lose his clearance. Sorry ‘bout that, James. We’ll stay.28

FRIDAY 30 SEPTEMBER 1966—THE AUSTRALIAN SPECIAL AIR SERVICE

Originally the Special Air Service was a cover name for a group of British long-range patrollers in North Africa during World War II. Their only connection with airplanes was to jump out of them. The Australian Special Air Service was formed as a long-range patrol organization that emulated the British model. The motto of both organizations is “who dares, wins.” Australian Captain Peter McDougall, a George Medal winner who has made deployments to both New Guinea and Borneo, likes to say, “Who cares who wins, just jump out of the bloody airplane, myte.” Following through on our mandate to learn everything there is to know about surface intelligence collection in the war zone, Ted Fielding and I will visit the SAS. Captain Peter McDougall, on loan from the SAS, will go along to show us around. We will first fly to Vung Tau on an Australian shuttle-flight, which the Australians call a “wallaby flight.” Then we will fly from Vung Tau to Nui Dat, where the Australian Task Force (ATF) is headquartered.29 At Tan Son Nhut Airport we board a C-123 that has a kangaroo painted on the fuselage, and away we go. What a mixture we are! Aboard an Australian airplane, in the Republic of Vietnam, in a fight against North Vietnam, there are Australians, U.S. Air Force enlisted men, a U.S. Navy UDT qualified commander, and a U.S. Marine major selectee. In forty minutes we arrive at the in-country R&R center in Vung Tau, where we will wait for an Australian helicopter. We go to the PX cafeteria, where hamburgers and Kool-Aid drinks are being dispensed on an assembly line basis. It is hot as hell in here, and the hamburgers are “number ten,” as the vernacular goes here, but these kids are getting something they haven’t had for months. It brings a jolting moment of clarity to leave a headquarters filled with complacent staff officers and get around these kids. They are the ones

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who are fighting their hearts out to win this war. And they are the ones whose biggest reward is a trip to Vung Tau every three months for five days of swimming in the South China Sea, and eating half-cooked hamburgers while sitting at rickety wooden tables. You could identify their ranks even if they were not wearing uniforms. The privates and privates first class, about age nineteen, are gaunt, serious-looking young men watching out for their buddies at the tables in the same protective way they do in combat. The junior NCOs are heavier and older, and the senior NCOs are tough and competent looking. Sprinkled around the tables like parsley garnished over mulligan stew are the non-combatants and rear echelon types. You can identify them easily by their shoulder patches and their soft, pudgy appearance.

Captain Fred L. Edwards, Jr., USMC Vung Tau, September 1966

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An Hu-1B helicopter arrives and we climb aboard, followed by two Australian army captains who are hitch-hiking back to Nui Dat. We have already taken the three passenger seats, so they sit in the open doorways with their legs dangling casually in the slipstream. No seat belts. No hand straps. Nothing. And off we go at a mad dash making 100 knots. Maybe these blokes are as crazy as I have heard. The skinny little red-headed pilot with the bushy red handlebar mustache ten inches wide sure looks like a nut. I wouldn’t fly with him in the States—or in Australia either. We hot rod it into the ATF, and in ten minutes have gone from a safe R&R center, over ten miles of VC-controlled territory, and into the safety of a friendly perimeter. The brigadier commanding is six-feet or more tall, which makes him taller than any other Australian I have seen here. He is a slim, quiet spoken, gentlemanly man, who takes the time to welcome us, and to describe his TAOR, unit strengths and weaponry, and his operational priorities. He explains that the SAS is his prized subordinate unit because its combat efficiency has proven to be the equivalent of a full extra infantry battalion.30 En route from ATF headquarters to the SAS compound I observe that the Task Force is located within a rubber plantation whose trees look dead. This occurred because the Health Officer wanted to alleviate the mosquito problem, and arranged for an airplane to spray the trees with an anti-insect liquid mixed with a petroleum-like substance to keep the rain from washing it off. It’s killing the trees, and the Australians have changed the Health Officer’s title to the “Chemicals Officer.” It seems that the containers had been used earlier to spray a defoliant called “Agent Orange,” and had not been purged before the anti-mosquito use. We reach the SAS operations tent at 1100 and drop into canvas chairs to discuss long-range patrolling in general, and current operations in particular. We drink two stovepipe cans of Australian Foster beer apiece. At noon we go to the dining tent for lunch while continuing our discussion, and finish with several cups of tea apiece. We spend the afternoon conversing in the ops tent, while eating fruit cake and drinking coffee. Then it’s time for a heavy dinner of meat and potatoes, and more tea, before returning to the ops tent. In spite of the socializing, the Australians have done a lot of work this day. Throughout the day the watch sections in the ops tent monitored

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ongoing patrols and controlled their support. At dusk one of the lieutenants formed up his patrol, and set out for seven days of long-range work in enemy-controlled territory. No drinking for the outgoing patrol, or for those on duty or scheduled for duty in the ops tent. The Officer Commanding (OC) is a short, stocky major, and I envy him his job. He and all his officers are experienced from tours in Borneo, and earlier in Malaya. This is possible because the lieutenants were posted with the squadron as enlisted men in the prior campaigns. They were commissioned from the ranks just in time to come to Vietnam. These people, who train intensively in parachutes, scuba, fixed-wing pickups, and survival for two years before being considered qualified, are truly experienced professionals. The Australian government presently allows only 4,500 of its military personnel in country. And they must be of the ranks commensurate to the number of troops onboard. For example, a first lieutenant named Thomas would have been promoted to captain, but the billet he is filling is that of a first lieutenant. To be promoted, he would have to return to Australia. He stays as a lieutenant. It’s not all work and no play. A captain named Geoffrey was hit in the leg in a recent mortar attack. Instead of returning home, he went to Vung Tau to recuperate. When the OC heard that he was seen jumping off a truck in front of a local bar, he decided that it was time to bring Geoffrey back to work. (While telling this tale, the OC apologized to us for the damage that mortar rounds had done to their regimental china and the dining tent.) These people consider that Communism in Southeast Asia directly endangers their country. They are damn happy to see us here to help. Most Americans don’t know that Australia has a larger percentage of its population serving in uniform in Vietnam than the U.S. does.31 As it grows dark, a working party drapes a long, rectangular wooden table outside the tent with a cloth emblazoned with the regimental colors. We adjourn from the dining tent for a mess night. Because of the special visit by senior American officers, the sergeant major has been invited to attend the mess night. Peter McDougall explains privately that a sergeant major in the Australian army isn’t normally expected to socialize with either enlisted men or officers, so his life can get somewhat lonely. Thus, tonight is a special occasion for him. Pe-

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ter also confides that, at his first posting, all lieutenants were required to report to the sergeant major periodically for sword drill. “I was a senior first lieutenant,” he says, “before I realized that a colonel outranked a sergeant major.” No lights are allowed after dark, but the moon is full enough for us to see. The ATF’s 155mm guns 100 yards away WHOOM every so often, and rattle the glassware on the table. We can’t talk too loudly around the table, or the Australians on perimeter watch would shoot at the sound. These damn people are crazy, but impressive. We wash down rums and cokes with beer until midnight. Then we relax for two hours by drinking more beer and listening to a pair of Australian junior officers putting on an impromptu comedy dialogue in a dialect I doubt even their Australian mytes can understand. Morning comes early and headachy. After a breakfast of meat, eggs, thick bread, potatoes and a heavy mug of tea, we review notes.32 Then it’s time to leave these fine people. The OC awards me the honor of inviting me back to participate in a patrol. Ted, Peter, and I board a wallaby helicopter for a direct flight to Saigon. Two hours later I am sitting in my hotel dining room eating American food for lunch, and listening to the complaints of the rear echelon officers at my table. Maybe they would have a better perspective if they could get into the field once in a while.

1

See sketch maps 1 and 3.

2

Five-foot-eight Captain Ed Badolato was an aggressive, feisty, mission-accomplishing recon Marine who later became a Marine Corps Arab specialist. While serving in the rank of colonel, he left the Marine Corps and accepted appointment as a Deputy Under Secretary of State. 3 I was mistaken about the Chinese food. I later learned to expect sudden, severe diarrhea about three hours after taking Aralin, and subsequently planned my Monday activities accordingly. 4

St. Clair, an intensely intelligent, highly motivated Marine, would later receive a Rhodes scholarship. 5

The grenade tossed into the Gray Elephant Hotel had bounced across the con-

crete floor of the lobby and exploded, flinging shrapnel against the hard masonry walls. Nobody was hurt. However, the Navy chief steward, who had been dozing be-

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hind the reception counter, spent the rest of the night wandering the corridors and complaining loudly about his first shore duty in ten years of service. 6

It is interesting to see this change in attitude only six days after arriving at Koelper Compound. 7

Pearson relates that the North Vietnamese 95B and 101C regiments overran

the Special Forces camp at A Shau, in western Thua Thien Province, in March 1966. He states that the A Shau Valley, the main entry point of the Ho Chi Minh Trail from Laos into South Vietnam, was given up to the North Vietnamese, and that two years would pass before the U.S. would return (see Pearson, 6–8; and Kutler, 74). 8

Ted and I learned from this visit that we needed to make an extended visit to the Fifth Special Forces headquarters at Nha Trang. (See sketch maps 1 and 2.) We would do that on 22 September. 9

See lagoon southeast of Phu Bai on sketch map 1.

10 11

Dave’s and Dick’s last names have been forgotten. Operation Ranch Hand defoliation began in 1961. In 1967 Ranch Hand air-

craft dumped more than four million gallons of herbicide and defoliation chemicals on South Vietnam, stripping by then acres equal to the size of Connecticut (William Corson, The Betrayal, 76). 12

See 1 September journal that follows for the visit to CDG 13.

13

An Ontos was an anti-mechanized vehicle. In 1992 Paul Young writes in First Recon—Second to None: “I have never been to

14

a more fascinating, beautiful, or deadly place as Vietnam” (114). 15

Marine Corps shoes and boots were manufactured in multiple widths for each

numbered size. How can you expect servicemen to operate at their best if their shoes don’t fit their feet? 16

The map I bought from a kiosk in Saigon in 1966 stated that “The residents of

Cholon are primarily from Southern China, and the primary dialect used is Cantonese, although Mandarin, the official Chinese dialect, is usually understood, as are the Fukkien, Hokien and Hakka dialects.” 17

The facts from the segment of the journal that follows were related to me by

Don Lohmeier, whom I encountered when he arrived at MACV. 18 Thus indicating deception by somebody, somewhere. 19

When I staffed the plan before forwarding it to Little, one comment contained

a phrase I would hear many more times in the months to come: “You can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs.” 20

I believe we selected the 1st Infantry Division because on 14 September other

nearby units in II Field Force had begun or were about to be committed to Opera-

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tion Attleboro in War Zone C. (See “The War in Vietnam,” Newsweek, 58. Also see sketch map number 4.) 21 22

See sketch maps 1 and 4. I obviously confused “carabao” (water buffalo) with “caribou” (reindeer). The

Army aircraft, designated CV-2 at the time, had been named after the arctic animal, not the work animal of Vietnam. 23

Continuing our professional education, Ted Fielding and I, accompanied by Peter McDougall, will find out what we can about 5th Special Forces operations and techniques. 24

The commanding general of the 101st A/B Div at that time was Major General William C. Westmoreland. 25

Moore writes that the French owners of the Catecka Tea Plantation paid the

VC one million piasters a year protection, paid the Saigon government three million piasters a year in taxes, and billed the U.S. government fifty dollars for each tea bush and $250 for each rubber tree damaged by combat operations. “Just one more incongruity,” he writes (35). 26

On 31 October 1966 Newsweek described Puff this way: “Puff the Magic Dragon, with three Gatling-style guns, can spit tracers at 450 rounds per second, putting a bullet into every square foot of an area the size of a football field in three seconds” (“The War in Vietnam: The Magic Dragon,” 48). 27 Name changed. 28

James’ short tour was not entirely wasted. After James left, whenever one of us

reacted with anger or paranoia to a seemingly asinine decision from above that he couldn’t change, another of us would tell him, “When you’re through with your adult reaction, we’ll get on with the war.” That worked. 29

Nui Dat was not a village, but a rubber plantation north of Vung Tau. See

sketch maps 1 and 4. 30 His name, according to later research, was Brigadier O. D. Jackson. 31

This information came from Peter McDougall.

32

Although my professional education would continue until I left Vietnam—

and indeed continued thereafter—this visit to the ATF marked a point after which future travels would be for informational updates and for specific tasks given by Ted or his boss.

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Chapter 3

Internship SUNDAY 2 OCTOBER 1966—DAY OFF

That’s right! Yesterday afternoon the boss asked me if I’d like to have Sundays off when in Saigon. So this morning I slept until 0900, the first time I’ve done that since I left the States. When I rise, there’s nobody on my floor except me and the maids chattering in Vietnamese and Chinese like magpies while they do the daily laundry in dish pans out in the hallway. Suddenly urgent diarrhea propels me into the bathroom, but there’s no water pressure! Instead of using a water bowl, a French toilet operates with a water closet (WC) attached to the wall above the toilet. After a flush, replacement water trickles into the WC, and eventually fills it enough for the next flush. This morning, not a drop is dribbling into the WC, and the toilet beneath it is brim-full with the dumpings of the other three people who share the bathroom. I rush down Dong Kanh to the street where my friend Harry Holeman’s hotel is. Of course he’s at work, but I get his key from the Army sergeant first class at the desk, race up the steps, and use Harry’s bathroom. It beats squatting over a curb and squirting mushy liquid into the gutter like the children in Cholon do, or squatting in a vacant lot like their parents do. 83

84 • The Bridges of Vietnam

With my morning ablutions complete, I stroll back to the Hong Kong Hotel. After a late breakfast in the dining room, it’s time to go into Saigon for a holiday. I meet Peter McDougall, my Australian counterpart, and we go to Tu Do Street. Most of the stands there sell curio items such as you might find on the streets of Tijuana. They are cheap items but not cheap prices for Peter and me. The inequity of the money exchange is hard to accept. The official rate of exchange for the U.S. (Free World) Forces is 118 piasters per dollar. The world market exchange in Hong Kong is about 170 Ps per dollar, and the black market rate is 200–225 Ps per dollar. This means that prices are relatively low, but since American servicemen must pay from thirtythree percent to a hundred percent more for piasters than everybody else, prices are damn high for us. Tu Do Street must have been a wonderful browsing place for tourists at one time, but now it’s just a red-light district. The bars attract mostly Americans, along with a few other FWMAF personnel. The customers are sipping drinks, and are buying “Saigon Tea.” The going rate of Saigon Tea is 160 P, which brings ten to twenty minutes of female companionship. Most of the buyers don’t mind the cost, because they have accumulated a lot of money by the time they come to town, and money will do them no good when they return to the job of war. Being old Asia hands, Peter and I do not play this type of game. As the afternoon lengthens, families begin displaying black market merchandise on the sidewalks. If you can’t buy it in the PX you can get it here—shoe strings, razor blades, lighter fluid, tools, cameras, transistor radios. And would you believe mess gear? What about U.S. Government ball point pens, which we don’t even have in the office? Or would you like to buy “C” Rations? Or maybe you would like a bottle of scotch or bourbon? Part of that case of cognac? Sorry, but you can’t buy that canvas bag that is stamped “U.S. Mail.” It’s not for sale, because the family uses it as a ground cloth over which they spread the items they’ve brought to sell. We stop for little brown bottles of Ba Muoi Ba (Bah Mee Bah, or 33 beer) at the open-air, street-level patio of a well known restaurant that we’ve been advised not to frequent. Inside, we take the only unoccupied booth, which is next to the sidewalk. Fans on the ceiling fail to slice through the gloomy mix of cigarette smoke, body odor, perfumes, and stale food

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smells. The customers are conversing so quietly that we place our order in whispers. Not one of them glances at us. There are no protective walls or closed windows to the outside streets. There are no guards or barricades on the streets. But this place seems relatively safe, probably because only a quarter of the people here are Americans, and none of those could be mistaken for clean-cut, young American servicemen in mufti. It is said around Saigon that the managers of this restaurant pay duties to tax collectors from both sides. It must be true, because this apparently lucrative target has never been bombed. Sitting at the table nearest us are two men and two women. The men have scraggly beards, and wear beatnik sandals, and their sallow skins are dirty. One of the women is wearing black slacks and a black sweater, in spite of the heat. The other is wearing a skirt and sweater, and her kinky hair is cropped almost to her skull. Her skin is as black as polished obsidian. All four are talking quietly in French. I can’t comprehend how they fit into this war. Our curfew time is approaching. Why not theirs?1 Peter and I walk back to our respective BOQs, ready for the start of another week. Postscripts As this internship chapter began, my boss, Ted Fielding, was becoming increasingly tied to the Saigon bureaucracy, but was keeping me free to travel where needed. Indeed, he told me I could travel anywhere in Vietnam and look into anything that might help us finish the war sooner than it looked like it would end. I had gained Peter McDougall of the SAS as a professional partner. By visiting units, asking questions, and applying operational experience to the answers, I had amassed knowledge ranging from the evaluation of socks and rice rolls to coordination of clandestine patrols. Although decisions about either could result in life or death, let’s look at a theoretical example of the latter. Coordination of clandestine patrols could be difficult because of compartmentalization (dissemination of classified information only on a needto-know basis), and because of the diverse organizational networks that had sprouted like spiderwebs. Let’s say that one day an office at MACV requests aerial reconnaissance for that night, while another organization is planning to insert a team or pa-

86 • The Bridges of Vietnam

trol in that area. Meanwhile an Arc Light strike is scheduled for the same area. Then, a LRRP that has lost communications is wandering in. Finally, the enemy is transporting an American prisoner somewhere nearby during hours of darkness. In theory, COMUSMACV, the G-2, the G-3, and key members of their staffs and subordinate staffs who had the need to know could sort all this out. However, what about operators at the working level, such as the Beaver pilot who on 23 September asked for a “road map”? Or the visiting USSF major who just went flying toward the Cambodian border without telling anybody? (See note at 16 October journal, “Trip to Duc Co.”) Also, recall the note about the Gulf of Tonkin incident wherein skippers of the Nasties and the Maddox were reported not to have known they were in the same area. And read about the Army major in the 8 November journal in this chapter.

Karnow writes that Tu Do, meaning “freedom,” was originally named Rue Catinat by the French. When Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese in 1975 Tu Do was renamed Dong Khoi, meaning “general uprising” (Karnow, Vietnam, 35). A pamphlet I bought from a kiosk in Saigon in 1966 described Tu Do as “the city’s main boulevard, which runs from the river-front past blocks of fashionable shops and sidewalk cafes to the Catholic Cathedral, facing Kennedy Square.” The pamphlet stated that shops along Tu Do offered souvenirs, such as tortoise shell and ivory goods, pottery, blinds, windscreens and conical hats; objects of art; stylish shoes; tailor-made clothing; and jewelry. Many of these items were still available, sometimes at lower than desirable quality, but the artificial rate of exchange made them virtually unavailable. In addition to imposing the artificial exchange rate, Westmoreland writes that, to prevent inflation, he set an initial goal of piaster spending of twenty dollars per man per month and ultimately reduced it to ten dollars. He did this by building up PX and recreational facilities on American bases, and prohibiting leaves in South Vietnam while providing short R&R visits outside of the country (248–49). The journals do not indicate that I or anybody I communicated with knew the reason for either of these controls (other than to slow the outflow of gold from the U.S.) or their methods of implementation. Westmoreland admits that the well-stocked PXs offered temptations for corruption, which was evidenced by the American wares in the hands of the

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sidewalk vendors on Tu Do Street (284. Also see 1 December 1966 entry in Chapter 4).

The hotel Peter and I visited was the Continental Palace, which had been a showplace of French colonial luxury until the French left. Ba Mui Ba, old Vietnam hands told me, was preserved with a large percentage of formaldehyde. I believed this for three reasons: (1) When the cap came off, a puff of blue smoke often rose; (2) The content tasted like it contained formaldehyde; and (3) Only two bottles of it could produce a morning-after headache that made you feel like you had been poisoned.

MONDAY 3 OCTOBER 1966—HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Ted Fielding has planned a birthday dinner for me at a Vietnamese restaurant located six blocks from my BOQ. After leaving work at 1900, I change to civilian clothes and plunge into the blackness of a power outage. Rain is flushing through the sidewalks and streets of Cholon like water from a gigantic fire hose. I am wearing my Marine Corps raincoat and an olive-drab, canvas Australian bush hat, as I slosh through a torrent of calf-high water. I pass a Vietnamese boy of seven taking shelter in a doorway. He flashes a smile, sticks up an index finger and says, “Uc Dai Loi, Numbah One.” (“Uc Dai Loi” is the Vietnamese term for Australian.) With the language barrier, all I can do is raise my finger, smile back, and say, “You number one.” The restaurant is a one-story, corrugated-roofed structure with wellused white linen table cloths draped over wooden tables, and candles for illumination. Two sides of the room, normally open, have been draped with oil cloth, tied down at the sides and bottom, to keep out the rain. I sit at one of the tables with Ted, Peter McDougall, Bert Nelson, an Air Force lieutenant colonel named Harry Holeman, and Army Lieutenant Colonel Edwin Joseph (Executive Officer of the J-2 Intelligence Operations Division). Water from the street floods in and gushes over our shoes, but they’re already wet. The rain hits the corrugated roof like hammers and the wind whips the oil cloth until it cracks like a muleskinner’s whip, making it almost

88 • The Bridges of Vietnam

impossible to hear anybody talk. But it’s a surprise party that took a lot of effort and is costing a lot of money, and we’re all determined to enjoy it. The entrees are so small that Ted and Harry buy me two. My first one is a saucer of fried rice. The second is a cup of French onion soup with melted Mozzarella cheese as sticky as white tar. I feel guilty eating both, but what the hell, you’re only thirty-four years old once. Then we head back through the rain in order to beat the curfew.

MONDAY 10 OCTOBER 1966—COMRADES IN ARMS VIII

Dave is a Marine Captain who was last in WestPac when I was, in 1963. I was aboard an aircraft carrier, and he was in a Marine battalion on Okinawa and points west. When he returned to the States that year he elected to go on inactive duty. When the war started, Dave volunteered for active duty so that he could come to Vietnam. He got his active duty, but he spent his first year at Camp Pendleton. He had responsibility for training all Marines that were going to Vietnam. There are about 20,000 in country now that Dave trained. After his year at Pendleton, Dave expected to receive orders for Vietnam. However, he found that he wasn’t eligible, because of his recent overseas date. He was told that he would have to wait until all other infantry captains had gone overseas since his last return. Finally, with the help of his former battalion commander, he managed to get a set of orders to Marine Ground Forces WestPac. Dave hoped to get a rifle company before he became too senior. But his orders were modified, and he came to HQMACV. So now Dave is waiting out his year in Saigon as the MACV Morale Officer. How’s your morale, Dave? Sorry ’bout that.

SUNDAY 16 OCTOBER 1966—TRIP TO DUC CO

Because Ted Fielding is getting sucked into the MACV bureaucracy in Saigon, I am now traveling more and more by myself or with my Austra-

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lian counterpart, Captain Peter McDougall. My mission on this trip is to review the location, strength and disposition of enemy forces near the Special Forces camp at Duc Co, in the central highlands.2 As usual the trip requires getting up in the middle of the night. I dress, grab my overnight bag and pistol, and an extra package, and go down to the street to catch my transportation. The extra package, the size of a large suitcase, is wrapped in cardboard. It is a portable stereo record player, a gift from Chet Huntley3 to the members of the Special Forces “A” Team at Duc Co. Since I’m going that way I will take it with me. Peter and I push our way through the usual jumble of troops at Tan Son Nhut airport, and check in at 0600. While waiting for our 0730 departure, we encounter an actual American woman of about thirty, also waiting for the flight! She is wearing a dress—a melon-and-white, wash-andwear sundress! Her hair, cut above her shoulders, has been bleached out by the sun. Her face, neck, arms and legs reflect a healthy tan. Surrounded by dirty, sweating GIs, she seems to want us to appear to be escorts, so I try to talk to a “round-eye” female for the first time in two

Captain Peter M. McDougall Montagnard Village at Duc Co, October 1966

90 • The Bridges of Vietnam

months. After a half-hour I’m even beginning to converse naturally. She says that she is going to a managerial job at the USO at Da Nang. Remembering my manners, I invite her to share our can of Spam lunchmeat. When she says, “Sure,” I slice the Spam into thirds with my Navy survival knife, and the three of us have breakfast and lick our fingers. After an hour’s flight, we arrive at Pleiku, and Peter and I bid the USO girl goodbye. Up in the central highlands it’s still cool and chilly at 0830. Later it will be hot, dusty, and dry. We check in at Headquarters C-2, 5th US Special Forces Group, Pleiku, for transportation to Duc Co. I learn that NVA battalions have crossed over from Cambodia near Plei Djereng and Duc Co. The “C” detachment’s Mike Force, a mobile strike force led by U.S. Special Forces, is moving out by helicopter to reinforce a patrol from Plei Djereng that is in contact. Duc Co also expects contact. We locate a priority C-123 that is delivering eight additional machine guns to Duc Co. Now it also is carrying two visitors and one portable record player from MACV in Saigon. As our C-123 spirals in toward the red clay strip at Duc Co, I see a pair of U.S. 175mm guns that are on a fire mission supporting Plei Djereng. The firing ceases as we approach them. We pass over them, and I look right down the big muzzles. Suddenly, smoke hides the muzzles, and the plane jerks mightily from the WHOOM-WHOOM of two outgoing rounds. The aircraft banks sharply through the smoke, and we are safely on the strip. Welcome to Duc Co. It should be an interesting visit. Postscript Duc Co, on Highway 19 just ten kilometers from the Cambodian border, was a vulnerable roadblock to North Vietnamese attempts to invade from their relatively secure sanctuary in Cambodia. The Cambodian sanctuary was a bitter pill for many professionals to swallow. For example, Moore and Galloway write that, at the conclusion of the Ia Drang campaign in November of 1965, two South Vietnamese airborne battalions—one advised by Major H. Norman Schwarzkopf—pounded North Vietnamese survivors until they crossed back into Cambodia. President Johnson’s policy prohibited American troops from attacking the enemy in Cambodia, which left the North Vietnamese as a constant threat to the central highlands, ready to punch across the border at will. (See sketch map number 3, p. 264, for site of Ia Drang campaign.)

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The authors relate that Harry W. O. Kinnard, then Commanding General of the 1stCavDiv, determined that the sanctuary decision caused the U.S. military to surrender the initiative to North Vietnam. Kinnard concluded that the war could never end in an American victory. He said that, by the time President Nixon sent U.S. troops into Cambodia in 1970, it was too late (314–15). Similarly, when the 1stCavDiv went to Southeast Asia in September of 1965, Kinnard had wanted to operate from Thailand. By so doing, he could support combat operations inside South Vietnam, and interdict NVA lines of communication in Cambodia and Laos; and he wouldn’t need combat troops to build and defend his base camp. He was turned down and ordered to establish the division in Vietnam, so he set up the base camp on Route 19, just north of An Khe, forty-two miles west of Qui Nhon (Moore, 26). Returning to the Ia Drang campaign, the border restriction did not completely impede mopping up operations. Schwarzkopf relates that his Vietnamese counterpart produced a map showing a ten-kilometer difference in the location of the border. Using that map, four Vietnamese airborne battalions chewed up the retreating North Vietnamese regiments. See Schwarzkopf, It Doesn’t Take a Hero, 122–25 for details. (In 1991 General Schwarzkopf was Commander in Chief, U.S. Central Command, for Operation Desert Shield/ Operation Desert Storm [the Gulf War].)

SUNDAY 16 OCTOBER 1966—THE SPECIAL FORCES CAMP AT DUC CO:THE “A” TEAM

Peter McDougall and I arrive by twin-engine C-123. We are almost hit by our own artillery as we swoop into the dirt airstrip and throw up an enveloping cloud of red dust. We are now at Duc Co—ten kilometers from the Cambodian border, and thirty-five kilometers west of Pleiku. As we climb off the aircraft, we are met by a burly, bare-chested, hatless American. He says, “Welcome to Duc Co. I’m the team sergeant here.” He looks at the khaki jungle scarf that Peter wears around his neck. “Mate, I want you to know right now, that if you decide to trade that jungle rag to anybody while you’re here, you’re tradin’ it to me.” 4 The team sergeant is making a jeep tour of the outside of the perimeter, so we accompany him and get an NVA view of the defenses. It takes

92 • The Bridges of Vietnam

only a few minutes to drive around the triangular, barbed-wire enclosure, then we enter the camp. The team consists of fourteen members—no longer twelve as in the song, “The Green Beret.” They live in and work from the team house. Montagnard tribesmen in camouflage “tiger suits” come and go on the business of war. The team sergeant says that he is a blustery wind-bag, adding that he is ninety percent wind and ten percent professionalism. He adds that this is the best combination to accomplish any task out here. Few would know how deeply grieved he is because his friend of many years was killed during an attack on the camp last month. His friend was a captain who was the “A” Team commander. They had been on their third Vietnam tour together.5 The team sergeant will be going home soon. His replacement, who just arrived from Germany for a first Vietnam tour, is a study in opposites—slim, dark-haired, introverted, and cautious.6 Another team member is finishing his twenty-fourth month at Duc Co. He will go to the States for thirty-days leave, then return for a year with the Mike Force. When it grows dark, a young captain who is the new team commander orders us to man our defensive positions. Another captain leads me to a sand-bagged hole where we practice operating a 60mm mortar that is emplaced to fire over the roof of the team house, and I learn how to break out the rounds in the dark. I ask him about increments (to set the range). He laughs lightly, “Don’t worry about range. If we get the word to fire, just fire what we’ve got and traverse as fast as you can. Every round will hit a target because Charlie will be all over the place.” I question him about lights and passwords. “Not necessary to worry about such trivia,” he says. “Charlie watches us from the high ground all day, and has registered each building for his next attack. Besides, a certain percentage of each Montagnard unit within the camp is VC anyway.” So we play it casual. One of the officers was just promoted to first lieutenant. He bought $99.80 worth of beer somewhere, and the beer is free, except to “conventionals.” Being a Marine, I’m not a conventional, so we drink beer and talk of many professional things. A small monkey, which is the team

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mascot, also gets a beer, so I guess he’s not a conventional either. He gets looped and eventually pees on the team sergeant, which is apparently not the first time this has happened. Some of the team take hot showers, a luxury I can’t get in Saigon. They put on black pajamas for sleep. If the attack starts, they won’t have time to get dressed, and it’s too cold to fight naked at night in the central highlands. They get the record player working on the generated 110-volt current. We listen to “The Green Beret,” and to “The A Team.” And we listen to a funny song called, “He’s a Trooper.” The trooper is an office poke who tells everybody he won the war. He is fat and pale, and his boots are still shined. He visits all the USOs and Bob Hope shows, but “he’s a trooper.” I am glad that I am tanned and dirty from firing some automatic weapons this afternoon. When it’s time to sleep, I move into an adjoining bamboo and wood building with a metal roof. Mosquitoes buzz around fiercely, so I rig a mosquito net over the cot. In the next room I hear a Montagnard family talking and preparing for bed. Soon I am asleep and awaken to occasional friendly artillery fire. Once during the night a rat tries to get into my ditty bag, but I chase him away and dive back under the mosquito net and blanket. In the morning Peter and I bid goodbye to the team and to the monkey. Departure is a matter of walking out of the compound to the dirt strip and waiting for any aircraft to come along. This we do. We sit on the airstrip 300 yards from the remnants of a white tree. Yesterday an American in the tank dug in next to us was idly watching that white tree when a sniper in the tree fired at the camp. The American opened up with the tank’s .50 caliber machine gun. It tore up the tree, the surrounding bushes, and the sniper. That stupid sniper never had a chance. It’s a stupid war. Here we sit today in the same area with our shirts off. We are getting a suntan but I am feeling very vulnerable and softskinned. Eventually a helicopter touches down and we climb aboard to go wherever the pilot is going. This camp will probably be hit again, soon. I wonder who will be killed then. I wonder which VIP from Saigon will be there. As these thoughts cross my mind, we arrive at Pleiku. Within an hour I have gone from the edge of reality back to the unreality of a “rear” area.

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In Pleiku I swim in an actual Olympic-sized pool, shower, have a steak dinner, and sit in the coolness of the night at the Special Forces officers’ club, talking to the bar maid who is Chinese and speaks five languages. Postscripts During the day the team commander dispatched a reinforced patrol to check out a rice cache that had been reported near Duc Co. Before the patrol could get there, a visiting Special Forces major called in an observation plane, climbed aboard, and flew out to conduct a low-level aerial recce over the site. Naturally, when the ground patrol arrived there were no VC in the area. While the patrol was out, the rest of us were training newly-recruited Montagnards to fire and maintain U.S. weapons used by the Mike Force: Browning Light Machine guns, Browning Automatic Rifles, and (I believe) M-1 Carbines.

My mission had been to report the location, strength, and disposition of enemy forces near Duc Co to my boss. My visit at Duc Co convinced me that the major attack was developing toward the Special Forces camp at Plei Djereng (see sketch map number 3, p. 264). So Peter and I would go to Plei Djereng. But first a journal entry about a visit to a Montagnard village Peter and I made while at Duc Co. It wasn’t your typical tourist visit because of sniper fire, so we didn’t stay long. MONDAY 17 OCTOBER 1966—MONTAGNARD (“MOUNTAINYARD”) VILLAGE

This village has been moved into the protection of the Duc Co camp. Nevertheless, the villagers still practice an old habit. For years the Montagnard villages were free-bomb targets for South Vietnamese aircraft returning from missions with unexpended ordnance. These pitiful little people built air raid shelters here before they built huts to live in.7 The people are dark and short, averaging five-foot six. They act childlike, and are very friendly, and quick to smile. The women wear nothing on top, and carry large woven-bamboo baskets on their backs. The men wear nothing on the bottom except a small cloth roll. When the men put on tiger suits, they make damned good mercenary soldiers. The family huts are about eight-by-ten feet, and are built two to three

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feet above the ground. A notched log serves as the front steps. The family brings it inside at night to keep out animals. Smaller huts are used for food storage. Hanging from the side of one is a fly-covered chunk of meat that has been there for several days. There also are large community houses built directly on the ground. These are where the people gather to talk and work. A monkey is living with one of the families. He is still young. When he grows bigger, the family will eat him. No longer are bamboo crossbows seen.8 They were outlawed last year when the Montagnard uprising, or FULRO movement, took place. These people utilize two- to four-foot tall community jars for parties. The jars are well turned, and appear to be glazed. They fill a jar with rice wine, and then the men pass around a bamboo straw. As the liquor level goes down, water is added. In this way a party can last for a day or two. The community is happiest when the men are sitting around drinking and the women are working. But right now there is a war, so all the young men are in tiger suits with their units. And the women are helping the “A” Team build and fortify the camp. Someday the Montagnards may get their wish to just live peacefully and lazily, but not for a few more years.

TUESDAY 18 OCTOBER 1966—THE SPECIAL FORCES CAMP AT PLEI DJERENG

Plei Djereng is west of Pleiku, thirty-five kilometers from the Cambodian border. The team was in contact near the camp yesterday, so Peter McDougall and I don’t know exactly what we might encounter after we leave Pleiku this morning. My mission is to review the location, strength, and disposition of enemy forces around the camp in general, and specifically to find out anything the Americans will tell me that they wouldn’t tell visiting generals and colonels. We board an armed Huey at Pleiku. With us is a Montagnard in a tiger suit, returning to his unit at Plei Djereng from a hospital stay. He only has one foot. In twenty minutes we arrive overhead at 2,000 feet. The triangular shaped camp is in a clearing, resembling an American fort in the Far West. We dive in at a very interesting rate of descent, and land within the

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sandbagged log walls. The instant we debark, the Huey is long-gone in a flurry of rotor roar and dust. The team commander beckons from within the doorway and gives us the signal to double time. We do. Behind an unoccupied bar in the team house is a life-sized painting of a reclining nude, done by a Chinese at Nha Trang. I can’t keep my eyes off it, and finally realize why. It looks exactly like my wife. I don’t tell anybody there of the coincidence. They might think I’ve been in country too long. Besides, I wouldn’t want them lusting after my wife. I get the three pieces of information I need from the Special Forces “A” Team. (1) Who is the enemy? A North Vietnamese regiment. (2) Where are they? All around. (3) What’s their intention? Attack. Meanwhile a Huey drops down outside the team house, WHOP-WHOPWHOP, to deliver an Army ground colonel who is wearing bright green shoulder tabs. The team commander tells me that the tabs identify a commander, and he walks out to confer with him. A second Huey lands carrying another ground colonel, also sporting bright green shoulder tabs. We’ve got two Hueys on the ground, and two senior officers in the open, wearing neatly pressed field uniforms with bright green colors to identify them as targets. In Basic School at Quantico we were drilled with the statement, “Spread out, or one round will get you all.” I cringe, along with the team members inside, and duck behind sandbags, but nothing happens. Eventually the two aircraft lift off and the team commander quickly marches back inside, slowly shaking his head. A young lieutenant here has been commissioned only twenty-eight days. He started his first patrol two days ago with an American sergeant and a Montagnard strike force company. The patrol made contact, and the sergeant was killed. The NVA surrounded them, and the situation was tight. The lieutenant couldn’t speak the language, and he couldn’t turn to anyone for advice, but he brought the patrol out of the trap, and even killed five North Vietnamese. He smiled slightly and said, “I’ve matured a little during the last couple of days.” A Huey drops out of the sky for us and we depart in a rising corkscrew flight. As we head east, I think of many places I have visited in this country just before or just after they have been hit. A helicopter arriving or departing at a time like that makes an easy target for a deployed enemy force. I wonder when my luck might change. I will be glad, for once, to get back to the relative safety of Saigon after this trip.9

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Postscript The following was summarized from Grolier’s Academic Encyclopedia (1993): “Montagnards” is a name adapted from a French word meaning “mountain people.” The Vietnamese called them “Moi,” meaning “savage.” Americans often called them “Yards,” with no derogatory inference. They were descended from Malayo-Polynesian and Mon-Khmer ethnic groups, and comprised a population of an estimated 700,000. Former Special Forces Lieutenant Don Bendell writes that the Montagnards ate rats, bats, and an assortment of other wild life. He relates the tale of three men walking past a flower. The first, an American, thinks, “What a beautiful flower. Maybe I can give it to my mother.” The second, a Vietnamese, thinks, “I’ll bet I can sell that to an American.” And the third, a Montagnard, thinks, “I wonder what that tastes like.” Bendell reports that the Vietnamese prohibited the Montagnards from education, the right to vote, and government representation. He adds that, after the Geneva agreement in 1954, Ngo Dinh Diem installed lowland Vietnamese leaders in the highlands, and large numbers of Vietnamese began to settle there. Racial strife increased. In 1958 the Montagnard tribes formed a secret resistance movement called the BaJaRhaKo. This name came from the first letters of the names of the four largest of the thirty-one tribes: Bahnar, Jarai, Rhade, and Koho. In 1964 the movement became known by the French acronym, FULRO (Front United for the Liberation of the Racially Oppressed). Bendell comments that, had the American Indian tribes joined forces the way the Montagnards did, our history might have taken a different turn. In 1993 the FULRO movement was still active (“The Mountain Warriors of Vietnam,” Marine Corps Gazette July 1993, 28–33). One of the USSF officers told me that during the Montagnard revolt a USSF officer made a long impassioned plea to the Montagnards to stop. Because they didn’t speak English, he spoke in French. He didn’t know that not one of them understood French. He also didn’t know that around the corner the Montagnards had already spread-eagled their Vietnamese advisor and slit his throat. The Vietnamese bled to death while the American was completing his speech. My informative contact also spoke of a USSF officer who was photographed in Montagnard attire during the revolt, and later was depicted in a National Geographic article as a “blood brother” of the Montagnards. The

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Army commended him for aiding in quelling the revolt, but later reprimanded him for his appearance and for telling a general officer that the general didn’t know enough about the Montagnards to interfere in that part of the country. It reminded me of a USSF captain known as “the tiger of the Mekong,” whom I had met at Fort Holabird in 1965. He related that, after returning from months in the bush on a mission, he was interviewed by an Army “straightleg” general. During the session the general commented about his not operating “by the book.” He replied, “The book is all screwed up.” The general said, “I wrote the book,” and the captain answered, “Then you’re all screwed up.” (I have been unable to locate the captain to obtain his permission to use his name.) This enmity between Special Forces and conventional Army officers would continue to fester until it erupted in 1969 when COMUSMACV jailed the special forces commander and several subordinates. (See Chronology entries for 18 August, 25 August, and 13 October 1969.)

TUESDAY 18 OCTOBER 1966—THE 4TH U.S. INFANTRY DIVISION AT PLEIKU

The last time I encountered this Army division with the cloverleaf patch was when I took my Marine Detachment from the USS Bon Homme Richard to conduct live firing at Fort Lewis, Washington, in 1963. The 4th Division (4thInfDiv) was a can-do outfit then. Today the division assumes responsibility for its TAOR in Vietnam and is commencing Operation Paul Revere IV. I’m here to learn how the division is integrating its organic and non-organic long-range patrolling capabilities.10 The division has changed substantially since I saw it at Fort Lewis. Before it came into country a few weeks ago, it was short of personnel. To correct this deficiency, many of the officer vacancies were filled by sudden curtailments of tours in Germany. Those officers, who had been enjoying the good life with their families in Germany, had never known the 4th Division that had been at Fort Lewis in peacetime. The enlisted shortages were filled by draftees. Or, as a professional told me, “The 4th Division came to war with 6,000 civilians.” Many believe that the division’s AO has the best climate of Vietnam,

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in the central highlands, where it is cool at night. The AO was formerly the responsibility of a single brigade of the 25thInfDiv. I was told that, before it’s over, this AO alone will require four full divisions. It’s no wonder that Special Forces troopers in camps like Duc Co and Plei Djereng are hanging on by their fingernails. On top of that, General Wallace M. Greene, Jr., the Commandant of the Marine Corps, is asking for another division of Marines at III MAF in I Corps. All of this and we haven’t even started putting U.S. troops into the Delta Area. We’re going to have to scrape up many more divisions from somewhere, and in some way, before the 4th Division can return to Fort Lewis. And before the civilians can return home. And before the officers can return to their families and the good life in Germany.

WEDNESDAY 19 OCTOBER 1966—THE LOST PROMOTION

The promotion flap started last Friday when I was walking into my hotel after work and saw a Marine major coming out. I saluted, saying “Good evening, sir,” and as I drew abreast did a double-take. The major was Rick Spooner, a sandy-haired, rangy Marine almost six feet tall. He was a fellow ex-enlisted man from The Basic School at Quantico—and he was supposed to be junior to me! I’d been awaiting my promotion ever since I’d seen my name high on the selection list when I first arrived in country. Saluting a junior was like being taken off the promotion list. I grabbed Rick by the arm, yanked him into the Hong Kong Hotel bar, bought a pair of beers, and glared at his golden leaves. “How come you’ve been promoted and I haven’t?” I asked. He started to say something about the Marine Corps recognizing talent, but choked it off when he saw the expression on my face. A third Marine, Major Henry V. Martin, was standing at the bar next to us. He was a lieutenant colonel selectee from MACV counterintelligence who occasionally dropped by the bar when I was there. He was involved with tracking certain American prisoners of war, including a Marine whose wife I had met when she was in Washington to confer with the Commandant of the Marine Corps.11 “Sounds like you have the same problem I have,” said Hank Martin.

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He explained that a Marine he knows, who is junior to him, was promoted to lieutenant colonel three days earlier. “It looks like the Marine Corps sent us to MACV and washed its hands of us,” he said. Hank and I agreed to send a message to the Commandant, with information copies to every major Marine command between Vietnam and Washington, D.C. Because I was leaving over the weekend for the central highlands, he agreed to prepare and send the message. Only God, COMUSMACV, and the Commandant would know how many months it would be before the message would go out and an answer would find its way to Cholon. Meanwhile, I flew up to the highlands and got back to the BOQ at 1700 today (Wednesday). I had to set my personal problems aside, because I found a note at the desk to call Commander Ted Fielding immediately at the MACV III office. He has ordered me to report right away because we have to give a briefing tonight, and he needs my help. So much for the lost promotion. “Can I clean up and put on khakis?” I ask. “No time. And it doesn’t matter, because everybody expects a Marine just out of the field to be dirty.” On the U.S. bus, I curse all the way to the MACV III compound because I’m tired, hungry, and grimy, and I’d hoped to take the final hour off. But, if a Navy commander tells a Marine captain he needs him to solve a problem, what the hell. It’s dark by the time I arrive, and only Ted and Commander Bert Nelson are at the office. The place is awfully quiet, and so are they. “Here’s my problem,” says Ted, with mouth drawn tight. He opens the satchel that he uses to carry his briefing papers, and rummages around. “Hummm, I thought I had everything here.” Suddenly he smiles and removes a packet from the satchel. “I have these things that I certainly can’t use anymore. It seems to me that since you’re a major you should be wearing them.” He flashes a pair of gold leaves. “Congratulations, Fred.” He and Bert pin the leaves on the stinking, sweat-stained collars of my utility jacket. He tells me that the senior Marine general at MACV will promote me officially Friday, but that he thought I was tired of wearing captain’s bars. I was.

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With a curfew approaching, my celebration will take place at the Hong Kong Hotel. No longer hungry, I invite my roommate Leo Hester to the bar. He’s making a tape to his wife, and says he will have a drink with me when I return to the room after the bar closes. I call Harry Holeman and head for the bar, my collars heavy with two golden maple leaves. Coincidences never end in this small, big country. While I’m in the bar, old friend and former shipmate, Lieutenant Commander Stan Dunlap flies into town from the aircraft carrier he’s aboard, and searches for me to say “hello.” Stan, six-foot two and 200-plus pounds, arrives at the Hong Kong Hotel inside a tiny Renault taxi. However, the curfew leaves him just enough time to meet Leo, jot down a note of congratulations, and start back to Tan Son Nhut. Twenty minutes after he departs, I return to the room and Leo and I drink to promotions. I also drink to the hope that Stan Dunlap and I will see each other again someday. Two days later I revert to the old captain’s bars, and report to the Marine general (Major General Chaisson, as I remember) in his office. He is impressive on two counts. First, he says, “We Marines meet each other seldom enough here, so I make it a point to set aside whatever time it takes to see each one who gets promoted.” Second, he says that field grade promotions provide an appropriate time to renew our oaths of office in order to remind us of the meaning of our commissions. He reads my new commission aloud, then we raise our right hands and I solemnly swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies and to obey the orders of the officers appointed over me.

THURSDAY 20 OCTOBER—NO WONDER GENERALS DON’T SLEEP WELL AT NIGHT

I’m to brief the general and his staff this morning about what I saw and learned at Duc Co, Plei Djereng, and Pleiku. I’m told that he normally listens only to colonels, but, now that I’m a major, he and his colonels might listen if I do a professional job. Thirty minutes before time for my briefing, I turn cold and my mouth gets dry. I wish I’d had time for breakfast, or at least coffee. I open a

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French door, leave the icy air conditioned anteroom, and walk out into the morning sunshine that is creeping into the MACV I compound. When I turn to shut the door, I see my reflection, clean and neat with freshly starched khakis. I laugh with sarcasm and tell myself, “Fred, remember where you just came from. And remember that you’ve been shot at in anger. Nothing that will ever happen in that briefing room can be as serious as either of those.” Warmer, I go back in and give my brief. During my presentation, the general gives instructions to three separate Army colonels, and tells them to coordinate closely with each other. Although the instructions seem clear to me the first time he gives them, he repeats them several times. After I leave the briefing room, I fill a paper cup at a potable water cooler in the hall, and sip. I hear the three colonels talking just around the corner, each one giving a different opinion of what the general wanted. Not one of their opinions agrees with what I heard the general say. Maybe if they had listened more carefully to my briefing, they would have understood the general’s desires.12 Postscript While communication was failing in Saigon, unwanted communication was popping up in the States when Newsweek reported a proposed $1 billion mine field across the 17th parallel, with a blocking force of 250,000 troops (see Chronology entry for 24 October 1966). Although I had been told about “McNamara’s Fence,” by various sources, the subject was so sensitive that my boss wouldn’t even talk to me about it until weeks later. Why sensitive? The overt answer was to prevent the enemy from knowing our plans. But an underlying answer was that the concept was controversial to a point approaching Alice in Wonderland. Captured enemy document summaries that I had read daily when in Saigon revealed consistently that the North Vietnamese leaders intended to fight until they won, expending as many generations of young men as the struggle required. For how long could such an enemy require us to keep our “blocking force” in country? Twenty years? Thirty? Forty? And while we tied up 250,000 troops at the fence, we would still need how many hundred thousand more troops to meet the enemy each time he crossed over from Cambodia? So it seemed obvious to many of us that, since you can’t win a war by

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defending, the fence was evidence that people in Washington either didn’t intend to win, or just plain didn’t know what the hell they were doing. Although the fence concept was controversial, when Ted Fielding and I finally did discuss it, we concluded that anything that might slow American casualties and let us go home for good some day was worth a try. He added with a calm smile, “Besides, Fred, if Washington gives us the money and tells us to build a fence, we’ll build a fence.”

FRIDAY 21 OCTOBER—COMPARTMENTALIZATION

By segregating clandestine and covert intelligence operations into compartments, access to each compartment can be limited to persons who have a need to know only about that operation. Then, if an operation is exposed, agents or groups involved in other operations might not be endangered. Compartmentalization also can protect those at high levels by denying them direct knowledge of means being used to accomplish the ends that they desire. However, compartmented operations can run amok if they escape oversight. At the least, they can become so fragmented that they either overlap or leave voids in critically needed intelligence information. Ted Fielding and I are tasked with uncovering the overlaps and seeking out the voids in the surface collection effort. Thus we do what we can to cross-compartmentalize. A Marine field grade officer who has just learned of my job comes to query me about my clearances. He summarizes the compartmentalization protocol, and says, “I don’t understand how Commander Fielding and you can have the clearances to know about everything.” “We don’t,” I answer, “but the more we learn, the better chance we have to accomplish the overall mission.” He vaguely mentions several operations, which I tell him I am familiar with. Then he says that when he arrived at MACV, he inherited a project involving Vietnamese mercenaries, supported by ARVN artillery and aircraft. Although his original mission was recalled, he is still paying the mercenaries until their contracts expire. Therefore he continues to employ them in support of ARVN forces.

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I suggest that long-range patrol assets from 5th Special Forces are now covering his original mission. We then trade technical details of longrange patrolling. He is delighted to consider my suggestion that an ARVN AD aircraft might scoop out a landing zone by dropping a 500-pound bomb onto a possible site, so that a patrol could rappel into it from an ARVN chopper. For extraction, an AD could drop a bomb into a possible site, the patrol could clear the residue, and the bird might be able to set down. We conclude that our conversation is not cross-compartmentalization; it is cross-fertilization.13 Postscript For an example of compartmentalization comedy, consider what happened when Peter McDougall and I flew out to meet a returning Mike Force patrol. It was a large indigenous unit that had been in enemy territory for a long time. It had accomplished its mission with but three wounded, who had been medevaced earlier. Upon arrival, the patrol leader formed his dust-covered troops into ranks like rows of gray flour sacks, and marched up to report in. He was an Australian warrant officer who Peter did not know was in Vietnam. (I do not recall his name.) “Hey myte,” said Peter. “Whatcha doing out here?” Although he had been facing more serious threats, the man’s face turned white beneath its dusty mask. “I’m not here, Captain. I can’t even talk to you. And don’t ask me where I’ve been.” He thought for a moment and added, “What are you doing here?” If I remember correctly, this was a returning Daniel Boone patrol.

THURSDAY 3 NOVEMBER 1966—IDENTIFYING AND LOCATING THE ENEMY II

In the service a “flap” is a term used derisively to describe a bit of bureaucratic excitement. At a MACV meeting this morning a general commented about lack of information about the NVA 324B Division near the DMZ, and a flap commenced! I enter the flap at 1400—Dan Flagg, Major, USMC. My boss and his boss say, “You can solve this problem, Dan.”

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“I will sir, if I can get an airplane.” Only lofty colonels can order private airplanes, and even they must wait twenty-four hours. “We’ll get one for you. Here is a set of emergency orders that will put you on a passenger flight at 1500. That gives you an hour to change into a field uniform, pack a bag, draw a weapon, and make the half-hour trip to Tan Son Nhut Airport. We have faith in you, Dan.” “Aye, aye, sir. I’m glad you do.” An hour later I am at Tan Son Nhut airport, standing in front of the check-in desk at 5th Aerial Port Terminal. The Army sergeant reads my orders with skeptical disbelief sculptured on his face. After making a phone call, he says, “Okay, you’re booked for the flight to Da Nang. You’ll leave at 1700 and will arrive at Da Nang at 1900.” “Food?” “Sorry about that. This isn’t a civilian terminal. Troops catching these passenger flights eat at their own mess halls.” But Dan Flagg never gets hungry! He gets his sustenance by viewing the eagle atop his beloved globe and anchor. At 1700 this Very Important Trip commences aboard an Air Force C130 carrying a load of newly arrived Army troops who do not want to leave Saigon. At 1702 the flight is delayed temporarily as the aircraft runs off the far end of the strip and comes to a thudding stop. “The pilot must have forgotten to push the leave-the-ground switch,” says Flagg. The Army troops sitting nearby do not laugh. But the Air Force is versatile, and has another C-130 ready in the short time of three hours. We arrive at Da Nang at midnight. At III MAF Marine Headquarters, only the watch officers are awake. The other officers are asleep after completing sixteen-hour days. But we’ll have none of that! If Dan Flagg must be awake, by damn others will be awake! “Besides,” I tell the nearest watch officer, another major, “if I don’t get answers here, I have an Army Otter on call that will fly me toward the DMZ until I find the answers.” A very sleepy, washed-out lieutenant colonel arrives in the command center, and the major tells him, “Before you say anything, Colonel, be aware that even though this guy is wearing a Marine uniform he’s a spy for Saigon. Anything you tell him will go back to COMUSMACV personally.” That means that more officers must be awakened.

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By 0100, one major, one lieutenant colonel, and two full colonels are not happy with Dan Flagg, Major, USMC, but that is why Dan is here. He is the man who can accomplish the mission. And he does. He gets the information they have, and is actually encouraged to fly to the 3rdMarDiv headquarters at dawn for an up-to-the-minute brief on the enemy 324B Division. Maybe the colonels are betting that he’ll be shot down. At 0300, Dan settles slowly onto a cot at the III MAF compound. He can relax peacefully for two hours. He is succeeding in his mission, and he and his bosses no longer have a “flap.” He has passed the flap successfully to III MAF. Sorry ’bout that, III MAF. Postscript I wrote this journal entry facetiously in order to soften its importance back home. I also did not reveal the enemy unit, but have inserted it for publication in this book to make the incident more understandable. As shown by the experience with my Marine boss back on 20 August when I tried to identify the NVA 324B Division to MACV, and by other information in this book, the battle between the Marines and MACV over strategy in I Corps was almost as serious as the battle against the VC and NVA. Westmoreland wanted a conventional confrontation along the DMZ and Laotian border to keep the NVA on the other side. This was in line with his strategy of attrition (body count). For their part, the Marines wanted a pacification strategy aimed at the most populated areas of I Corps. The Marines would protect the people in those areas while training them to defend themselves, and would eventually leave them to handle their own affairs. This would cede the less-populated areas within I Corps to the enemy, but would subject them to air and artillery attacks because they would not be in safe havens. There were not enough Marines to carry out both strategies, and the pressure from MACV and Washington against the Marine commander, Major General Lewis W. Walt, grew intense. It became so serious that in August, General Wallace M. Greene (the Marine commandant) privately argued against Marine deployment to the DMZ with Westmoreland at Westmoreland’s villa on Tran Quy Cap in Saigon. Greene was unsuccessful. In A Soldier Reports, Westmoreland writes, “As a Marine Wally Greene thought in terms of beachheads” (144). On the other hand, Corson writes

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that Krulak and Walt created TAORs to allow Marine commanders to institute their doctrine in defiance of MACV’s policy of “search and destroy.” He says that the Combined Action Platoons working within the villages were succeeding, until the Marines were forced to leave and fight conventionally (174–98). Then in September, Krulak, a lieutenant general and a counterinsurgency specialist, visited Westmoreland, seeing the Marines as bait for a trap that Westmoreland didn’t have the strength to spring. Krulak also was unsuccessful. So, by October Walt had deployed the 3rdMarDiv to strongpoints along the DMZ—Gio Linh, Con Thien, Cam Lo, Camp Carroll (named after Marine Capt. James Carroll, who had been killed there), The Rock Pile, Ca Lu, and Khe Sanh. (See sketch map number 2, p. 263.) The Division established a forward command post at Dong Ha. Westmoreland reinforced the Marines with 105mm self-propelled howitzers, and 175mm guns that could loft a 147-pound shell twenty miles. (He wrote later that the Marines were too self-confident and unwilling to ask for help, even though they were not equipped or trained for extensive warfare beyond the beachhead.) (See Westmoreland, 164–67.) This move of the 3rdMarDiv left the 1stMarDiv extended from Chu Lai to Da Nang until Westmoreland could reinforce with an Army grouping named Task Force Oregon. Task Force Oregon later was renamed the Americal Division. See Sheehan, 629–43, for further details. Now, let’s return to my role on 3 November 1966. During a staff meeting at MACV that morning, a general had commented that he needed more information about the NVA 324B Division. Colonel John T. Little saw this as precisely why he had established the surface surveillance section in the J-2 Reconnaissance Branch. Ted Fielding or I could go directly to the scene and bring back answers that MACV could never get by message traffic, and wouldn’t get for days or weeks if the general tried to rely on personal visits at high levels. At 1400, I reported to Colonel Little’s office, which had become a desk at the doorway of the anteroom of the J-2, Army Major General Joseph McChristian. Little, looking as clean-shaven and stiffly starched as when he had arrived at 0600, set his cigar in the ashtray and rasped, “I want you to find out everything you can about the location, strength, and disposition of 324B. Go anywhere you need to. Get back as soon as you can. Commander

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Fielding here will write the necessary orders to get you to I Corps. I’ve laid on an Otter to take you where you need to go when you get there.” Ted Fielding took me to his office and said that I didn’t have to undertake the mission if there was any chance it would jeopardize my future in the Marine Corps. If I didn’t go, he would. I told him that I had no problem with informing my Marine counterparts what the MACV command wanted me to find out, and telling them I would take back whatever information they gave me. How wrong I was. When I arrived at III MAF that night a major on duty told me that he wasn’t going to awaken anybody before morning unless there was an emergency. I created the emergency by telling him I therefore was going to fly north in an Army airplane until I found up-to-date information about 324B— even if I had to keep going until I got it from elements of 324B itself. The major decided to wake up somebody. As for the fate of the 324B Division, six years later, on a return trip to Vietnam, I would write in my journal: “There’s the same division we goddam near destroyed in 1966. They must have taken 300 percent killed by now. But they are still fighting in the same province. The only difference is in the new faces—faces of a never-ending resupply of nineteen-year-olds and eighteenand seventeen-year-olds from North Vietnam.” Such was North Vietnam’s strategy—to let us keep exchanging body counts with them until we couldn’t stomach it anymore.

FRIDAY 4 NOVEMBER 1966—IDENTIFYING AND LOCATING THE ENEMY III

After two hours of sleep, Dan Flagg, Major, USMC, continues his mission by flying from Da Nang to Phu Bai by Otter.14 An Otter is a single-engine Army aircraft built by De Havilland. It normally carries eight passengers, but this morning it is Dan Flagg’s private plane, and the interior looks spacious with nobody else aboard. We lift off from Da Nang Air Base and wing over the harbor. Below are the new piers that were built to relieve congestion at Saigon and Cam Ranh Bay. A dozen merchant ships are anchored in the harbor, along with a helicopter carrier, called “Landing Platform, Helicopter” (LPH).

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This is the ship that lifted the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines ashore near the DMZ earlier this week. Heading north, we parallel the coastline. I recognize Highway 1 and other landmarks from a previous trip this way by boat. Except for battle scars, Vietnam always looks beautiful and clean from the air. The killer jungle turns into soft grass. The rice paddies become clear and cool. The mountains are majestic and impressive. In thirty minutes we land at Phu Bai, the new headquarters for the 3rdMarDiv. The Fourth Marines were headquartered here until a couple of weeks ago. They went north, and the 3rdMarDiv headquarters moved up. It’s cool and beautiful up here, but I have no time for sightseeing. I get the update I need on the latest contacts with the 324B Division and take off for Da Nang.15 Because my roommate, Lieutenant Commander Leo Hester, has given me the administrative support flight schedule for the Navy’s Market Time operation, I look for a glistening white C-47 on the runway at Da Nang, and see it beginning to taxi for its return flight to Saigon. I notify the Otter pilot to contact the C-47 pilot and ask him to wait. The Navy pilot on the C-47, who doesn’t know me, says, “You’ll have to catch me, Army.” We do. Our little Otter touches down alongside the C-47 from behind, passes him at high throttle, crosses in front of him, and stops. The C-47 pilot slams on his brakes and throttles down. Dan Flagg has arrived! I catch up on much needed sleep on my way back to Saigon for debriefing. Postscript The information I brought back to MACV was unremarkable, because the 324B Division was obviously bouncing back and forth across the DMZ like a ping-pong ball, attacking, withdrawing, regrouping, and attacking. I can only conclude that I was a pawn in a turf battle of frustration. Meanwhile, while I was flying around I Corps on this mission, President Lyndon Johnson was flying around the Pacific with a mission to buck up our allies. While in Australia he made a statement that was to become parodied for the remainder of the War, “I believe there is light at the end of what has been a long and lonely tunnel” (see Chronology entry for 31 October 1966).

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SUNDAY 6 NOVEMBER 1966—SAIGON CENTRAL MARKET

The Saigon Central Market is the size of a large city block. The entire area within is shielded from the rain and the sun. Hundreds of tiny shops are subdivided within the market place. They are typically Far East. You name it and it’s for sale. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Harry Holeman, Navy Lieutenant Commander Leo Hester, and I park our jeep on one of the four streets which form the market’s perimeter. This time last week, VC 75mm recoilless rifle rounds were falling here. How would you like to tell your children, “Watch out for stray artillery rounds when you go to the five-and-dime for a sucker”?16 We enter the labyrinth, and are engulfed by thousands of Vietnamese shoppers. There are few Americans here. One of us could get knifed and nobody would know it, because there’s no room to fall. Here is a shop that must have three thousand Hong Kong bras. A Vietnamese girl is looking at various types of padding, and giggles when we smile at her. Our quest is for a brass bell. Leo is beside himself with envy because of a bell I bought from a street hawker in Cholon the other day, so we push on to a row of brassware shops. En route I make the mistake of looking at something that resembles a huge nylon net. Before I realize what I’m doing, I become the owner of a nylon hammock for the measly sum of 300 P. And here is the brassware! We ring fifteen different bells, and I almost decide to buy another bell for myself. The only thing better than a bell is two bells. But never, never, will we find another bell as good as my bell. Even if we did, the asking prices here are far too high. Eventually my unhappy roommate resigns himself that his quest is hopeless, and we leave without a bell. On the way out we buy a bag containing fruits the size of an apple. They are a shiny red-melon color on the outside and cottony white on the inside. They taste light and dry and are good. Leaving the market, we see a sidewalk eating place that sells Biere Larue, sometimes called “Tiger Beer” by Americans and Australians because of its logo. Some day we may just come back here to shop and drink beer with the locals. On the way back to the BOQ in Cholon we park in front of a shoe store, because Harry says something is inside that we must see. But it is

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not a pair of shoes. It is a Chinese baby, that is perhaps twelve months old. Harry bounces the child around and she laughs. He tells me that he played with the baby here yesterday. He says that I must see her mother, because she is a vivacious, very pretty twenty-four-year-old Chinese girl. We ask the couple behind the counter where she is. Sorry about that. She ate something poison last night and died. Would we please take the baby, because they cannot feed it? Sorry, but no children are allowed in the BOQ. We climb back into the jeep, unlock the chain that pins the steering wheel to the frame, and drive away from another tragedy that is about to happen. Postscript A map of Saigon which I bought from a kiosk in Saigon in 1966 advises this about the Saigon Central Market: “Visitors could find here a well-laid-out covered-in building that houses a maze of crowded stalls and alleyways that sell every conceivable article under the sun. Here is truly everything from a candlestick, to sealing-wax, to an over-ripe durian, to possibly a King.” (A durian is a pale green fruit that has a hard, prickly rind and soft pulp with an offensive odor but a delicate flavor. It grows on a Southeast Asian tree by the same name.)

TUESDAY 8 NOVEMBER 1966—DECOMPARTMENTALIZATION17

At 0930 I am watching traffic from the upper balcony of our MACV III office building, wondering where all the Vietnamese are going. A short, round Caucasian wearing a wrinkled U.S. Army uniform, with major’s leaves on his collars but no ribbons or wings on his chest, drives up on a moped. He parks outside the compound, and pulls off his civilian helmet. He doesn’t bother to put on his uniform hat or to comb his disheveled hair. The Vietnamese guard motions for him to move his moped, but he ignores him and bounces through the gate like a tourist. I rush down the concrete stairs to the courtyard to see what is going on. He glances at my green-and-white name tag and introduces himself. He confides that he is preparing to fly into Laos in a C-46 and insert a relatively large ground patrol by parachute, and has arrived to coordinate with me. In this strange war a guy in a suspicious-looking uniform walks up to somebody he’s never seen before and starts talking about running his

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own cross-border operation. No identification, no access list, no code words. Maybe he’s trying to find out something. Maybe he’s trying to set me up. Maybe he’s just a nut. But maybe he’s for real.18 I decide to spar verbally. I thank him for looking me up. I tell him that I don’t control any long-range operations. I add that there ought to be channels where things like this are coordinated. I ask if he’s talked to anybody from Special Forces or from the CIA. “Oh yeah, I’ve been up to Nha Trang, and I’ve just come from SOG. Just wanted to close the loop before I drop in my people.” I tell him that, according to my knowledge, Americans could not legally go into Laos. He answers that, although he will fly in with his patrol, he will return on the insertion aircraft, which will be unmarked. I give him the name of a Marine field grade officer who has his own long-range patrol unit. “While you’re here,” I say, “you might as well talk with him.” I take him to the Marine’s office and leave them together. I pass the information to my boss, who says, “He’s already been here. He’s who he says he is. They just let him work on his own. I sent him to you because I thought you’d like to meet him.” Postscripts The following overview of SOG was taken from the unclassified sources cited. SOG was the largest U.S. clandestine military unit created since the OSS of World War II. Originally designated the Special Operations Group, later it was renamed Studies and Observations Group. It answered to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, often with White House input. At one time or another, SOG’s cross-border operations included black propaganda, recovery of Americans and others, recovery of highly sensitive parts from crashed aircraft, insertion and handling of intelligence agents in North Vietnam, and offensive operations with Swift Boats and Nasties. Also involved were Shining Brass, Prairie Fire and Daniel Boone, previously described. Chief SOG (or Chief MACV-SOG) from 1966 to 1968 was Army Major General (then Colonel) Jack Singlaub. For details, see Boston, and Plaster, particularly Boston 48, 76–78, 80; and Plaster 23–25, 97, 108–9, 118–19, 152–53, 224–25. For the consequential treatment of nearly 200 surviving Vietnamese SOG agents that had been captured in North Vietnam, see Tim Weiner, “New Files Prove Vietnam Cover-

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up: U.S. Military lied to families on deaths of secret agents,” New York Times 9 Jun 96, A1. Also “U.S. Senate Recognizes Guerrillas Who the Army had Claimed were Dead,” New York Times 20 Jun 96, A8. Also Tim Weiner, “Vietnams’ Lost Commandos Win Battle,” New York Times 20 Jun 96, A8. The first time I visited SOG headquarters in Saigon, I was astonished to see a Marine major operating a situation map. He was astonished to see me! We became close friends during two subsequent tours of duty, but we never discussed our respective roles during 1966–67. His name has been purposely withheld.

The Marine field grade officer who had his own long-range patrol unit (and whose name I have excluded) later told me that he had encountered the Army major earlier at his training site. He also said that the major, who had personally trained his men, couldn’t stand to dump his patrol into Laos without parachuting in with them, and that he hadn’t heard from any of them since. I eventually was told that the major and his patrol accomplished their mission and walked out of Laos safely. Since my boss seemed knowledgeable about the operation, I didn’t ask who “they” were, who let the major work on his own. But the bizarre incident reinforced what we already knew, that in spite of our mission to prevent overlaps, we still couldn’t guarantee that friendlies wouldn’t confront friendlies out there—even friendly aircraft. This is because unmarked aircraft often would fly over, painted black, or white, or olive drab, or even silver. Some would be known to us, but some wouldn’t. If we didn’t know who they were, they certainly didn’t know who we were. So a good rule when any aircraft came near was to keep hidden to prevent attack. This was particularly important when in that 10-kilometer gray area between border lines depicted on different maps, as commented on earlier regarding the ending of the Ia Drang campaign.

1

Curfew in Saigon was from 2300 to 0400, although enforcement seemed to

depend upon who you were and where you were. In some bars Americans’ money was welcomed all night—except for times when VC were expected for parties or raids. Then alleyways became escape routes.

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2

See sketch map number 3, p.262, for approximate location, and sketch map 1

for relative location. 3 4 5

A well-known TV news commentator. Peter managed to leave Duc Co with his jungle scarf still around his neck. A USSF captain (not the team commander) at Duc Co told me this in private.

I cannot remember his name. 6

I did not record his name and cannot remember it. See further comment in Chapter 7, June Pilgrimage. 7

This information came from the USSF captain at Duc Co whose name I cannot

recall. 8 I was presented a “hunting” crossbow in the highlands, and was told that these were used for protection by Montagnards who slipped across the border. In Nha Trang, I bought a tourist’s set of crossbow darts from a street hawker. When I returned home, I gave the equipment to my thirteen-year-old son, Fred C. Edwards (who later became a Vietnam vet), and explained their background. In 1999 when I was working on this manuscript, the thirty-three-year-old cultural collection was hanging on the wall above a computer in his study. 9 We departed Plei Djereng at noon. The enemy attack began at 1800 with a mortar concentration. I think that the NVA didn’t fire on the two colonels or on Peter and me because they were still moving into their attack positions around the fort and didn’t want to telegraph their locations and intentions. I believe that this was a time that I sent my report back to Ted by secure telephone from Pleiku. 10

As described previously, Army divisions came into country with little or no

LRRP capability (organic), but the 4thInfDiv’s non-organic capabilities included CIDG camps in and near their AO, which could provide them some eyes and ears. 11

One of the Marine POWs whom MACV counterintelligence was tracking was

Captain Donald G. Cook, who was not recovered. However, he went through the normal promotions to the rank of colonel, and his widow eventually received a posthumous Medal of Honor. In 1999 a U.S. Navy destroyer was commissioned in his name. 12

I don’t remember whom I briefed, but I believe he directed the three colonels to contact appropriate commands involved in the central highlands in order to facilitate coordination of operations and intelligence. 13

Since I have never seen the name of his operation mentioned in unclassified documents, I have excluded it and his name. 14

See sketch map number 1, p. 262.

15

Again, I did not identify the unit in the original journal.

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16

See Chronology entry for 14 November 1966.

17

This journal was not mailed.

18

I cannot remember his name.

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Chapter 4

Residency THURSDAY 10 NOVEMBER 1966—THE MARINE CORPS BIRTHDAY WITH THE VIETNAMESE MARINES

I have a little intestinal trouble this week, and know that this hour in the sun at the Vietnamese Marine Brigade Compound just before the noon meal will be rough. But after seventeen years I foresee no new experiences for me at this Marine Corps birthday celebration. This is my eighteenth Marine Corps birthday, since I enlisted just before the birthday on 11 October 1949. I have performed every function in the birthday ceremony from spectator to Senior Officer Present. This year I am one of the escort officers (two each of colonels, lieutenant colonels, majors, captains, lieutenants, and the senior enlisted grades). I see some 150 Marine officers and 150 enlisted men here. I feel lucky to be part of the ceremony. Waiting in ranks for the beginning of the ceremony, I am surprised to discover that 200 of the Marines gathered here are stationed full-time in Saigon. I count ten colonels, twenty lieutenant colonels, and proportional numbers down the line. What a waste. As I talk to them, I am also surprised at how many of them know nothing personally about the war that is going on outside of Saigon. I mean nothing. 116

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Indeed, the uniform for the ceremony is field uniform, and some of the Marines tell me that this is the first time they have worn this uniform since they arrived in Vietnam. I feel lucky that at least I get to see the periphery of the situation throughout the country. The ceremony starts. Goose pimples. Tears. I force myself to think of anything not connected with the Marine Corps birthday. I try to ignore the sounds of “Semper Fidelis” and “The Marine Corps Hymn.” Others try too. Some of us succeed. “When Will It Ever End? When Will It EVER End?” Finally it’s over, and the Commandant of the Vietnamese Marine Corps says a few words. He is followed by a colonel from the Korean Marine Corps wearing the old-style Marine field uniform which we have provided to each Korean Marine in country.1 Then a Marine major general from J2 MACV speaks. After the ceremony we share the birthday cake and soft drinks. I encounter many old friends. Soon I find myself in the club at the Five Oceans Hotel with a group of USMC advisors to the Vietnamese Marine Corps. Stragglers who missed the ceremony begin arriving. Sorry for being late, but they have just come off a Search and Clear operation with one of the battalions. Their tiger suits are wet and dirty, and their spirits and throats are dry. It’s a bizarre war. I realize that I am the only major in the club. I can no longer drink and raise hell with these captains who were my old friends a few days ago. Majors just don’t arm wrestle and leg wrestle in the club with company grade Marines. Sorry about that. So I leave the captains to their afternoon fun. They appear relieved at no longer being hampered by the presence of a field grade officer. I check in with my boss, who says, “Sorry I couldn’t make the ceremony, but I’ve been working on a flap since you’ve been gone. Ignore the six beers you just drank, and get busy on your part of this problem. Happy 191st Birthday.” Postscript By the time I began this journal entry, we had established our credentials as troubleshooters, although “gophers” might be the more accurate word. Indeed, considering the events of 3 and 4 November in the last chapter, and the 9 December journal in this chapter, we might have been known by some of our contacts as “troublemakers.”

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I cannot remember the “flap,” but my part of it was to obtain data from some sensitive documents that somebody in one of the other MACV headquarters compounds had collected, and bring the data to Ted, who was working another part of the problem. Either the information was too sensitive to transmit over the scrambler phone, or perhaps Ted or his contact didn’t have access to one. A courier for the documents themselves would have taken at least until the next day, so Ted needed a gopher with a clearance. Even a gopher using the U.S. shuttle bus system took a couple of hours.

WEDNESDAY 16 NOVEMBER 1966—NAVY CAPTAIN ARCHIE C. KUNTZE

I was told that Captain Archie C. Kuntze was found guilty of, principally, having an affair with a twenty-six-year-old Chinese girl, and that he had been quite a playboy. I was told that the court martial proved that the “brass” must obey the same regulations as the enlisted men. But many who served in Saigon when Navy Captain Archie Kuntze ran things here say that there’s more to the story. There’s more than the fact that the verdict of his General Court Martial was that he be reprimanded—and moved back a few numbers in seniority. A divorced man, he apparently was guilty of letting his girlfriend use his official vehicle. I couldn’t count the number of local girls I have seen in vehicles that the U.S. has provided the Koreans. And Vietnamese “wives” accompany their men in our jeeps, and in our airplanes, and live with them in the camps and bunkers we build for them. For some reason the rules apply only to American military men in general and Captain Kuntze in particular. He also apparently was guilty of allowing the girl into his quarters. And supposedly while within the quarters his conduct was unbecoming of an officer. What type of human behavior in your quarters is unbecoming of an officer? I never met the gentleman, but many officers of all services have told me that when “The Mayor of Saigon” was here: • There was no gross mismanagement and outright thievery within the PX system, such as I have seen during my tour of duty. • The substandard living conditions now prevailing in Saigon for the officers and the enlisted men did not exist.

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• The BOQ and BEQ meals were better and lower priced. • His telephone was open to any enlisted man with a gripe. My informants tell me that he had one fatal flaw—he was no diplomat. When accomplishing his mission, he never took the time to watch out for other people’s feelings, and he never hesitated to call a spade by that very name. I was told that he received the Legion of Merit for the outstanding way in which he performed his tour of duty. Several officers told me that he asked for this court martial in order to set the record straight. Who knows what might be the whole story, but it’s clear that in Saigon in 1966 there are two sides, and it’s interesting to hear about the other side. Postscript When I was preparing this book, a newspaper clipping dated Tuesday 16 December 1980 (source unknown), passed through my hands. It stated that “Archie Kuntze, 60, a much-decorated officer who became known as the ‘American mayor of Saigon’ but left the U.S. Navy after a 1960s controversy, died Sunday (14 December) after a heart attack in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.” The article added that Kuntze was an Annapolis graduate who held twentytwo military decorations from action in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. It stated that he had built Saigon into the United States’ biggest military base. It also said that he was up for promotion to admiral when he was court-martialed in 1966 in what some said was a power struggle between the Pentagon and the civilian-controlled Defense Department. For further information see Chronology entries for 14 and 28 November 1966.

THURSDAY 24 NOVEMBER 1966—THANKSGIVING IN SAIGON

This Thanksgiving is similar to two other recent ones. It is one of three away from the United States and my family in the last six years. In 1961 I was commanding the Marine Detachment on USS Bon Homme Richard, and had taken the ship’s landing party to Camp Fuji, Japan, for infantry training. Navy lieutenant (jg) Joe Tepera, one of my platoon leaders, and I ate Thanksgiving dinner with the base camp commander.

120 • The Bridges of Vietnam

By the time we left the base camp commander’s quarters, the wind had become bitter, and it was spitting snow. The top two-thirds of Mount Fuji-san had turned white. We heard singing as we approached the Butler building that housed the officers club. The electricity had failed, and the air inside was smoky from burning candles. Lieutenants from the infantry battalion training there had turned maudlin, and were singing songs as only lieutenants can do. That battalion has since deployed here to Vietnam, where it has been operating for a year. The lieutenants—those that are left—are captains now. After a hot buttered rum, Joe and I returned to our tent. I ate an evening “C” ration and huddled near our pot-bellied stove to keep warm. We had a cold beer, and I made a toast in hopes that the next Thanksgiving would be at least as good as that one. We meant that (1) we knew when the ship would return home, and (2) we had a reasonable chance of being aboard for the trip. The following Thanksgiving I was back in Japan, aboard the same ship, this time in Sasebo. After eating a Thanksgiving meal of Indian curry alone at a restaurant in a Japanese city, I made the same toast to myself. This year I can’t make that toast. Too many didn’t live to see this Thanksgiving. Too many won’t live to see the next one. But I personally can be thankful. Because I still have a reasonable chance of returning home at a scheduled time. Because I have a family to return to. Because they have health. So, no formal toasts. The scene develops like this. I am on duty at the office complex in MACV III in Saigon this Thanksgiving night. I am armed with a grease gun, a bank of telephones, and a typewriter. I am backed up by an armed, ancient Vietnamese who is authorized to guard the gate to the compound, but not to enter the building.2 I break away at 2000 for my Thanksgiving meal. Lieutenant Colonel Harry Holeman and Lieutenant Commander Leo Hester have been waiting for me at the Hong Kong BOQ, so that I won’t have to eat this meal alone. After a rum and coke apiece in my room, we go down to the dining room, and for $1.75 get our Thanksgiving dinner, which is a hot turkey sandwich. I could buy one like it in the U.S. for about $.65. But we eat our sandwiches and enjoy them. As we finish, we decide that, if we are alive next year, and can eat together again, we’ll have something to be thank-

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ful for. With cries of “See you next year,” and “Happy Thanksgiving, Fred,” I take my leave and return to my duties. It has to be better next year. You can’t ignore your inner emotions forever.

THURSDAY 1 DECEMBER 1966—LIKE TO BUY A WRISTWATCH?

Ration card No. 43145 authorizes me to buy two still cameras, one movie camera, a slide projector, a movie projector, two radios (twenty dollars and under), one radio over twenty dollars, a record player, a tuner amplifier, a typewriter, an electric fan, a TV, two tape recorders (seventy-five dollars and under), one tape recorder over seventy-five dollars, a monthly ration of beer, liquor and tobacco, and two wristwatches—all from the PX. Except for beer and liquor, these treasures seldom appear on the PX shelves. The choice generally is to buy them on the black market or go without. But I learn that there are other ways. An Army lieutenant colonel here at J-2 is an old hand at operating in high-level general staffs. For example, he got us the office jeep for official use. You don’t just request a vehicle in writing, with appropriate justification, as the directives read, or you’ll never get one. You first find somebody you know, or someone who owes you a favor, or somebody you might do a favor for someday. Then you prepare the written request, and give it to him. The colonel uses his system to get more than just jeeps. On Tuesday he asked me, “Would you like to buy a wristwatch?” “Yes, sir,” I said. “But we’re not supposed to buy on the black market.” He explained that “a sergeant at the PX” had received a shipment of watches. He was allocating thirty of them a day to Americans who needed them, “so that the Koreans and the RMK [civilian] workers wouldn’t buy them all up and resell them.” He said, “My day is Thursday at 1245, just before the lunch hour is over. Meet me outside the back entrance of his office. You’ll need your ration card and cash.” “Cash?” “MPC.” At 1245 I’m standing with the colonel outside the sergeant’s office

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(who is really a senior staff NCO, complete with a name plate). When called, we enter, I’m introduced, and he hands me a paper sack from his desk drawer, which he says contains a Seiko watch. “I don’t have much time,” he says, “because I have to close out the cash register while the noon hour shifts are changing.” He marks an X in our ration cards. “Don’t open these sacks in view of any of the customers.” He hadn’t even bothered to stand up. A Vietnamese girl leads us outside to a cash register located in an unused display area. She takes twenty dollars apiece, rings up a receipt on the register, and we leave. I now own a water-resistant Seiko watch, complete with day and date. Its price is tagged at $18.50. I don’t know if the extra $1.50, or if any of the money, got into the PX system. I do know that the transaction was degrading to the lieutenant colonel, to the senior NCO, to our respective services, and to me. The Vietnamese girl probably agreed.

SATURDAY 3 DECEMBER 1966—A DRIVE IN THE COUNTRY: LONG BINH AND BIEN HOA

My boss is working on a national reconnaissance plan for his boss, and needs information about the II Field Force AO. The information is too lengthy to pass on a scrambler phone, and is too highly classified to send with a routine courier. Besides, Ted Fielding simply wants it right away, so it’s time for me to go to Long Binh and Bien Hoa. It’s only twenty or thirty miles from Cholon, which is an hour’s drive.3 I’ve been there before by helicopter and by vehicle, and have been told that, if driving, a minimum of two people must go, so that one can ride shotgun. I can’t get a driver today, and nobody in the J-2 Air Reconnaissance office has the time or interest to go with me. The hell with it! It’s been so long since I’ve been outside of Saigon that I don’t want to pass up this chance. I phone a sergeant from the MP Group to see whether there’s a formal regulation against driving alone. He tells me, “Go right ahead,” although it sounds like “go right ahead, stupid.” So off I go in the office’s trusty jeep. Once through Gia Dinh, which is a congested VC hotbed in the north-

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ern outskirts of Saigon, I reach the Saigon River. I approach the bridge where a cache of VC explosives was found yesterday. I cross the bridge and emerge onto a four-lane freeway. The freeway operates in typical Asian fashion. Although there are four lanes, the direction of travel depends upon the whims of each individual driver! Sometimes I cross into the incoming lane in order to pass, and sometimes I move over on the right hand shoulder. But it is enjoyable, because this is the first time in three-and-a-half months that I have driven at fifty-five miles per hour. The flat, green countryside smells fresh after leaving the stink of Saigon, and it looks peaceful. It’s no wonder that so many people can’t understand this war. The false peacefulness of the countryside can easily bring a wrong sense of security.4 Suddenly, mixed with the civilian traffic is an ARVN tank convoy. And soon I see a Vietnamese patrol moving through a field on foot. Later I cross a bridge over a small channel of the river and see six Vietnamese Navy sampans on patrol. All of this, with civilians everywhere. The civilians must continue to live their lives, even though battles may erupt around them. Wouldn’t we do the same thing on the California freeways if California turned into a guerrilla battleground? Soon I arrive at the Headquarters of II Field Force Vietnam in Long Binh. The complex has grown beyond description in size.5 As my Australian friends say, “The bloody Americans will overwhelm the enemy with their massive resources.” With the information I came for in my pockets and in my head, I drive on to the III Corps headquarters at Bien Hoa. III Corps is a Vietnamese military command with U.S. advisors assigned at all levels down to battalion. I am lucky to catch a G-2 adviser at work as it is almost 12:00 o’clock on a Saturday. The ARVN quit the war at noon on Saturday and start again on Monday. With nobody to advise, the U.S. advisors often stand down during these periods also. With all business accomplished, I head back to Saigon. A couple of hours later I am in an air conditioned bar, drinking an icy beer, and watching a football game on television. It’s difficult to understand that in two more hours the freeway I just left will be closed down by the nightly curfew. Imagine driving to the outskirts of San Diego at night, heading for

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Los Angeles, and being stopped by a California Highway Patrol roadblock saying, “No go. VC. Charlie there.” The drive in the country is over. Postscript The concept of a national reconnaissance plan was to merge deployment information of ground reconnaissance and surface surveillance assets at every level with ongoing aerial reconnaissance. The J-2 (and visitors) could then be briefed daily with a five-minute display of charts and maps depicting information it had taken Ted and me weeks to uncover. My part of the plan was to put various colored dots on a map showing the locations of all USSF camps, Regional Forces locations and Popular Forces outposts. The USSF information was easy to obtain. I would collect the RF/PF data from U.S. advisers at corps level and below. The information Ted needed that day concerned, I believe, patrol assets responsive to II Field Force. The 18 March journal in Chapter 5 shows that I was still working on the national reconnaissance plan then.

FRIDAY 9 DECEMBER 1966—IDENTIFYING AND LOCATING THE ENEMY IV

“Dan, we’ve got a job that only you can do,” says the general. “I believe you,” answers Dan Flagg, Major, USMC, Trouble Shooter Deluxe, World Traveler, International Playboy, and Lover of Wine, Women, and Song. “Two senior Army officers in Nha Trang are in separate chains of command. One of them is refusing to cooperate with the other, and we don’t know which is the one. It’s your job to discover which one is the recalcitrant colonel, Dan.” “Yes, sir, I understand,” says Dan. On his last assignment, Dan spied on his fellow Marines at III MAF. On this one he will spy on the Army. Early the following morning Dan Flagg arrives at Tan Son Nhut airport. But wait! It can’t be! This can’t happen to Dan Flagg! Where’s the nearest latrine? (Latrine is the Army’s slang word for head.) It’s thirty-five minutes before take-off time. In thirty-five minutes Dan goes to the latrine six times. Even the great Dan Flagg can get the bug.

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No sensible man would get on an airplane in such a condition. He’s now getting sick at his stomach yet! It will be coming out of both ends all over the airplane! But Dan Flagg is not a mere man. Dan Flagg is a Major, USMC! Just give him a private corner on the plane and two barf bags, one for each end, and ignore him. The aircraft revs up, but before it can take off, someone in a jeep stops it. An Air Force senior sergeant opens the hatch and steps into the airplane. “Is Major Flagg here?” he asks. “Here,” gasps Dan Flagg. Maybe he won’t have to go after all. “Just wanted to be sure you are aboard, sir. My orders are not to let the aircraft leave the ground without you.” Dan Flagg thanks God that he got aboard, and didn’t have to be hunted down in the latrine. It’s hell to be popular. Dan Flagg, machine that he is, manages to spout nothing in either direction during the hour-and-a-half flight. At Nha Trang he visits two different headquarters. By use of namedropping, name-calling, cajoling, softness, sternness, and perspicacity, Dan Flagg gets the answer. With his sneaky report tucked away in his head, he is ready to return to Saigon. The situation will be squared away. Dan Flagg has saved the day! And, several hours later we find Dan Flagg back in his hotel room in Cholon, comfortably resting—on the toilet. It’s hell to be human. Postscript This was another situation that I reported light-heartedly (even though I was suffering from untreated amoebic dysentery) because of its sensitivity and gravity. Headquarters, 5th Special Forces, was located just outside of Nha Trang. The commander was a colonel, who carried out various missions for COMUSMACV, CINCPAC, and the CIA. Additionally, Special Forces teams and long-range patrols operated within each of South Vietnam’s four corps tactical zones. Superimposed geographically over three of the corps’ tactical zone commands were major American commands. One of these was I Field Force, in Nha Trang. Although command relationships within this maze were carefully structured in writing, such documents could not handle all the eventualities of personality. Exacerbating the situation was the animosity at many levels between so called “straightlegs” (non-parachute jumpers) and unconventionals.

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The most astounding part of this mission was that a Marine major was selected to nose around and see if individuals senior to him from two Army commands were “cooperating.” I found it so astounding that I hesitated to include the episode in this book, but it was in one of my journals, and my memory tells me it actually happened! I truly did get the answer by name-dropping, name-calling, cajoling, softness, sternness, and perspicacity. But even reporting the answer was an exercise in military courtesy and discipline. I reported—I believe correctly—that cooperation between individuals of the two commands appeared to be excellent at every area I visited. If I was wrong, at least in the future the two might cooperate enough so as to prevent interference from another spy from MACV.

SATURDAY 10 DECEMBER 196—BUYING WARRIORS

An Army lieutenant colonel at the MACV I compound asks me to drop by to discuss a study involving increases in indigenous (mercenary) troop strength.6 He wants to pick my brain about how the Montagnards and other indigenous troops are being administered, trained, and employed. He is sitting on a spring-backed secretary’s chair behind a small steel desk with a black vinyl top. An air conditioner in the window over the desk is spewing out air so frigid I wish I had a field jacket. The colonel’s brown hair has been trimmed into a stiff crewcut. He is wearing jump wings on his stiffly-starched khaki shirt, and says that he has served with Special Forces, but not with them in Vietnam. He tells me he hasn’t been outside of Saigon, and doesn’t expect to go. He says decisively that his job is so important that his boss won’t let him leave the office except to eat, sleep, and go to the latrine—and very little of any of those. The additional troop strength considered by his study could represent almost a doubling of the indigenous troops presently under the command of 5th Special Forces, so I brainstorm for other sources.7 I find that he has already researched almost every country that might have recruits likely to fight for the wages we would pay. And he has selected out the countries that would be politically unfeasible. After I give him some ideas, I ask, “Why don’t we hire three hundred thousand, colonel? Then we could all go home, except for some officers and NCOs to lead them. We could form our own foreign legion.”

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He doesn’t like for me to joke with him, so we return to our discussion. When we’re through, I turn to leave, eager to feel the warm air outside. Suddenly I remember something we haven’t discussed, and turn back. “What about the demobilization plan, colonel?” I ask. His face goes blank. “When the war’s over,” I say. “Oh,” he says, “we’ll just send them home. That’s a simple administrative move.” At first I think that he knows something I don’t about unconventional warfare. After all, he’s senior to me and says he is Special Forces trained. But I was called here to give advice, so I give it. Rather than quote the book to a senior officer, I provide an example. I explain that when Castro came down out of the mountains and took over Cuba, he had an army of insurgents, used to stealing, murdering, and otherwise disobeying their government’s laws. They had to be screened and retrained. Some had to be imprisoned. Others were not salvageable. The colonel’s face shows that he has learned something from a subordinate, but he doesn’t want to admit it. He stares at me for a moment, and says, “The war won’t end during my tour, major, so demobilization doesn’t belong in my study.”

WEDNESDAY 14 DECEMBER 1966—LIVING IN FILTH IN SAIGON

It started a week earlier when he had a steak sandwich. The meat was pink inside, but surely it was all right. After all, this is a Bachelor Officers Quarters! Surely the food here is safe! But who is kidding whom? A week after the sandwich, his working habits have changed. All plans must revolve around having a toilet nearby. This morning when he awakes, he uses the toilet three times before he dresses. His roommates also must use the head to get ready for work, so he remembers the toilets on the first floor. They are located next to the dining room. The elevator is not working, so he walks down the stairs, fast. It’s impossible to describe the condition of the first-floor toilets. They

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have been used over and over, without any flushing water. It wouldn’t be surprising if the Chinese owner of the hotel had cut off the water there in order to conserve costs. He climbs to the second floor to try the toilet next to the bar. It too is filled with filth. If the officers at MACV are being forced to live this way, how must the enlisted men be living? He runs back up the steps to the sixth floor, where he will encourage his roommates to let him have one more go at the toilet. Enough is enough. He decides that it’s time to check in at the dispensary. He is given a specimen box the size of a pint container of cottage cheese This should be interesting. However, he has had experiences like this. He has utilized a paper bag in the tail section of an airplane in extreme turbulence at 3,000 feet! The person in line in front of him and the two behind him have the same problem. Before long he gets the word. “Amoebic dysentery.” Welcome to the club. “It comes from contaminated food.” No kidding. At the prescription desk the Army medical officer says, “I’m going to give you some of—oops, sorry about that. Unexpectedly, we’re fresh out of our standard medication for your problem. But we’ll find a substitute that should work just as good.” My God, these people are something else. Finally the instructions arrive. “Two yellow pills three times daily, two brown pills four times daily for ten days, then stop for eight days, then recommence for ten more days.” My God, he had better write himself up a checklist to keep all of that straight! At the end of the twenty-eight-day period (excuse the pun), he will report back to see if it did any good. He later is told that the amoebae can live for years on a speck of dust. From personal observation, it looks like a good percentage of all Saigon/ Cholon residents use whatever dirt areas are available within the city for their bowel movements. Adults generally walk out of sight, but children just take off their pants, squat down, and stick their butts off the edge of the curbing. When it rains, there is no immediate drainage, so it all spreads throughout the area. Now, in the dry season, any speck of dust inhaled could have caused it. Whenever one blows his nose after having driven around the city for an hour, the handkerchief is black with dirt. The city lives in filth. How many dozen times has he played volley ball in the dust of the

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National Police track? Many a mouthful of dust and grime has resulted from slapping the ball above his face. He’s been playing in filth. But he prefers to believe that it was the steak sandwich which wasn’t cooked enough. After the blessed relief of the pills, he is happy that, even in this episode, he has gained something worthwhile. Although no one can distinctly remember pain, he knows that he has had a sample of the pains connected with childbirth, and he doesn’t care for it.

FRIDAY 16 DECEMBER 1966—COMRADES IN ARMS IX: AIR FORCE LIEUTENANT COLONEL HARRY HOLEMAN, COMMAND PILOT

Lieutenant Colonel Harry Holeman is five-feet, seven-inches tall and weighs 180 pounds. He is a feisty, chubby little man with neatly-trimmed once-dark hair that has turned gray with distinguished streaks of silver. With his thick trunk and round, puffy cheeks, he first presents the appearance of an Air Force officer nearing his fifties who is beyond his prime. He doesn’t even wear uniform shoes with his khaki tropical worsted uniform. (We will return to those shoes.) Harry’s appearance is only part of the total man. The other part is his personality. In his daily life in Saigon and Cholon he often performs coin tricks for Vietnamese children he encounters on the streets. If he sees a deck of cards he also will do card tricks that captivate Vietnamese of all ages. And he can keep a Vietnamese girl entranced as he “reads” her palm. In short, he seizes enjoyment by giving it to others. Although he wears command pilot’s wings, Harry is now a scientist with a master’s degree in physics. He is the MACV Science Advisor—a volunteer who wasn’t about to miss his third war. A typical Harry-ism is the way he uses his initials. He initials papers “H2” (H squared). Although Harry is supposed to be a scientist, he certainly doesn’t talk or act like one. He talks and swears like a fighter pilot, and with good reason. During the Korean War, Harry was a fighter pilot. He flew jets, and had no weight problem then. He ate three heavy meals each day to keep going. Now he gains weight on one meal per day, and doctors don’t know why.

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During World War II, Harry also was a fighter pilot, and eventually became the sole survivor of his original squadron. Later, when flying P39s over New Guinea, he was shot down, and crash-landed with a broken leg. He proudly says that he owes his life to the fuzzy-wuzzies, who carried him in a stretcher for days to get him off the mountains. By war’s end he was back in action, flying P-38s. Indeed, he says that he flew the very first P-38 in existence—two P-39 bodies held together by a nacelle fabricated for a cockpit. Harry’s father and mother had lucrative incomes as lawyers, but Harry says that he made more money in entertainment than both of his parents before he joined the Air Force. He spent years on the Major Bowes show as a soft-shoe dancer. He also performed a magician act—hence the coin tricks and the card tricks. His agility and balance made him one of the best table tennis players in the country—and to watch him playing the game today is to watch an incredible dynamo in control of the entire table. He is the only Air Force officer I’ve seen in country who wears a frame hat with his uniform; it adds a couple of inches to his height. And those shoes? He wears elevator shoes, just like he did years ago on the stage. That means he actually is hardly more than five-feet, five-inches tall in his bare feet. However, he confided to me that he always wears his shoes for his flight physicals, in order to meet the minimum height standard. This little man is married to a six-foot tall show girl named Dawn, who is fifteen years younger than him! Before he was married, he dated only show girls and models. He explained to me that they often are the loneliest and most accessible women in the world, because most men are afraid to approach them. Harry’s mother-in-law, little older than he is, served as a nurse in the South Pacific in World War II. Remembering her war, she sends Harry care packages of candy, cigarettes, and toilet paper. He doesn’t really need these exact items, but he writes her notes of thanks. This stems from his philosophy, which is, in his words, “Always figure out a way that everybody wins.” With such a varied past and present, what does Harry see for the future? Having been passed over for promotion to full colonel, he expects to retire soon after finishing this third war. Then he will form a company with some friends, which will produce various scientific innovations for the government and for industry. He also plans to obtain his doctorate.

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He declares that an advanced education does nothing more than teach you the language to use when associating with the people you want to deal with. But you must know the language. He has invited me to join if I should retire and get the required education. What is the point of Harry’s story? It exemplifies the enjoyment you can garner from a long, full life. A total man can enjoy his mature years, within himself, based upon his past and ongoing activities. He is a product of his total life. His story also represents something more. Many capable people are thinkers, while many others are doers, or action people. Harry has combined the experiences of a doer with the education and brain of a thinker.

SATURDAY 17 DECEMBER 1966—HOW TO HAVE FUN AS A SENIOR OFFICER

Once upon a time there were two Special Forces lieutenant colonels in Vietnam. One was the commanding officer of a “C” detachment, the headquarters for a group of “B” detachments and “A” detachments.8 The other was on the staff of the 5th Special Forces Group Headquarters. One day they decided to go into the bush just for the fun of it. Each arranged time off in order to join a unit that was embarking on a short operation. When the operation was over, one lieutenant colonel went to the hospital with dengue fever and pneumonia. He eventually will return to duty. The other went to the hospital with light shrapnel wounds in the back. He also suffers from a combination of malaria, dengue fever, and hepatitis, or maybe something else. He incidentally earned the Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest combat award. He will be evacuated to the States. He might live. High paid help are not supposed to take chances like that. If the lieutenant colonels had stayed home, the Special Forces wouldn’t be scurrying around trying to find replacements for two senior officers. Postscript It is interesting that I wrote no similar comment about the “highest paid fire team in Marine Corps history,” recounted in the Wednesday 17 August sec-

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tion in Chapter 1. Perhaps it’s because I felt the four-man team of Major General Walt, his brigadier general, and the two colonels who “led” the sweep were operating within their assignments, whereas the two Special Forces officers were taking a busman’s holiday. What would I have written if Walt’s team had stepped on a mine? Meanwhile, during this period, VC terrorists bombed a billet (hotel used as American quarters) in Saigon and another in Can Tho, wounding ten Americans. The VC also penetrated Tan Son Nhut airport (see Chronology entry for 19 December 1966). We in Saigon had speculated that the latter would happen when the Vietnamese barbers disappeared from the barbershops at Tan Son Nhut the day before the VC operation began.

MONDAY 19 DECEMBER 1966—IDENTIFYING AND LOCATING THE ENEMY V

The Vietnamese sell brightly painted, glazed ceramic elephants that would make memorable souvenirs of a year in this place, but it seems to be impossible to mail these elephants home. No matter how securely they are packed, they arrive in the States in shards. However, I learned that one member of the office had successfully mailed an unwrapped elephant. Uninsurable, it went by ship and delivery truck, and arrived intact in six weeks. It seems that, although a packaged elephant gets tossed around, everybody in the delivery chain handles an unwrapped one very carefully. The key is to mail an elephant early in your tour, so that if it does break, you can try a second one. I decided to buy a matching pair. If they both arrived, great, but if one was destroyed, I would have the backup. The elephants I bought were nine inches wide, by seventeen inches long, by eighteen inches high, and weighed forty pounds apiece. They were black, with a green saddle blanket trimmed with a half-dozen other colors. They stood on my desk at MACV III for two weeks, and on 1 November I decided it was time to mail one. I would wait a month to mail the second one, so they wouldn’t wind up clanking into each other in the same ship’s hold. I went to the U.S. post office, tied an address tag around the trunk and attached a customs card to one leg. I printed my name and return

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address on the base in indelible ink, and the elephant began a long journey. Perhaps I’d beaten the mail system. I sent my wife a tape, explaining that she might receive something large and unusual by mail in a month or so. I also said that she might receive a duplicate several weeks later. On 2 December, a month after I mailed the first ceramic elephant, I marked off one more month closer to going home. I also decided to mail the second ceramic elephant. Again I placed tags on trunk and leg, and printed an additional return address on the base, and the elephant was on its way. Perhaps I’d beaten the mail system again. Then I received a tape from my wife saying that, six weeks after I mailed the first one, the postman rang her doorbell in Oceanside, California, and said to her, “You’re not going to believe what I’ve got in the truck for you.” When he lugged the elephant to the door, she said, “Would you believe that you’ll have another one to deliver in a month?” 9 After listening to her tape, I read in the Stars and Stripes that the NCO I have dealt with in the post office has been charged with stealing money over a period of four months. He was charged because of complaints by wives in the States that they have not been receiving money orders their husbands have mailed. It looks like the postal NCO also has been beating the mail system. I’ve been a supply officer, and I’ve been the treasurer of a military club, and I’m keenly aware of the audits and other checks that will quickly expose incompetence and out-and-out thievery. One of an officer’s jobs is to insist upon carrying out such audits and checks, anywhere, under any circumstances. Where are the officers who are supposed to be doing this in Saigon?

FRIDAY 23 DECEMBER 1966—III MAF HEADQUARTERS REVISITED

I sit here alone this morning on the patio of the Officers’ Club at Headquarters III MAF. How many years ago did I sit at this very table and write a description of the sights around me? It was hot and dry then, and helicopters raised clouds of sand and dust. Now rain falls steadily through the gloom, and the dust has been re-

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placed by mud. The few people in boats on the river are wearing either raincoats or jackets. I am dry in my field uniform because a roof has been built over the patio since I was last here. A jumble of thoughts overwhelms me. • Flying in this rain is something else. We fly under the overcast, not far above the gray ocean. After an hour of that I feel that we are the only human beings alive on earth. • Air superiority means that the other side can’t fly aircraft in the battle area. Air parity means that both sides can fly. If the Communists could challenge our air superiority in South Vietnam, they would completely cripple our administration and logistics of this war. Let us hope that they don’t escalate and send MiGs south. • Vietnamese women transport tin pails of water hanging from either end of a stick, which they carry over one shoulder. We call it a chogy-stick because they handle their loads with a bouncing gait that we call “chogying along.” When I was discussing possible improvements in the traffic situation in Saigon, an American told me, “Don’t expect much. It’s taken these people 5,000 years to learn how to carry two pails of water on one stick and how to pick up one piece of rice with two sticks.” • It’s always a revelation to get back with the Marines. They continue to be the professionals of this war. Saigon worries that the North Vietnamese might mount a surprise attack. The Marines tell me that they wish they would. That’s what the Marines are here for—to kill the enemy. • The Australians now have an airstrip at Nui Dat. They fly twin-engine C-123s in and out of the strip in a tight corkscrew to avoid ground fire. They make a C-123 do what we can only do with a helicopter. Leave it up to the Australians. • The Australians pay their own way. They own everything they fight with. They tell me that the Koreans don’t even own the shirts on their backs. The U. S. of A. pays their way. Maybe four months from now I’ll again sit on the patio at III MAF Headquarters. Maybe I’ll wonder if there was ever any other life except this nightmare. Which one is real and which is the dream world?

TUESDAY 27 DECEMBER 1966—VIETNAMESE MEDICINE

Often you see what appear to be birthmarks on the skin of the Vietnam-

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ese. But those aren’t birthmarks. They are leech marks. If a Vietnamese has a sore throat, he might use a leech to take out the soreness. They also use leeches for sore legs and even headaches. Vietnamese with fever use a better cure than leeches. A Vietnamese “doctor” pinches them over almost every square inch of their bodies. They turn black all over, but at least they don’t feel the fever any more. They are too bruised from the pinching to feel any fever.10

SUNDAY 1 JANUARY 1967—NEW YEAR’S EVE 1966

This year’s celebration takes place in Saigon. It is far different from last year, when our family drove 150 miles from Woodbridge to Norfolk, Virginia, to be with our friends, Lieutenant Commander (Chaplain) Warren Bost and his wife Sally. Last year when the New Year arrived we and the Bosts joined hands and sang “Auld Lang Syne.” I had tears in my eyes because I knew that the next New Year’s Eve would be far, far different. So this year’s celebration is in Saigon. My friends Harry and Al, both Air Force lieutenant colonels, and I plan a party in Harry’s room. We pool our ration cards to buy champagne. I bring a barf bag full of ice from my hotel. Since they live in a different hotel than I, they have moved a cot into Harry’s room so that I can avoid the curfew. We talk and drink and there exists camaraderie. At midnight Al produces paper hats, along with horns and rattles. He also provides balloons, which we fill with non-potable water from the faucets and carry out to our fifth floor balcony. We “bomb Hanoi” by dropping the balloons onto the sidewalk below.11 We say, “Happy New Year,” blow horns, and drink champagne. Then we go to sleep.

TUESDAY 3 JANUARY 1967—DA NANG IN WINTER

My mission in Da Nang is to obtain a summary of III MAF’s long-range reconnaissance posture, now that the 3rdMarDiv has deployed north, near the DMZ, and the 1stMarDiv has moved up here from Chu Lai.

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Saigon is in its hot, humid, non-rainy season, but up here it is winter. That means rain, and rain has fallen for ten straight days and nights. The monthly average of rainfall for January was already reached by January second. This winter also is very cold for the tropics, made more chilling by a fierce wind. The ceiling varies from fifty to six hundred feet, blanketing our world like the nightmare of an incubus. The Marines are wearing field jackets, and waterproof coverings if they have them. The Vietnamese are wearing wool sweaters. The women have rolled their Ao Dais up over their knees in order to wade through the cold mud. This has become a hell of a climate to fight a war in. The Marines killed 1,000 a couple of days ago. Even the enemy wounded died, probably from drowning as they fell into the water through which they had been sloshing. I am driven in a jeep out to Camp Reasoner, which was the home of the 3rd Recon Battalion last summer. It was named posthumously for the commanding officer of “A” Company. Now that the 3rd Recon Battalion has moved to the north, Camp Reasoner has become the home of the 1st Force Recon Company and elements of the 1st Recon Battalion. History does not stand still. Except for the board floors of strong-backed tents, every place I walk is through deep, sucking, demanding mud. Marines who must be outside are layered with mud from the thighs down while rain water runs like flooding rivers over their upper bodies. Some wear ponchos. Some wear flak jackets, possibly just to keep warm. Recon teams that are out among the VC and the NVA are damn cold. Their only good news is that they will be out only a few days. Otherwise immersion foot would be their finish. But of course the Marines are accomplishing their mission. The incongruity of this war is always present. After a day in the rain and mud I find myself back in the Navy Officers’ Club in Da Nang. This is a recently-built stone building with lush carpeting in the bar and lounge. Some officers here are dressed in coat-and-tie uniforms! Some, like me, are dressed in combat clothes and mud! A Vietnamese rock-and-roll band begins its noise-making. A glossy poster announces that an American round-eyed female singer will appear soon. Navy nurses and their dates arrive to watch the entertainment.

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War is unfair to those who never have the chance to visit a club like this. War is also unfair to those who cannot take dates to a club like this. War is particularly unfair to those who become maimed. War is most unfair to those who die. I leave the club and check in to a dry BOQ room to prepare for another day of winter. I think I am lucky. But I’m not sure.12

THURSDAY 5 JANUARY 1967—THE 15TH AERIAL PORT AT DA NANG DURING THE RAINY SEASON13

The 15th Aerial Port at the Da Nang Air Base is a particularly dreary place during the rainy season. I arrive before dawn, but the dim lights inside this low-ceilinged barn clearly outline the mud that Marines have brought in. It smears the walls like stains made by horses rubbing themselves against any surface cleaner than they are. Some of the Marines look like unshaven, mud-wrapped mummies. Mud and grime destroy a lot of the outer human being. Other Marines are clean shaven and are wearing summer khaki. Among these are several captains who are sporting two and three rows of ribbons beneath their golden pilots’ wings, ribbons earned within the last six months. This group of Marines is going on R&R. In a corner, sitting on a suitcase, is a young captain wearing a uniform coat and tie yet! Sitting on the same suitcase is a very wholesome-looking American female who is dressed in stateside clothing, and even appears to be wearing hose. Maybe she is a stewardess from the big golden bird perched out on the airstrip. Perhaps she is the Marine captain’s wife, and has come to Vietnam to meet him at the start of his R&R. Maybe she is a nurse who also is going on R&R. In any event she is out of place somehow and doesn’t belong. And she and all the rest of us know it. There are no facilities within the structure for women. There aren’t even any facilities for men! At one end is a room with toilets that stopped up long ago and are overflowing with stink and filth. That room is now closed off by a door-sized red Christmas tinfoil decoration. Behind the terminal, in the center of a lake of ankle-deep water, is a country-style four-holer. The lake surrounding the privy abounds with floating feces and toilet paper from those who have already used the four-

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holer. The thought crosses my mind that you might as well just squat anywhere. Yes, the 15th Aerial Port at Da Nang is a particularly dreary place during the rainy season. The loudspeaker calls away those who are taking the R&R flight to Hawaii. They head out into the monsoon rain to board the Pan American Airlines Golden Bird. Before they can get aboard, their once clean, dry uniforms now look like ours. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the bird were downed by ground fire on takeoff? I suppose that everybody heading off for R&R thinks of that possibility. With nothing else to do, the rest of us watch that big airplane which is preparing to take some people back to a strange world. Suddenly our vision is blocked by a camouflaged F-4 Phantom II which is taxiing out to the runway. Its engine screams and roars like a beast from hell, and I yell, unheard, to lessen the pain in my ears. The pilot will launch his ordnance against North Vietnam before the Hawaii flight is even cleared for takeoff. Eventually the F-4 strike planes are launched and then the R&R bird flies away. Those of us remaining realize what a dreary place this terminal is during the rainy season.

THURSDAY 5 JANUARY 1967—THE 3RDMARDIV AT PHU BAI IN THE RAIN14

The home of the 3rdMarDiv’s headquarters was a pretty place during the dry season, near the ocean, and overlooking miles of white flatlands. But the rainy season is something else. As my aircraft touches down today, the sky and ground weld together like gray steel. Light rain glistens like freezing rain and snow, and it feels like it. It is truly field jacket weather up here. People are cold and miserable throughout the TAOR of the 3rdMarDiv. My driver slogs our four-wheel drive vehicle out along Highway 1 toward the Division Command Post. At the entrance of the division area we forsake a watery road, and head across-country, ploughing through a footdeep layer of viscous mud. The driver explains that this flatland is easier than the overused road, which is like quicksand. When the 3rd Recon Battalion’s troops are at the base camp here, they live pretty comfortably in tents with raised wooden floors. But when

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they are on patrol in enemy territory in this weather, they don’t live quite so well. They earn their combat pay. After I have obtained the information I came for, I am soon back at the airstrip hoping to hitch-hike a ride to Da Nang. I eventually get the last unfilled seat on a C-123 which is camouflaged but has no other outer markings. The Marine in front of me in the boarding line says that the pilot looks like a Vietnamese. As I climb aboard, I see that the crew chief is in civilian clothes. He is oriental. I discover that the last seat—mine— has no seat belt. Rather than go back and stand in the cold mud of Phu Bai, I decide to take my chances with no seat belt in an aircraft of unknown origin with a pilot from an unidentified country. I hope he’s not flying to Hanoi!15 Twenty-five minutes after take-off we taxi into the Air America terminal at Da Nang. I’d been flying on the CIA’s private airline and didn’t even know it. The rain has stopped and the clouds are lighter and brighter. It’s almost warm. The world looks better. Let us hope that this brightness and warmth travels up to the twenty or thirty thousand members of the 3rdMarDiv who are mucking around at Phu Bai, Dong Ha, and points north and west.

FRIDAY 6 JANUARY 1967—THE CITY OF DA NANG FIVE MONTHS LATER16

It is a pleasure to return to Da Nang after having been in Saigon. Of course Da Nang is still Vietnam in wartime, but several aspects place it far above Saigon. Although they may do it here, I have not seen a child squat on a curb and defecate. I have not seen a filthy beggar child of six or seven approach with a cigarette butt hanging from its mouth. I have never seen an adult professional beggar sticking his deformed limb up at me as I walk by. I have not seen mountains of garbage piled across the sidewalks as in Saigon. Neither have I recoiled from stink, which even in the rainy season pervades Saigon from the city’s core to its edges. Many of the people here wear western-style clothes now. It is easy to

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tell when such clothes get dirty, and those of most of the people not involved in manual labor look clean. The most impressive thing about returning to Da Nang is the friendliness of the people. Many behave as if they actually like Americans. Somehow there is a sparkle in their eyes that makes them look more human than their Saigon counterparts. It might be because these are country people in a big country town. It might also be the effect of security upon these people, caused by the TAOR concept of the Marines here. Another factor is that Da Nang has been virtually out-of-bounds to Marines on liberty for almost nine months. However, the people of Da Nang still have a lot in common with those of Saigon. Yesterday I watched a “White Mouse” (Quan Canh, or National Policeman) standing at the corner of a one-way street, trying to keep the bicycle riders and motor scooter riders from going the wrong way. They would ignore him until he blew his whistle every twenty to thirty seconds. Eventually he gave up and left. This morning I watched a street worker accidentally back his truck into a girl and knock her off her bicycle. He didn’t even turn around to look at her. A senior officer from Latin America once told me that you cannot expect people with unwashed bodies to be interested in embracing democratic principles. They are more concerned with finding soap and getting clean. But, with a little luck, in ten or twenty years the people of Da Nang might have a chance.

SUNDAY 8 JANUARY 1967—MARINE RECON TEAM WINS TRUCE VICTORY

During the truce a Marine sergeant was leading a small recon patrol in northern I Corps. The patrol was stationary, its members flattened into the mud like salamanders, and had heard movement on both sides of its location for most of the day. The sergeant reasoned that it was the enemy looking for his patrol. Visibility decreased, and he decided that it was safe to get up and take a look. Glory be, there they were, NVA marching four abreast for as far as he could see! They were carrying small arms, machine guns, and mortars

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as they moved south toward an attack position. They had been marching past him like that all day, just like on a parade ground, four by four by four! He immediately radioed his report to the recon battalion command post, and was told to stand by. It looked to him as if the Communists were going to get by with this deception. But he didn’t know that certain quiet arrangements had been made earlier which would take care of this sort of Communist duplicity. The end of the column came in sight, and he requested permission to follow. Permission was denied. He cursed to himself. Meanwhile the recon battalion commander was briefing the division commander, who in turn talked to General Westmoreland. A decision was made. The patrol leader was told to withdraw from the enemy column rapidly and to report when he was a safe distance away. The sergeant knew what was going to happen! When he reached a safe distance, he reported back to his battalion CP. Then it seemed as if the end of the world had come! Artillery poured down on the enemy unceasingly. Above the artillery was Marine air. Each aircraft carried a full load of 500-pound bombs. The sergeant and his men had buried themselves up to their necks in mud for safety. Nevertheless, the earth was shaking them like they were in a bowl of Jell-O pudding on top of a sledge hammer. Never before had they witnessed such a demonstration of destruction! But one unshakable reality in the mind of each patrol member was the knowledge that their patrol had produced a great victory during the “truce.” Postscript In journalizing this “Stingray” patrol action that was described to me by one of the recon battalion officers, I incorrectly wrote that the patrol leader was a sergeant. Walt wrote in 1970 that the fourteen men of the patrol were led by 2nd Lieutenant Jerry E. Siler, one of the old lieutenants with a Silver Star from the Korean War. Additionally, Walt states that Siler’s chain of communication, described in a succeeding paragraph, would have gone to the recon battalion commander, to the division commander, to Walt as commander of III MAF, then to Westmoreland in Saigon (49–51).

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MONDAY 9 JANUARY 1967—COMRADES IN ARMS X: LIEUTENANT COMMANDER PHIL ROCHFORD, DENTIST.

As I prepare to leave the III MAF compound for Saigon, I stop by to greet an old friend from the USS Bon Homme Richard. Lieutenant Commander Phil Rochford is a dentist who has spent some time out in the gore and filth of this war, where he quickly learned what Marines do when they are not on aircraft carriers. After practicing dentistry under fire until it was no longer practice, he was ordered back to the comfort of III MAF headquarters to complete the final three months of his tour of duty. The outer door to the dental dispensary is locked. Somebody in the hallway tells me that the dentist locks it when working on a patient so he won’t become unduly disturbed by the unexpected entrance of visitors. I knock and the dental assistant (Dental Technician) inside unlocks the door for me. He escorts me formally past an empty dental chair into a screened inner office. Soft stereo music permeates the air. As cold as the weather is, an air conditioner is operating. Sitting at a polished desk and reading the Stars and Stripes is a blackhaired, brown-eyed dental officer wearing immaculately starched Navy khakis. Phil is living a little better now than when he was up near the DMZ, working on Marines who, he says, “would even put up with a manually operated drill to get away from the hell of direct artillery fire for an hour.” The assistant re-locks the door. From his desk drawer Phil retrieves two open cans of beer, and hands one to the assistant. He reaches over to a refrigerator and pulls out an unopened can for me! “We always take a break before lunch,” he says. So here we sit in comfort, talking of other times and countries, until time for the noon meal, then it’s back to work for him, for he has an afternoon appointment—and to Da Nang Air Base for me.

MONDAY 9 JANUARY 1967—HOW TO GET AN AIR MEDAL OR A PURPLE HEART

Still smiling about my dentist friend, I catch a Marine carryall that drops me off at Da Nang airbase. When the incoming silver-and-white Market

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Time C-47 I am awaiting lands and pulls up on the apron, I find a vehicle and hitch a ride out to the bird. After the passengers debark, the pilot and co-pilot climb down the ladder. Thus starts experience number two for this day. The pilot is Lieutenant Commander Leo Hester, my former roommate in Saigon. The presence of a friend changes the outlook of what was going to be another long, boring five-hour flight to Saigon. When it’s time to board, I find a seat and automatically fall into my Pavlov-dog reaction of instant sleep. After we are airborne, Leo comes back and awakens me. He asks me to come up front where I can enjoy the view. I go forward and he gives me the pilot’s seat. The co-pilot, to my left, is flying the plane through the monsoon weather, paying constant attention to keep it where he wants it. Leo is heating “C” rations and coffee, and the aroma eases past my nostrils on its way out the open right-hand window. Soon Leo and I are enjoying our repast. We are flying just off the coast at 500 feet. As we approach a long neck of land that would take an extra ten minutes to fly around, Leo and the co-pilot discuss whether to cut across. Well, I’ve flown around this country a hell of a lot, and I don’t particularly care for flying over any of it at 500 feet in a bird as big and slow as a C-47. And sure as hell, as we are over the middle of this neck of land, through the window I hear, “zap-zap; zap-zap-zap-zap-zap” and see muzzle flashes on the ground. It sounds like a BAR, either captured from the French or from U.S. Special Forces indigenous troops. I don’t like being shot at when I don’t need to be, and I swear at my friend Leo for flying so low over this piece of land. He laughs and says that, if he gets a hole in the airplane, it counts as a double mission toward his next air medal. When I tell him that it does nothing for me, he says, “You might get a Purple Heart.” Anyway, the ones you’ve heard can’t come back to hurt you, and we took no hits. The final astonishing experience of the day is that, two hours later I am in civilian clothes on a roof-top patio in Saigon, attending a goingaway party for three fellow officers. And once again we are in total comfort. The war is astonishing for those who are not in the infantry battalions. They seem to be in and out of it all at the same time. Some laugh at it, but some die of it.

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WEDNESDAY 11 JANUARY 1967—HOW TO MATCH THE NORTH VIETNAMESE STRATEGY OF ATTRITION

Although these trips around the country become pretty matter of fact after a few months (three minutes after I am airborne my eyeballs go click-click and I am asleep), sometimes something different occurs. Today I am taking Ted Fielding’s new boss—an Army colonel—on an orientation visit to the Special Forces headquarters in Nha Trang. It seems that a general rates an aide, staff secretary, and stewards, but a colonel rates none of these. So he just draws a Marine major from supply channels to accompany him, and the major naturally takes care of all the chores that aides, staff secretaries, and stewards do for generals. We will take a U-8 for this trip. A U-8 is an Army airplane for VIPs. It is a small twin-engine aircraft that holds four to six persons. This one is shiny on the outside and carpeted on the inside. The only thing wrong with it is that it won’t fly. After roaring down the length of the runway and barely lifting into the air, we make the shortest trip possible back to the starting point and drop back to the deck. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Our second U-8 takes off and, after we finally get the landing gear unjammed and raised, we are on our way. I don’t know if anybody shot at us this trip because VIP planes fly high, when they fly at all. At Nha Trang, we are met by a Special Forces captain whom I recognize as having just come from the “A” Team at Khe Sanh.17 He will take us to briefings on the MACV Recondo School and Special Forces Project Delta. The recondo briefer tells us that General Westmoreland conceived the recondo concept when he was commanding general of the 101st A/B Div at Fort Campbell. A recondo graduate is somewhat like a junior ranger, but, unlike the more selective ranger school, every soldier has an opportunity to earn the recondo patch. In the Marine Corps we earn the equivalent in boot camp, and call it the Marine Corps emblem. Project Delta is a long-range reconnaissance patrol operation which employs patrols composed of two or three U.S. Special Forces and five to seven indigenous troops. The briefings seem very basic to me, but as I listen to the new guy’s comments and questions, I realize just how much a professional has to

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learn every time he starts a tour here in order to be effective. Should the tour of duty be only twelve months (thirteen in III MAF)? Considering the number of professionals I’ve met who have extended, it seems that it should be something longer. But there’s another aspect to this orientation business. As a Marine officer I expect any officer senior to me to know more about our profession than I do. Sometimes I’ve found this not to be the case. In today’s situation, the new guy tells me, “I don’t need any more briefings here. I know all about this long-range patrolling stuff, because I helped write the book about it in North Africa in World War II.” I hope that he never uses his twenty-year-old knowledge of mechanized desert patrols to send me on a ground recon patrol in the jungle in Vietnam. The briefings ended, we are led to the building where the commanding officer of the 5th Special Forces resides, and are shown our quarters. They are something else. As I enter this palace, I find the Special Forces staff gathering for a drink prior to the evening meal. In fact we have several. Suddenly I am aware of the company I am keeping. I am the only Marine and the only major, and sitting around me are two colonels and five lieutenant colonels from the Army. They are talking about which generals should become the Army’s future Chiefs of Staff. Who would have believed seventeen years ago that Private Edwards someday would be at home in an atmosphere like this? After a meal which never could be equaled in Saigon, and arrangements for tomorrow’s schedule, it’s time to sleep in the healthy surroundings which are far, far removed from the filth of Saigon. Postscripts Just prior to this trip, Ted and I had bid farewell to his former boss, Colonel John T. Little, as he was preparing to board his plane for home. He was standing at the foot of the ramp, smoking and chewing on the usual cigar, and rasping out orders to a circle of subordinates as if he would be back incountry in a matter of hours. Colonel Little (even other colonels called him “colonel”) was a man who once almost sold a plan to completely reorganize MACV, which incidentally would have placed an Army officer in charge at almost every level. He was a man who had made himself the gatekeeper to the J-2’s private office. And he

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was the man who had launched Ted and me on missions unlike any we could have envisioned. Little’s modus operandi could not be duplicated, and his replacement would be reassigned not long after this orientation trip. Ted’s and my surface surveillance branch would be used less and less, and would go out of business when we rotated. The name of Little’s replacement has been withheld.

When I returned to Saigon, I discussed the twelve-month tour with Ted Fielding, as well as with Harry Holeman and Harry’s Air Force friend from J-4, Lieutenant Colonel Al Martin. I proposed that we should recommend a policy of “go over and stay over” until the war was won. The benefits would be many. Every officer and enlisted man coming into country would need only a one-time indoctrination. Everybody here would be highly motivated to do whatever he had to in order to win the war, so he could go home. The arithmetic of our in-country buildup would be simplified. We would eliminate the monetary costs of rotating all hands every twelve months. And we just might possibly be matching the policy that the North Vietnamese already had found effective. More than twenty years later Sheehan would write that men from private first class to colonel were rotating just as they were becoming experienced. The turnover was twice as fast for commanders below division level because their tours were normally six months (650). Karnow would add that infantry officers thought the rotation system was too short to develop the esprit de corps needed for morale and combat effectiveness (16). Even if I could have been heard, Newsweek had already reported that McNamara had declared that twelve-month tours would remain (“The War in Vietnam,” 24 October 1966, 51). This was in support of Westmoreland’s earlier decision that a one year tour gave the troops a goal (Westmoreland, 295).

THURSDAY 12 JANUARY 1967—THE 4TH U.S. INFANTRY DIVISION MAKES ITS MARK

As the new colonel and I finish an excellent-by-any-standards breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, chipped-beef on toast and coffee at Headquar-

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ters 5th Special Forces Group at Nha Trang, we hear high-performance aircraft screaming overhead. We step outside to watch an air strike on a hill mass six clicks (kilometers) away. This is the culmination of the contact that was made there yesterday by the CIDG element of the Nha Trang defensive forces. With coffee cups in hand, we idly watch the hell of war from a distance that gives it grace and beauty. Meanwhile the loudspeaker in front of the headquarters building is contributing some of the latest music for listening. We cannot stay for the last air act because I must take the new guy on to Pleiku. At Pleiku we visit the headquarters of the 4th Infantry Division, late of Fort Lewis, Washington. I last visited these folks three months ago when they were taking over operational control of their newly assigned division TAOR. They then had the look of a unit new in country, complete with leather combat boots, stateside field uniforms, and sparkling clean equipment and helicopters. Their entire G-2 section occupied one tent. I was told they had gone to war with 6,000 civilians. I see no civilians today. Officers and men are wearing jungle boots and jungle fatigues. Their equipment is worn and filthy, but serviceable. The G-2 section has become a multi-roomed complex in order to accommodate this war. Most important, they have met and destroyed a division of the North Vietnamese Army. They have arrived! Our next stop is for a quick visit to the Special Forces “C” detachment at Pleiku. I meet with a captain whom I last saw at Duc Co three months ago, before the North Vietnamese division over there had been defeated.18 The team was waiting for the attack when I was there, but it never took place because the U.S. 4th Infantry Division arrived and attacked first. The operation was called “Paul Revere IV.”

THURSDAY 12 JANUARY 1967—TROPIC LIGHTNING: THE 25TH U.S. INFANTRY DIVISION19

The 25thInfDiv still impresses me as much as it did the first time I visited it. Except for the Marines in I Corps, the 25th probably is not equaled in its ability to coordinate with the ARVN at all levels and to integrate intelligence with instant reaction by combined forces. Now that the division has been in country another four months, fewer

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of its members from Hawaii are still with it. But the aloha spirit continues. I meet a lieutenant colonel who is the type of professional that makes this division what it is. He is severely crippled from wounds incurred when he commanded a rifle company in Korea. Nevertheless, he spent his first six months in Vietnam as an active infantry battalion commander with the 25th Division. During the next six months he was the Division G-2 (Intelligence) officer. Then he moved to the full colonel’s job of Division G-3 (Operations). Naturally he extended six months for that job. In just eighteen months he has been a successful combat battalion commander, G-2 and G-3—an entire career. An outstanding young captain commands the division’s long-range patrol unit.20 He, of course, is happy professionally to have one of the more important jobs in the division. His boss tells me that a patrol of his provided the intelligence that helped precipitate Operation Attleboro. Postscript The lieutenant colonel who impressed me explained that when he was G-2 he had advised the Vietnamese that he would react to their intelligence without question. So, if told there would be a VC cadre meeting in a certain time and place, he would infiltrate a unit to that location and expect to kill or capture the cadre. As G-3, he had continued this modus operandi, and recommended it be suggested to other organizations, which I did. His name was not recorded and cannot be recalled. It is interesting that Bergerud’s section on intelligence in the 25thInfDiv indicates that the amount of intelligence provided below the division level— particularly in the years after my visit—seldom reached the level desired (99– 105). Hence we find troops in line companies complaining about intelligence not coming down the chain of command, and the MACV headquarters sending me to find intelligence that hadn’t come up the chain of command. This is not unusual when considering that a major factor in winning any battle comes from making sense of the confusion and chaos that begins when the first round is fired. And at no time in my experience then or later have I encountered anybody, including me, who didn’t want more intelligence.

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FRIDAY 13 JANUARY 1967—THE RUNG SAT SPECIAL ZONE

Ted Fielding and I selected the word “surface” advisedly when we obtained approval to name our organization the Surface Surveillance and Reconnaissance Section. The term “surface” authorizes us to monitor ground, nearshore, and riverine collection operations. Our section has become a point of contact for ground collection activities, as well as nearshore employment of Swift Boats and the junk fleet. Now it’s time to add the Rung Sat Special Zone. The Rung Sat is the zone between the port of Saigon and the open sea that includes the river entrance to the port.21 None of the U.S. Services wants anything to do with it, but somebody must be responsible. If the VC should control it, they would control the port. They obviously intend to, because they already have installed hidden “factories” down there.22 Since the area is all marsh and river, the U.S. Navy gets responsibility by default. I am told that the Rung Sat has always been oriental pirate country and always will be. Pirate loyalties go to money sources rather than to whatever regime might be in control in Saigon. But it doesn’t matter whether the enemy are VC, or pirates working for VC. The name of the game in the Rung Sat is riverine warfare. For this first visit to the Rung Sat, Ted Fielding and I fly to Nha Be (Nah Bay) by chopper. Just off of Nha Be, we circle a steel-hulled ship resting on the river bed. My headset clicks on, and the pilot says that the ship was sunk by a VC command-detonated mine some weeks ago.23 She was loaded with cement when she went down, and now she’s full of solid concrete. Nobody has figured out how to move her, and the pilot suggests just naming her “Concrete Island.” We circle around to a landing pad on the peninsula, and as we settle onto the pad we blow huge clouds of sand into SEAL troops that are taking their morning runs. A SEAL is the Navy’s contribution to guerrilla warfare. The letters stand for SEa, Air and Land, and that is exactly where a SEAL operates. A SEAL can parachute jump, scuba-dive, and perform offensive reconnaissance functions on land or water. SEALs are naturals for the Rung Sat. Also operating in the Rung Sat are Vietnamese River Assault Groups (RAGs), or junk fleets, as well as USN Patrol Boats, River (PBRs). The PBRs, commanded by petty officers, make contact nightly. They are much

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smaller than Swift Boats, and each crew member must contribute to the fire power necessary to win an engagement. Because of the decentralized nature of small unit operations in the Rung Sat, and because most of the Americans here are volunteers by nature and by choice, morale is high. Deployed with the Navy personnel here are, of course, Marines. I meet a forty-year-old, newly-commissioned, ex-enlisted Marine lieutenant with a classic dark brown, long-handled mustache.24 He has just extended for six months and is deeply engrossed in his job. He presently is having quarters built for his enlisted men. He explains that they are living in a village next to the compound, and that his supply NCO is living in the old village jail. It’s a Yangtze River atmosphere that Old China Marines of the twenties and thirties well remember. Ted Fielding, who operated with UDT during the Korean War, is in his element here. But it’s an interesting visit for both of us. I think that I will come back here one of these days. After being briefed by the senior U.S. Advisor at Nha Be, we return to the helicopter pad. While waiting for our chopper we watch the SEALs in training. A team of three attach themselves to the end of three long ropes, which are dangling from a hovering helicopter. Then up goes the chopper and they fly around the area at sixty knots. It looks like a lot of fun, except that it is designed for the seriousness of war, so we decide not to interrupt their training by asking for a ride. Besides, it is Friday the thirteenth, and I wouldn’t want to tempt the odds. A large fuel truck mushes past on the sand, and the entire peninsula shakes like jelly! What an interesting place is the Rung Sat Special Zone. We fly back to Saigon inside a helicopter instead of hanging from the outside. Postscript Our mission was to see how the SEALs meshed with other in-country surface collection, and to establish ourselves as a point of contact at MACV, which we did. This included placing us on distribution for the PBR ops reports and arranging to participate in PBR patrols. SEALS had been supporting Operation Game Warden in the Rung Sat Special Zone and the Mekong Delta since 1966. Game Warden’s mission was to interdict infiltration, disrupt VC operations, and protect the main ship-

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ping channel to Saigon. The SEALs performed counterguerrilla operations, recon patrols, ambushes, listening-post operations, and raids into VC territory. They were inserted on many of these missions by PBRs from the fleet of 250 assigned to Game Warden. The PBR was a thirty-one-foot-long boat with a fiberglass hull, and was driven by a water-jet system, allowing it to operate in extremely shallow water. It carried a crew of four and was armed with .50-caliber machine guns, M-60 machine guns, and grenade launchers. (See Cutler, especially 140–67.)

SATURDAY 14 JANUARY 1967—THE MEKONG DELTA

I was told that one-fourth of all the people in Vietnam live in the Mekong Delta, and they produce one-third of all the rice.25 Yet the scope of our efforts in this important area doesn’t nearly match the major U.S. buildup in the other parts of the country. We have ignored the Delta because of political reasons, and because of the mathematical fact that there aren’t enough U.S. forces to go around.26 We have been content just to send advisors to the Vietnamese units (ARVN). The ARVN have not disturbed the VC too much. And the VC have considered the Delta as “theirs” without disturbing the ARVN too much. All this will change as we continue to increase the U.S. presence. Ted Fielding and I are on a mission to review intelligence collection and dissemination in the Delta, and the intelligence interface between U.S. advisors there, the MACV staff in Saigon, and the Marines. Why the Marines? Because the Vietnamese Marines and the American Marines occasionally conduct amphibious operations in the Delta (called “Deckhouse” operations) to keep the VC off-balance.27 On this trip I see that the Delta is truly the Vietnamese version of farmland. It is flat, with an average elevation of three feet above sea level, and it is nothing like the riverine marsh that I saw in the Rung Sat Special Zone. When Ted Fielding and I debark at the Can Tho (Can Toe) air strip, I confront a familiar face and name tag.28 He is Rick McMillan, a short, slim Army captain who should be a Marine major. He and I were lieutenants in 1957 in Hawaii. He told me then that he planned to go to medical school, but I really didn’t believe that a hard charging lieutenant would

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leave the Marine Corps, particularly Marine Corps recon. Indeed he did, and spent four years in medical school. Marines use Navy doctors, so after graduation he approached the Navy, but was offered only an ensign’s commission. The Army offered first lieutenant, so he resigned his Marine Corps Reserve captain’s commission and became an Army first lieutenant, then was promoted to captain. He is now a flight surgeon. Besides trading his Marine commission for an Army one, he also had to trade his wife for a woman who didn’t mind living sparsely while her husband went back to college. Sorry about that. But now, at age thirty, he has the family that fits and the profession he desires. Ten years brings many changes, and time never can be turned back. We both realize that we no longer have a great deal in common. We who were good friends and mutually respected professionals are now strangers. So, with promises to see each other again someday, we speak Sayonara and go about our respective businesses. The town of Can Tho is something else. It is clean, quiet, and calm, and has no comparison with the filth and miseries of Saigon. The town has known little terrorism. You would hardly believe that damn near everything outside the city limits belongs to Charlie. The life of an advisor begins to look like a pretty soft deal to me, with a five-and-a-half-day a week job and noontime siestas. But I change my opinion when I meet an Army aviator captain, and discover that he has been recommended for the Medal of Honor.29 A few days ago he threw himself on a grenade that was lobbed onto the Can Tho airstrip into a bunch of Americans. The grenade didn’t go off, but his face still carries an expression of doubting belief. So who knows what kind of a job is a “soft” job in a guerrilla environment? At IV Corps Headquarters I meet a fellow Marine major with a story straight from the comics. He was on a three-year tour in Subic Bay in the Philippines with his family. Being a Marine and being so close to the war, he suffered greatly from “left-out-itis.” Then he got a chance to go on Operation Deckhouse V as a liaison officer with the Marines in the Delta. Outstanding! When he arrived aboard ship he was told that, since he was assigned as a liaison officer, he would be the liaison officer to Headquarters, IV Corps. Very well. He squared away his pack and drew his D-Day-minusone rations and ammo. And he flew ashore, even before the assault waves!

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He arrived at Can Tho and was assigned to live in a villa. So he participated in Operation Deckhouse V from a villa, and was the only one there who had no civilian clothes to wear into town in the evenings. Sorry ’bout that, major. You’re not by yourself. After completing our business, Ted and I catch our flight back to Saigon. The Delta is beautiful from the air and it’s easy to forget that men kill men down below. But then we see an air strike, which we must fly around, and there is no doubt that down there men are still killing men. It makes me wonder how a Vietnamese can decide that the Communist cause is worth killing and maiming his fellow countrymen for. These people have enough unhappiness in their lives without having to go around beheading women and chopping hands off of children. Yet, I suppose that our own Civil War seems just as senseless to a foreigner. Maybe some day the human race will be allowed to grow up. Postscripts Regarding the Medal of Honor recommendation, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Al Martin, who sat on one of the awards boards in Saigon, told me that when the recommendation came through, the citation read that the aviator captain “fell” on the grenade rather than “threw himself” on the grenade. The board decided that the writer had used the verb “fell” because no witness could affirm that he “threw himself,” therefore the board recommended that a lesser medal be awarded.

The Deckhouse operations, like many operations with the Vietnamese, were poorly-kept secrets. I had recently encountered long-time friend Major Robert Fischer walking down a Cholon sidewalk, wearing a Vietnamese Marine advisor’s tiger suit. After a hand-shake reunion, I said, “I see you’re going to land in the Delta.” “Yes,” he said. “Looks like it’ll be a walk in the sun though, since the VC know we’re coming. I don’t even need a copy of the operation plan. I’ll just take this along.” He flashed a copy of Saigon’s English language newspaper, The Times of Vietnam.

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FRIDAY 20 JANUARY—MEETING YOURSELF COMING AND GOING

After training for seventeen years, going to war for the first time launched me unexpectedly into a series of psychological adjustments to the idea that I might not return. At first, in spite of volunteering, I sometimes felt enraged that I might die while some people who would never come over here would waste their lives in what I perceive as relative mediocrity. In time, my selfish feelings have been replaced with guilt for the unnecessary anguish my family would undergo if another kind of selfishness should cost them their husband, father, and son. Then I have rationalized that, if I should die, it would make no difference whether it is now or later, because all military professionals will be here eventually, to find their own destiny. And I have realized that a hundred years from now nobody will know or care whether I died here and now, or in bed as an old man a few years later. The famous Marine’s exhortation to leave the trenches and charge into machine gun fire during World War I addressed that attitude: “Come on you sons-of-bitches, do you want to live forever?” When confronted by it long enough, any acute danger loses its sharpness. Eventually the possibility of death becomes just another chronic factor lurking on the edge of consciousness, like the chance of getting leprosy if you live and work in a leper colony. The impact of this change is like shifting gears in a drag race, bringing a rock-solid reaction of stoic exhilaration. This adjustment in attitude can keep your mind spinning like a weather vane in a tornado, until you tend to see Vietnam as your permanent temporary job. It becomes logical to think about extending your tour. If you decide to, you must make the decision early enough to accommodate the personnel people in Washington. With an extension comes a thirty-day leave in the States, if you want it. Then you’ll be back here, doing something you know how to do without spending months breaking in. But there are quite logical reasons not to extend. The Marine major who extended and went up to serve with the Marines in I Corps for six months is a prime example. Fate only allowed him two weeks before he was killed, just like it was telling all of us something. I’ve already volunteered more than most people, and I no longer have to prove anything to myself. So how much longer should I keep volunteering? Until I get killed? I decide not. If it’s going to happen after this

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first twelve months, let it happen during the next normal rotation cycle. Let fate decide, not me. I know that I’ll be returning to Vietnam soon enough, along with everybody else . . . again and again until this war is over. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Harry Holeman says it best. “Spend some time with your family, Fred, before you come back. If you extend over here, you’re going to meet yourself coming and going.” Postscript The famous Marine’s name was known to Marines of many generations, Gunnery Sergeant Daniel Joseph Daly. During World War I, at 1700 on 6 June 1918, the 4th Marine Brigade was to begin its assault on Belleau Wood, but was pinned down in the trenches by German machine gun fire. Daly rose and raised his bayoneted rifle over his head with a forward sweep, yelling the famous quotation to his men. The Marines followed him and, with great casualties, carried Belleau Wood. The French later permanently renamed the wood, “The Wood of the Marine Brigade.” Daly had earned a Medal of Honor as a private for action during the Boxer Rebellion in Peking 14 August 1900. He earned a second Medal of Honor as a gunnery sergeant in Haiti for actions on 22 October 1915. (Samarov, “Will Dan Daly Be There When We Need Him?” Also see U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Labor and Public Welfare. Subcommittee on Veterans’ Affairs. Medal of Honor 1863–1963. “In the Name of the Congress of the United States.” GPO, 1968.)

1

On 7 November 1966 Newsweek reported that 40,000 Koreans were fighting in

Vietnam (“The Visit to Cam Ranh Bay,” 7 November 1966, 24). 2 The duty officer’s job was to answer phone calls for key officers who worked in the compound, and, depending upon the urgency, either call the individuals or prepare notes for distribution the following morning. 3 See sketch maps 1 and 4, pp.262, 265. 4

This was brought home to me on my return when I heard on the radio of a

firefight that was occurring in the area through which I was driving. I never heard a shot. 5

Palmer writes that in March 1967 the senior officers of II FFV were living in a

complex of villas and compounds in Bien Hoa, and were ferried to and from II FFV

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headquarters at Long Binh morning and evening at precisely the same time. When Palmer took command of II FFV, he changed the policy and made the headquarters operational 24 hours per day (53–54). 6 Name not recorded and not remembered. 7

Newsweek reported that, in 1969, 5th Special Forces (and reportedly the CIA)

controlled 40,000 Meos, Montagnards, Cambodians and Nungs. The article stated that this did not include forces reportedly operating in Laos under U.S. control, but under command of indigenous commanders (“The War in Vietnam,” 25 August 1969, 26). 8

Ted Fielding told me what had happened to these two lieutenant colonels.

Although I had met them, I cannot recall their names. 9 The same mail carrier who delivered the first elephant to my wife delivered the second one almost exactly one month later. 10

Harry Holeman gave me the information for this journal. He said that the

woman who was his maid and laundress told him. 11 We often had cursed in frustration at the futility of letting the enemy fight a total war while we couldn’t. It wouldn’t be until 19 May of the new year that U.S. aircraft finally would bomb downtown Hanoi with real bombs for the first time (Danniell, 964). 12

During the year that ended on 31 December, 5,008 Americans were killed in

Vietnam (Maclear, 147). 13 I would have been waiting for a plane to go north. See sketch maps 1 and 2, pp. 262, 263. 14

My mission was to obtain updates on Marine recon operations since the move

of the 3rdMarDiv to the DMZ and the 1stMarDiv to Da Nang. As depicted, operations were continuing in spite of the weather. 15

The unmarked C-123 was probably a SOG aircraft. Plaster writes that the CIA

contributed to SOG a clandestine C-123 transport squadron from Taiwan, flown by Nationalist Chinese pilots. They carried Vietnamese ID cards but spoke hardly a word of that language (24). 16

I was returning from up north and had come to Da Nang to find a flight to

Saigon. 17 Name not remembered. 18

We would have gone to Pleiku to familiarize the new colonel with the senior

headquarters for the USSF A-Team CIDG camps near the border. The captain’s name has been forgotten. 19

To complete the new Army colonel’s familiarization trip, we had stopped by

the 25thInfDiv headquarters. The visit was on the eve of an upcoming operation, so

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the division staff had little time for dog and pony shows for new colonels from Saigon. The new guy asked no questions about what he was told, so I gathered relevant information, including that contained in this journal, and reported it to Ted. He, in turn, relayed it to the J-2 staff. 20

Name not remembered.

21

See sketch maps 1 and 4, pp. 262, 265. The Rung Sat Special Zone was in III

Corps, whereas the Mekong Delta was in IV Corps. 22 For constructing mines and booby traps. 23

“Command detonated” describes a mine that was detonated by a VC at the

scene, who waited until the ship was directly over the device. This guaranteed a hit, and also announced that VC were operating within eyesight of the SEAL base. 24

Name not remembered.

25

The previous August, Newsweek had reported, “More than half of South

Vietnam’s population of sixteen million live in the 11,000 square miles of the Mekong Delta” (see Chronology entry for 29 August 1966). Cutler, in 1988, wrote that the Mekong Delta alluvial plain constituted about one-fourth of the total land area of South Vietnam, and that about half of the population of South Vietnam resided there (139). 26

Newsweek reported the previous October that there would not be a major U.S.

buildup in the Mekong Delta (“The War in Vietnam,” 24 October 1966, 51). 27 That month, Newsweek reported: “U.S. Marines wade ashore on the first sweep through the Mekong Delta” (“The War in Vietnam,” 23 January 1967, 38). 28 29

See sketch map 1, p. 262.

His name and the name of the Marine major in the paragraph that follows cannot be recalled.

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Chapter 5

A Long Tunnel to Nowhere WEDNESDAY 1 FEBRUARY 1967—COMRADES IN ARMS XI: MAJOR PETER J. BADCOE, ROYAL AUSTRALIAN ARMY

My mission is to introduce my friend and partner, Peter McDougall of the Australian Special Air Service, to contacts in I Corps, so we fly to Da Nang. We plan to eat dinner at the Navy club, called the Stone Elephant, but when we arrive we find that field uniforms are no longer allowed. During my past visits, there always had been standing room only in the bar, and a waiting line for the dining room. So I deduce that the Stone Elephant simply has no room for the additional officers brought on by the arrival of Task Force Oregon (the Army’s Americal Division) in I Corps. Or perhaps they just want to keep their overstuffed furniture and thick carpeting clean. However, the fact is that the field uniform rule excludes most Army and Marine officers without saying, “This is a Navy-only club.” And it embarrasses me as an American to see my Australian friend turned away. Someone at the entrance tells me we can eat at I Corps. I have never realized that an I Corps club existed. Stupid of me not to have looked into it because I know how well MACV advisors live in II, III 158

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and IV Corps when they’re not in the field. So Peter and I search out the I Corps club. Until now, when I thought of Da Nang, I always thought of Marines, but the I Corps club is something else. Here are Army officers. Here are Army female nurses yet! Here are Air Force advisors, wearing black flight suits similar to their Vietnamese counterparts. And there at the bar are Australian advisors! Few Americans realize that Australia sent advisors to Vietnam over ten years ago as part of a joint agreement with the United States. As members of the Australian Army Training Team, they are assigned throughout the country and integrated with the U.S. Military Advisory Command.1 Peter McDougall introduces me to Australian Captain Barry Rissel, who in turn introduces me to an Australian major named Peter J. Badcoe. Peter Badcoe is an energetic Australian only five-feet, six-inches tall, who will become senior Australian advisor to Thieu Chin district in Quang Tri tomorrow. Unlike most Australians I have met, Peter neither smokes nor drinks. He is understandably quite nervous, because two weeks ago the previous senior Australian advisor was killed in action, and two days ago Peter was still in Australia. He is not sure now whether he volunteered or whether he was ordered into country. Lots of luck mate!2 While eating and drinking, I compare this life of clubs and villas with another advisory era eight years ago. My boss’s boss in Saigon was then an advisor to two Vietnamese regiments operating out of Hue, before there even was an I Corps. He was the only American. He received all his food and drink from a weekly flight out of Saigon. Each week he requested the items he desired. If something was not available he discovered it after he unpacked the following week’s delivery. Then on the third week he would order a substitute item. If he was lucky, he would receive it the fourth week after his initial request. His choices during the interim were what he could find from the local Vietnamese, which were mainly rice and nuoc mam. In typical Australian fashion, Peter McDougall and I spend the night drinking and doing business simultaneously. I have now decided that I must look into this advisory business a little more—as soon as I finish introducing Peter McDougall to I Corps.

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THURSDAY 2 FEBRUARY 1967—COMBINED ACTION COMPANY AT MARBLE MOUNTAIN

For a holiday, Peter McDougall and I join with two Australians—a lieutenant and a warrant officer—whom we met at the I Corps club. They take me in an Australian Army Training Team jeep to visit the sub-sector (district) of Hoa Vang (Wah Vang), near Da Nang. Peter and I wear our customary pistols and knives, and the other two carry M-16s. Hoa Vang is the headquarters of two Popular Forces platoons. Although elsewhere the PF are often spoken of in derision, here in I Corps they are sometimes compared to our Minute Men of long ago. Several of the advisors here are Australians, one is a Marine gunnery sergeant, and the rest are U.S. Army. Two hundred yards from the compound is the crash site of a Flying Tigers airplane that went in on Christmas Eve. If it hadn’t stopped where it did, there wouldn’t be a Hoa Vang PF compound. The site is in the middle of a small jungle hamlet—a bare area of dirt the size of a city block. A hundred and seventeen people died here. Ten families. In any case, a hundred and seventeen bodies were produced. One of the Australians says that the Vietnamese can always produce bodies whenever American reparation payments are at stake.3 The other two Australians offer to take me to a Combined Action Company (CAC) that the warrant officer discovered while on patrol.4 A CAC is a group of Marines that move in and aid the villagers with medical, engineering, and military support. While there they form and train PF platoons which will take over when the Marines leave. The single-lane dirt road we bounce along eventually takes us through the center of a hamlet, and the warrant officer says, “Right here is where the Vietnamese bus was blown up in broad daylight last week.” I begin to wonder just what kind of a holiday I am taking. About a click beyond the hamlet, we reach a road block manned by a Marine private with a rifle, a radio, and a EE-8 field telephone. He says to me, “Sorry sir. It’s unsecure out there.” He waves his arm in a half-circle, like he’s sowing grain. “Marines aren’t allowed beyond here without flak jackets.” The warrant officer says, “It’s okay myte, he’s with us.” He throws the jeep into gear and races into the hinterland, throwing up a dust cloud

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that rises like a smoke signal. The lieutenant loads a round into the chamber of each M-16. I wonder if the Australians are just trying to scare a senior Marine staff officer. I also wonder how many casualties might be people like me who refuse to lose face in front of their comrades. I realize that as a major I’m responsible for all three of these Australians. I feel stupid. Also scared. In twenty minutes we reach the CAC headquarters, which is commanded by a lean, tanned six-foot-two young Marine lieutenant wearing a flak jacket over his skivvy shirt and a helmet on his head. He has a contingent of thirty men. His hamlet is surrounded by high ground and he is in a death trap unless he keeps the hills permanently secure. Because I am a major, he tells me his problems. He wants more troops, and he wants engineer support to realign the bridge at the edge of town so that he can defend it more easily. “Have you brought these things up in your own chain of command?” I ask. “Yes, sir, but they say I have to make do with what I’ve got.” “Then that’s what you’ll have to do.” He knows it, or he wouldn’t have just extended for six months. And he wouldn’t be planning to extend for a second six months. Besides, this is a pacified area. They haven’t received any sniper fire all day. He can even drive to the next hamlet after the road has been cleared each day. The Australian lieutenant confides to me that, although the lieutenant doesn’t know it yet, he is going to have more problems tomorrow. Sniper fire from a third hamlet that has not been pacified has been a problem. Tomorrow the people from that hamlet will be moved to my lieutenant friend’s hamlet, and Marine air will blast the unfriendly hamlet to the ground.5 This move will double the size of his hamlet in one day. And the VC snipers from that hamlet will of course automatically be moved into his. Sorry ’bout that, lieutenant. On the way back to Hoa Vang for lunch, my crazy Australian companions take a side tour of Marble Mountain, which the Marines have tried to secure several times without success. We stop at the base of the mountain for souvenirs, and Peter and I walk over to an old Vietnamese man who eyes me with disbelief, raises an eyebrow, and offers a pair of marble carvings! Except for the idling jeep, the place is deadly quiet. Although nobody but the old man is in sight, I feel eyes crawling over me like a hundred fire

162 • The Bridges of Vietnam

ants, and sense a gathering of bodies from tunnels in the mountain behind the brush. I whisper to Peter, “This bastard is a VC and this place is a trap. We’ll never leave here if we don’t get out now.” I believe we got out only because we left immediately, after surprising them by driving directly into their lair, during siesta, in a jeep with strange markings, that carried three Caucasians wearing unidentified uniforms. (They didn’t recognize my regular utility uniform and soft hat, because the Marines from III MAF now wear jungle fatigues.) I will never cease to be amazed by this war. It is particularly striking when moving in and out of it, as I have done. The fact that a ten-minute jeep ride makes the difference between preservation and disruption of the human life span is always confusing. I discover that the holiday hasn’t really been a holiday at all. The more a person learns of this war, the better he can do his job. Postscript Hoa Vang had been the birthplace of the Marines’ Golden Fleece program. The VC customarily taxed rice harvests to obtain rice for their troops. The Marines had learned at Hoa Vang that, by protecting villagers and their crops, and guarding the harvest, they won confidence of the villagers while forcing the VC to deliver rice down hundreds of miles of the Ho Chi Minh Trail from North Vietnam. Expansion of the Golden Fleece program languished in the face of the attrition strategy of body count (Walt, 51–54). My visit to Hoa Vang occurred between the two rice harvests in the Da Nang area: May and October.

MONDAY 20 FEBRUARY 1967—THE YEAR OF THE RAM

The new year comes to Cholon as the Year of the Horse becomes the Year of the Ram. During the noon hour Harry Holeman and I pause at the entrance of the Cholon PX to watch a Vietnamese father on a third floor balcony across the street. He is stringing firecrackers from the balcony to the ground. His wife, children, and neighbors laugh as he sets them off in celebration of the Vietnamese new year. It sounds like a firefight, and Harry and I, the only Americans there, instantly bolt to the inside safety

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of the PX compound walls. We refuse to give the VC a chance to use firecrackers as a cover to shoot a couple of Americans. Postscript In a further celebration, the VC launched a mortar attack against Westmoreland’s headquarters at the MACV I compound. The rounds fell short and hit a truckload of ARVN paratroopers. (See Chronology entry for 27 February 1967.) I had passed by that spot a few minutes earlier while returning from Ted’s office at MACV I to the MACV III compound. So had a lot of other people. That particular truckload of troops just happened to be rolling down the wrong street at the wrong time.

TUESDAY 21 FEBRUARY 1967—THE MCNAMARA FENCE

As MACV Science Advisor, Lieutenant Colonel Harry Holeman holds security clearances so sensitive that he won’t even utter their code names within hearing of people who aren’t cleared to hear them. My clearances also expose me to compartmented intelligence information. This stems from a need to know, but also derives from an intelligence attribute called “placement.” For example, if I am in the field with an organization that has an agent or a team of professionals in a serious situation, it is impossible to go sit in a corner somewhere, blindfolded, with my ears plugged, during the ensuing activity. Harry and I often discuss the way the war is being run in Washington and at MACV. Because our information is gained in our own channels through our respective needs to know, we are careful about what we say to each other and where we say it. In Harry’s room one evening, we cursed our decision makers so severely that we began to worry that the room might be bugged—but not by the enemy! By the American command! So we flushed the toilet, turned on the water faucets and started clanging table knives together, while we agreed upon correct strategy without “them” hearing us. This has become our modus operandi whenever we discuss strategic information in Harry’s room, and at times when we just feel paranoid about “them.” Then one evening we discover that we both know about Secretary of

164 • The Bridges of Vietnam

Defense McNamara’s plans for an electronic fence to keep out the North Vietnamese. Our conversation gets so loud that a full-blown brass band wouldn’t keep “them” from hearing us. Our discussion begins when Harry says that during the day he had been asked about the feasibility of extending a total barrier along the border between South Vietnam and Cambodia. He asks for my opinion. I explain to Harry that I’ve flown that border and I’ve walked it, and I’ve never seen any change in jungle or terrain between one country and the other. When you’re walking along a trail, you won’t find any sign reading, “Welcome to Cambodia.” In fact, we don’t even know where the border is, because different maps show it in different places. And even if we did, you can’t take a straight line on a flat map and run it through jungle and across mountains, without spending billions and billions. Harry says he is glad that my on-the-ground observations support exactly what he had said at the conference. Then he adds that the initial phase will only be along parts of the DMZ, and that it will involve strong points, with mines, sensors, and available reaction forces. This is different from the concept of an antiseptic seal that had first been proposed. He thinks for a moment, and says, “What the hell are they going to do, run a fence along the DMZ and all the way across Laos?” “If they did, they’d have to build it strong enough and high enough to keep out MiGs, and maybe even rockets,” I say. We stop banging our table knives together, turn off the water faucets, and concentrate on our vodka and tonics.

THURSDAY 23 FEBRUARY 1967—IDENTIFYING AND LOCATING THE ENEMY VI6

Two members of J-2 will be presented medals tomorrow prior to their going home on Saturday, and our office will have volleyball and beer after the ceremony. We can’t just go to the PX to buy beer, because our ration cards limit us to three cases a month for personal use. Besides, beer for a unit party should be free, paid for from PX profits. The lieutenant colonel who helped me buy a wristwatch last December starts making phone calls. At 1530 he walks over to my desk and gives me an address.

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“It’s a former city park, piled high with cases of beer, with a chain-link fence around it,” he says. “A sergeant is expecting you.” He hands me a typewritten request to draw five cases of beer for a unit party. “You’ll have to hurry because he’s keeping it open as a favor to me. Don’t fail, Fred, because the Colonel is counting on beer for tomorrow.” I locate the converted city park, and drive the office jeep around the perimeter. I can’t even estimate how many thousands of pallets of beer are stacked inside! There is no guard, no security lighting for after dark, no telephone line, no sign, and not even an office. The setup reminds me of a report a friend from up north gave me involving twenty thousand cases of beer that disappeared there, right after they had been unloaded from their ships. Not two thousand—twenty thousand. He, an assistant provost officer, had been prevented from investigating because “you have to expect a certain amount of shrinkage.” When he persisted, he was relieved and replaced. I pound and rattle the locked gate until an Army enlisted man with no rank insignia comes walking out from behind a 10-foot-high pile of flattened corrugated cardboard. He is scroungy, surly, needs a shave, and looks like he’s been sleeping. He says he closed at three, and now he’s leaving “for his hooch.” He tells me that, when he’s open, he only issues what “the sergeant” tells him to, and that’s in bulk quantities. He’s either real dense or damned cunning. I explain that “the sergeant” knew I was coming, and show him my request. I’m incensed that for the second time that lieutenant colonel put me into a situation where the authority and dignity of my rank are degraded by the shady legitimacy of my mission. After a few more words, including a Marine lesson on courtesy and discipline, the soldier decides to unlock the chain that secures the gate. With a pencil he scrawls, “Issued 5,” and initials my request. Then he gives it back to me! He’s keeping no records! The soldier disappears behind his cardboard retreat while I load five cases of beer onto the jeep, lock the chain on the gate, and leave. After I deliver the beer to the MACV III compound, I visit a senior officer in whom I have unlimited trust and respect. I describe the incident, and summarize my opinions about the PX, BOQ, and BEQ situation in Saigon. I tell him we should initiate official action to correct it. He takes a deep breath, lets it out, and takes time to form his thoughts.

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“Fred, “ he says, slowly and carefully, “I have some extremely high-level contacts at MACV and at the Cercle Sportif [the French tennis and swimming club in Saigon]. I’ve learned enough from them to decide that this thing is too big for me to do anything about—at least while I’m over here on other business. I can’t fight two wars, and I’ve decided to fight the one I came for. “Now I’m not going to try to stop you, because I respect you too much to even consider it, but I want to advise you about something. If your Marine conscience won’t let go of this thing, and you happen to find hard evidence—criminal evidence—be very careful about who you report it to. Not everybody wearing an American uniform subscribes to the same principles that you and I do.” He pauses, pensive. “Don’t take this as a challenge, but you should know that an American was found dead in an alley not long ago. He was the type who never visits alleys.” He sees that I’m disappointed, and gazes at his desk, making up his mind about something else. “One thing more, Fred.” “Yes, sir?” “This is not for repetition to anybody. People are looking into this problem. It will take time, but I think they will succeed.” He tells me that he thinks the lieutenant colonel from J-2 is not involved, and sternly advises me not to repeat any part of our conversation.7 Postscript On 13 October 1969, Newsweek reported results from an ongoing hearing by the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The article stated that CID agents had accused Sergeant Major William O. Wooldridge, fortyseven, and some half-dozen other senior Army NCOs of graft and corruption in the Army NCO club systems in Germany and Vietnam during the previous six years. The operations reportedly amounted to $3 million to $4 million per year, plus income from U.S. and South Vietnamese currency deals. The Newsweek article stated that Wooldridge had been named sergeant major of the 24th Infantry Division near Augsburg, Germany when the investigation began. He then was assigned as Division Sergeant Major of the 1stInfDiv in Vietnam. From there he had been transferred to Washington to become Sergeant Major of the Army.

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The other NCOs had been assigned to clubs in the States, then followed Wooldridge to Vietnam, and back to the States. Witnesses also implicated retired Major General Carl C. Turner, former Provost Marshall General of the Army. They testified that Turner had sent word to drop an earlier probe and to strike Wooldridge’s name from investigative records. They additionally accused Turner of violating state laws while engaging in arms transactions for personal profit (“The War in Vietnam,” Newsweek, 13 October 1969, 37–38). Westmoreland briefly mentions the incidents just described, and also writes that a mess manager in Saigon underpaid visiting entertainers and pocketed the difference. He adds that a group of soldiers in a finance office in Saigon were apprehended after falsifying currency transactions to the amount of $700,000 (Westmoreland, 185).

SUNDAY 5 MARCH 1967—AN AUSTRALIAN GOES HOME WITH A FOREIGN MEDAL

Vung Tau was called the “Riviera of Southeast Asia” when the French were here. Now it is one of the in country R&R centers for enlisted personnel. It also is the location of the Australian Field Hospital, which they call “Field Ambulance.” Today Ted Fielding and I will visit the Field Ambulance to visit a patient. Today was supposed to be a Sunday off, but with old friends who cares about a day off? I rise at 0600. No electricity, but I have a candle to shave by and dress by. Ted Fielding meets me outside my hotel in the office jeep and we drive to Tan Son Nhut Air Base. On the way we pass a bus depot and a bus with a sign, “Vung Tau.” Why don’t we just take the bus? “And leave the driving to us.” The VC is why. We would never arrive. At the first VC tax collection stop any American would be killed. As we wait to board an Australian Caribou aircraft with an orange kangaroo painted on it, I notice a rather tall girl in a Vietnamese ao dai. After boarding I find myself sitting next to her. I immediately check the location of the “barf bags,” because some Vietnamese get airsick very easily, and I want to be prepared. Our first stop is at the Australian Base Camp at Nui Dat in Phuoc Tuy province. The girl asks me excitedly if this is Vung Tau. When I reply,

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“No,” I almost add “You’re not Vietnamese,” because she spoke in almost perfect English. It’s odd because when I helped her adjust her seat belt I was using the standard pidgin that I often use with waitresses in the BOQ, and she made no comment about it. I conclude that she is from some other country, and has lived all of her life in Vietnam. Why else would she wear an ao dai? And why else would she be excited by an airplane trip with a bunch of foreigners? Since she is oriental I don’t want to embarrass her by asking personal questions. When we arrive at Vung Tau Airstrip I help the girl off the aircraft and watch her speak to an Australian guard wearing an arm band that reads “Duty Clerk.” After she departs, I approach the Australian, and ask him if he knows who the Vietnamese girl is. “Sure, myte,” he says, “That’s not a Vietnamese. She is an American Negro and showed me a press card from one of your newspapers. She asked for an Australian captain, and I told her where she’d find ‘im.” “Captain McDougall?” “No,” he answered, and gave a name that I didn’t recognize. Why is a black American reporter flying around Vietnam in an Australian airplane? It might be that, because many Australians are extremely prejudiced against blacks, she felt that an ao dai was the only thing to wear for the visit. It also might be that the ao dai allows her to go places in Vietnam where foreigners normally aren’t allowed. It also might be that she overhears more information from Americans and Australians when dressed as a Vietnamese. And it might just be that this is the first black to cross the Vietnamese color line. Who knows? At the hospital I get yet another taste of the way these crazy Australians operate. I see a small twenty-five-year-old Montagnard man walking around as if he were a patient. I ask an Australian patient why the Australians are treating indigenous patients. He says, “Oh him? He’s just a VC. We shot him full of holes six weeks ago in a firefight. Then we brought him back here and patched him up. We sort of keep him around like a mascot. Might even convert him some day.” A tall, red-headed Australian nurse with a fresh smiling face and long tan legs takes us to Peter McDougall. She is really friendly. After she leaves, I accuse Peter of faking illness in order to spend time with a goodlooking nurse. He looks a bit weak but manages to smile. “My mytes here say to stay away from her,” he says, “or I’ll really get sick.”

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Peter developed neck paralysis while instructing in the field at the U.S. Special Forces advanced patrolling school in Nha Trang, and has been in a partial cast. He will be medically evacuated to his home in Australia tomorrow. He shows us a Bronze Star medal presented by 5th Special Forces that he’ll take home, even though he says the Australian government probably won’t let him wear it. Our time grows short, and soon it’s, “See you later, mate. Good luck.” Then Ted and I are back aboard the aircraft and headed back to Saigon, wondering if Peter McDougall will ever walk again.

SATURDAY 11 MARCH 1967—COMRADES IN ARMS XII: LIEUTENANT COMMANDER LEO C. HESTER, NAVAL AVIATOR

Each morning when in Saigon I read the daily operational and intelligence summaries. This morning a short item catches my eye: “Yesterday a Navy C-47 crashed and exploded shortly after takeoff from Phan Rang, killing all twenty-five persons aboard.” The only Navy C-47s flying in Vietnam belong to Market Time. I know I can’t get the names of the pilot and crew over the phone, so I must take the U.S. bus to the Market Time administrative office. Lieutenant Colonel Ed Joseph, the executive officer of the Intelligence Operations Division, goes with me. He talks and rambles about unimportant things, as some people feel they must do at times like this. The lieutenant commander standing behind the counter in the Market Time lobby confirms my terrible suspicions, and with liquid eyes says, “We don’t know much more just yet, but we sure as hell know that it wasn’t pilot error. Leo was a damned good pilot.” Leo did not have to fly. Neither did he have to be in Vietnam. But he loved to fly. And he believed in what we are doing here. Yesterday Leo died because of his love, and because of his belief. Sorry, Leo.8

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SUNDAY 7 MAY 1967—LETTER TO LEO HESTER’S WIFE

Hq Macv J211 APO, San Francisco 96222 Mrs. Hester, I am writing this note because I, as many others over here, thought more of Leo than most men I have met. I knew him for about six months. He may have mentioned me in his letters and tapes as I was his roommate at the Hong Kong BOQ. I also flew with him several times and he always asked me up to the front seat even though I am not an aviator. So, although it was only for six months, I believe that I knew him well. As you know, Leo was more conscientious than most officers. An example of this was that each morning he would take a bag of ice to the airport so that his passengers would have ice water. He always visited the passenger cabin during the flight to talk to them and see if they were all right. I stayed with him the night he was notified of his father’s death. As you remember, he normally would have liked to fly back that very night, but he was needed too much here in Vietnam. That was correct. I was with him when he called his brother that night. It wasn’t easy for him, but he was dedicated and did what he thought was right. And, also as you know, it was Leo who took the trips to the Philippine Islands in order to show the maintenance crews there how to expedite their work on his airplanes. Leo was personally liked and professionally respected by all those who met him here. If I remember correctly, you had been married about seventeen years. Although you may not understand yet, I believe that you were very lucky to have him for all those years, because, you see, not many women are fortunate enough to ever have a man of Leo’s caliber. It’s true, of course, that the better the man, the more he will be missed. Leo told me once that he had wanted to stay in the Navy long enough to rate being at the head of the line “once in a while.” He said that, now that he had done this, he wanted to take advantage of it for a while. When I attended the memorial service here for him, I felt that I could almost see him up there with that soft smile of his, finally realizing that, among human beings, he had been “at the head of the line” for a long time. You may not understand this yet either, but I believe that, if Leo had any choice of the circumstances of his going, he would have picked a time

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when he was flying, and when he believed in the job he was doing, and when he knew that he had the love and understanding of his family and friends. If you did not receive a copy of the memorial service program, please let me know and I will be happy to send mine. And, if there is any other way that I can help, please write. Sincerely yours, Fred L. Edwards, Jr. Postscript I had planned to wait two months before writing to Leo’s wife, but mailed the letter the Sunday before my self-imposed deadline. This brought the letter to her mailbox exactly two months from the day he died. To make it worse, I unthinkingly used the same stationery box and return address that Leo and I had shared. The following is an extract from the answer she wrote the same evening she received my letter: 5-10-67 Dear Fred, You will never know just how much your letter meant to me. I had prayed from the very first day that neither you nor Don Caulder were on the plane with Leo. Why? Because you two were his very favorite people. Captain King’s letter was of some comfort, but I had been waiting for yours. You may tell Don this also. Your letter today restored my faith in God. Why? If I tried now to explain, I’m afraid you just could not understand. I’m sure this will come as no surprise to you, but I know every secret you ever told my beloved Leo. Yes, Fred, I received the copy of the services from Vietnam, so keep yours, but your letter meant more to me than all the other things I have received. . . . You were a little off on the years. You see we were married twenty-and-a-half wonderful years. I feel that in that time the two of us shared more than most people do in a lifetime. After the experiences I have had in the past two weeks I had just about lost my mind . . . . after I told my girlfriend

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how much insurance Leo kept for me alone I’ve had four proposals of marriage and about a thousand of the other kind. Now do you understand why your letter meant so much to me? Please excuse the pencil because my tears would melt the ink. Chris.

SATURDAY 18 MARCH 1967—WHY DON’T YOU KNOW MY LANGUAGE?

In order to provide a fuller picture of our ground intelligence collection capabilities, I have been assigned the mission of obtaining and plotting current locations of all Vietnamese Regional Force and Popular Force outposts in the country. One of the local sources of this information is an ARVN headquarters located in the northwestern outskirts of Saigon. I must get there in my jeep before noon, or the ARVN and their American advisors will be gone for the weekend. I arrive at 1130 to find that the American advisor captain I had contacted has already left. However, a Vietnamese captain is waiting for me in the otherwise deserted office building. He hands me an envelope, and explains in English that the Vietnamese markings on the outside mean “Secret.” I compliment him on his ability to speak English. “How long have you been in my country, major?” he asks. I reflect for a moment. “Just over seven months. It won’t be too much longer before I can go home.” He frowns. “English takes one-and-a-half to two years to learn, because it is difficult. Vietnamese is easy. You have been here seven months. In seven months you could learn Vietnamese, and take home some culture from my country.” I want to counter that I had learned several hundred words before I came here, but that I lost them through distractions by Chinese speakers, Cambodians, Laotians, Montagnards, French, English, and a culture and a war that just doesn’t excite me like it once did. All I can say is, “You’re right, but I’ve got five months left. Maybe I’ll learn.” He shakes his head. Disrespectful junior officer.

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THURSDAY 30 MARCH 1967—COMRADES IN ARMS XIII: MAJOR PETER N. SAMARAS: HELICOPTER PILOT

“Washington (Stars & Stripes)—The Defense Department has announced the following casualties in connection with the conflict in Vietnam: Killed in Action . . . Major Peter N. Samaras, U.S. Marine Corps . . .” I well remember that humid, hot rainy morning so long ago. My roommate, Pete Samaras, and I started our day early because we couldn’t sleep. On the flight south we figured our odds on returning some day. They looked fair. When we landed at Da Nang Air Base that day, Pete started for the 1stMAW to fly helicopters. I told him, “Good luck,” and that I would try to see him on our return trip. A couple of weeks ago I read that Pete was shot down, but that he was lucky and lived. A couple of days ago I read that Pete was shot down, and he was unlucky and he died. The odds weren’t fair after all. And I don’t seem to have much luck with roommates. This is the second one this month. It is true that war stinks.

SATURDAY 1 APRIL 1967—ANYBODY FOR VOLLEYBALL?: WE HAVE ROOM FOR ONE MORE

Officers and enlisted men from the J-2 Intelligence Operations Division have been playing volleyball at the national track near the Five Oceans Hotel for seven-and-a-half months. Like clockwork we gathered each noon and late afternoon on each side of the net at the end of the track. We created a pattern, and a pattern makes a perfect setup for the VC. Six to ten Americans on a volleyball court, ten feet from a busy street, with only a barbed wire fence between. That makes quite a target. The VC are stupid for waiting seven-and-a-half months. Today they stopped waiting. They blew out our volleyball court during the noon hour, simply by parking a bicycle packed with C-4 and a timer against the fence. But they are stupid. They only wounded one American, an Army major, who was evacuated to the hospital. And they even missed the net! But they hit six Vietnamese children on the far side of the street, and at least two died. Stupid!

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At 1430 I went out for a run on the track (which has a wall around it), and noticed that the volleyball court was unusually quiet. Anybody for volleyball? We have room for one more. All this and it was even on April Fool’s Day. I’m glad that we don’t do tricks like this in the United States on April Fool’s Day. It could ruin the whole day. Postscript When I was in town and had the time, I played with the late afternoon group so I could go from there directly to the Hong Kong Hotel to wash up, instead of playing at noon and wearing sweat-soiled khakis the rest of the day. Such decisions sometimes make the difference between being driven back to the BOQ or being evacuated to the hospital—or morgue. Major Fred J. Regner, U.S. Air Force (Retired), a friend whom I met after retiring, said that he lived near the Five Oceans from May 1967 to May 1968, and ate his meals there. He advised me that the VC blew the volleyball court again some seven months later, this time wounding two Americans. No Vietnamese children were hurt.

SUNDAY 2 APRIL 1967—COMRADES IN ARMS XIV: SQUADRON LEADER BRIAN H. CANDY, ROYAL AUSTRALIAN AIR FORCE

It’s Sunday afternoon. I’m sitting at my desk in the Hong Kong Hotel, taping a message for my wife. My recorder is one of a dozen that Leo Hester brought back from the Philippines for his shipmates. None are available from the Cholon PX, so he bought them from the PX in Subic Bay, during his final trip to the Philippines. He had gone to Cubi Point at Subic to oversee a periodic metal-fatigue inspection of the wings on his C-47.9 There’s a rap at the door, and I call out, “Yes?” over the noise of the window air conditioner. The door opens and a thirty-year-old man asks, “Myjor Fred Edwards?” He sounds Australian, and his khaki uniform, including shorts and knee socks, appears to be Australian. But his Australian Army hat doesn’t have the brim pinned up on one side. It is flat brimmed—and there’s a touch of blue on the band around the crown. Above all, he doesn’t look like an Australian, because he’s six-foot-

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one, and almost every Australian I’ve met over here has been hardly more than five-seven. “Squadron Leader Brian Candy, Australian Air Force. I’ve been assigned to this room. May I come in?” I welcome him aboard, wondering why he is behaving so formally. His driver, an Australian enlisted man, carries in an assortment of luggage, and tells Brian he’ll pick him up in the morning. Brian is almost, but not quite, chubby. He has an ebullient, impulsive, generous personality, which he links with a strong alto voice that can easily overcome the roar of an Australian C-123 during takeoff. He wears his hat with the brim flattened because the Australian Air Force requires it that way, “the way they’re supposed to be worn, myte.” He, like most Australians, lives with the nightmare of the domino theory (that if South Vietnam falls, so will all of Asia, one country at a time; and the European country of Australia will be surrounded by Asian enemies). Accordingly, he thinks that Americans over here can do no wrong, and likes to say, “We’re with you all the way Ell Bee Jay.” Brian has studied how Americans talk, and thinks that he pronounces English the way we do. He is one more professional who is glad to be here. I wonder how he will feel in a few months. Postscripts Weeks after Brian moved in, he confided that he had been extremely sensitive about barging in to take the place of a former roommate who had recently been killed, particularly because the roommate had been an American. He had even roomed somewhere else for more than a week in order to give me time to adjust. Brian was so impressed with Americans that he decided to write his wife, and tell her to meet an R&R flight of Americans arriving in Australia—and ask a serviceman to spend his R&R at their home! Harry Holeman and I quickly set him straight on this idea, and told him to let her wait and meet him when he got home. On the Sunday before I left country, Brian demonstrated his ability with American English to a group of Australians and Americans by spelling and pronouncing three words that he says he formerly pronounced “tyle.” They were tile, tale, and towel. Neither the Australians nor the Americans understood his point, because he distinctly said, “Tyle, tyle and tyle.”

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WEDNESDAY 19 APRIL 1967—COMRADES IN ARMS XV: MAJOR PETER J. BADCOE, THE GALLOPING MAJOR

It was an enjoyable time last February at the I Corps Officers’ Club. I met a lot of Australian advisors and we talked of many things. We drank and sang and laughed. I met an Australian major that night named Peter Badcoe, who had just arrived in country. He was replacing a major who had been killed in action. He was nervous about it. As the senior Australian advisor, Peter didn’t have to be continually in front of the troops, but he was, because he was as tough as they come. He made quite a record in ten weeks, and won the respect of the Vietnamese with whom he served. Once upon a time he started through a valley, in front as usual. The VC were waiting for him. They shot off half his face and also got him three times in the chest. Good men die easily in war. Had he lived, Major Badcoe might have received the Victoria Cross. But my Australian friends tell me that, because of the regulations, he now is more likely to be merely “mentioned in dispatches.” But a good many Vietnamese and Australians, and a few Americans, won’t be forgetting him for awhile. Postscripts I was told that Australian Army advisor Captain Barry Rissel submitted the following piece to AAF, which was published in the Stars & Stripes shortly after Peter Badcoe’s death. “Aussie ‘Galloping Major’ Dies; Legend Remains “Saigon (AAF)—An Australian Army major, whose deeds in battle have become legendary among the Vietnamese, Australian and American troops in I Corps, was killed in action during an extraordinary and daring counterattack against enemy forces. “He was a man who belied his looks and manner off the battlefield. A small man, about five-foot-six-inches, he wore spectacles. He was a teetotaler, a non-smoker and extremely mild mannered. ‘But he was a veritable tiger in battle, so much so that the Americans nicknamed him the “galloping major,”’ exclaimed a fellow Australian Army Training Team officer, Captain Barry Rissel.

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“This legendary man, Major Peter J. Badcoe, New South Wales, was senior Australian advisor to Thieu Chinh district in Quang Tri, Vietnam’s northernmost province. “‘I don’t think he knew the meaning of fear,’ said Captain Rissel. ‘He was the kind of man who would lead his unit of South Vietnamese troopers into an assault, running ahead of them shouting words of encouragement to boost their morale.’ “Only a few weeks after his arrival in Vietnam, he was awarded the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. Twice he had attacked Viet Cong machine gun emplacements single handed, and killed its defenders. “He earned the recommendation for an American Silver Star by running hundreds of meters through heavy fire to pick up the body of a fallen American captain, only fifty yards from an enemy position, and give first aid to a wounded American soldier lying in an open field nearby. “Major Badcoe’s greatest interest was small arms, which he collected by the dozens, proud of his ability to use all of them. He demonstrated this ability when he was forced to fire thirty-two pistol shots to get himself out of a hot spot while on an operation. Said Captain Rissel, ‘When a man has to use a pistol like that, he is obviously making a last ditch stand.’ “Major Badcoe commanded two companies of Regional and Popular Forces from Thieu Chinh, north of the old imperial city of Hue. His units were forever in action, as they made their assaults from choppers, by foot, and even used sampans on occasions. “The major’s last combat action was over Vietnam’s rough terrain in Armored Personnel Carriers. On this tragic operation, Major Badcoe led his unit through rice paddies in Nam Hoa, a district north of Hue. “Upon reaching an open field, the unit was attacked by the enemy, being hit by mortar, recoilless rifle, and small arms fire. Major Badcoe continued to push forward with his unit. Running in front of the unit, enemy machine gun fire forced him to hit the dirt. Only about ten meters from the machine gun’s position, Major Badcoe stood up to toss a grenade and was cut down by the blazing enemy gun. A tragic end to a brave man.”

In 1991 I met a sailboat skipper named Steve Huffman, who was passing through Mandeville, Louisiana, aboard his boat. Unaware of my association with the Australians in Vietnam, he recounted an experience that was en-

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trenched in his memory. He said that, as a U.S. Army helicopter pilot, he had transported the body of a senior Australian officer to Tan Son Nhut Air Base in 1967. When he touched down at the Australian section, a formal reception party marched over to accept the body. To the dirge of bagpipes, the escort carried the body bag slowly, step by stately step, across the tarmac on the first phase of its trip home.

It appears that the Australians changed their regulations after 1966 in order to allow posthumous decorations. While completing research for this book in 1999, I visited the web page of the Vietnam Veterans of the Australian Army. Listed there were Australians who had been awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest military decoration awarded by their country. One entry showed that Major Peter Badcoe had been awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously for actions during February–April of 1967.

So what exactly was happening in I Corps when Peter Badcoe was killed? On April 6, 1967, Quang Tri was attacked by 1,500 VC (Danniell, 963). Westmoreland committed Task Force Oregon (later named the “Americal Division”) to Chu Lai to reinforce 1stMarDiv (Sheehan, 642). In two weeks of fighting, the Marines suffered 155 killed and 425 wounded at Khe Sanh. Then the NVA shifted east to Con Thien, firing 4,200 rounds on the Marine positions with 85mm, 100mm, 122mm, and 130mm guns; 120mm mortars; 122mm Katyusha rockets; and by July, 152mm guns (Sheehan, 649). Meanwhile Major General Joseph McChristian (the MACV J-2) notified General Westmoreland that he was underestimating the enemy in South Vietnam by two hundred thousand. McChristian was replaced (Sheehan, 695–96).

SUNDAY 23 APRIL 1967—LEAVE NO WIRE UNTURNED: DOWSERS

It all started the last time I visited III MAF headquarters. In the G-3 section I spotted a pair of wires the diameter of welding rods. They were threefeet-long apiece, and the last five inches of each was bent at a ninetydegree angle in order to form a handle. These were “tunnel finders” or “dowsers.” You simply hold one in each hand by its handle, point the long

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ends straight ahead and parallel, and start walking. When you cross a tunnel the rods are supposed to spin outward in opposite directions from each other until they are parallel to the long axis of the tunnel. That same afternoon I met an Australian warrant officer advising Vietnamese Popular Forces near Da Nang. During our conversation he confided that he was a “water finder” at home, just like his father had been. He said he didn’t know how or why it works, but when he walks over an underground supply of water, his witching rod just points down toward it. He said that he doesn’t have the strength to stop it. I reasoned that there must be a connection between tunnel finding and water finding. Upon my return to Saigon I ferreted out a copy of a study that claimed dowsers work. The study referenced a film. Within the hour I had the film in my possession and was on my way to the JUSPAO auditorium to project it. I invited the J-2 Scientific Advisor (Lieutenant Colonel Harry Holeman), his Australian counterpart (Major Bill Broderick), and a representative from the U.S. Special Forces Saigon detachment B-55. We watched a Marine captain walk over a tunnel complex in a simulated VC village at Quantico, Virginia. His “dowsers” would spin outboard like a pair of Ouija board pointers each time he crossed over a tunnel. The two projectionists started talking excitedly in Vietnamese. They were undoubtedly VC and figured that we were developing a secret weapon! This could be a major breakthrough, because the VC live, work and hide in tunnels in many parts of Vietnam. I’ve been told that they can cross entire provinces without ever coming to the surface. Finding these tunnels is one of the most important goals of an operation. Two days later at 1130 my Australian friend Bill Broderick called on the telephone. He said, “I don’t know what’s happening, Fred, but you and Colonel Holeman ought to come over here and see what I’ve been doing.” Harry took me to the Australian Field Force compound on his Honda, where Bill Broderick explained. Within minutes the MACV J-2 Scientific Advisor was watching an Australian major and a U.S. Marine major in the noontime tropical sun, each with a pair of dowsers, walking back and forth over a culvert. An audience of Americans, Australians, and Vietnamese grew, and

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even the orange-robed monks from the Buddhist compound gathered, because the damn dowsers were working! I began to worry that we hadn’t kept our secret weapon secret. Suddenly I noticed that Harry Holeman, who was standing on the sidelines, was laughing like a blathering fool. He said, “Fred, try it with your eyes shut.” With our eyes closed the bubble burst and the dowsers just plain didn’t work. He said, “Fred, scientists proved back in the twenties that this method of finding water or oil does not work statistically. Put a man in an area likely to contain water, and two or three times out of five, when he points, he will point toward it. But you waste a hell of a lot of digging during the times he is wrong. The problem with this system is that even the dowser user honestly believes that he can find water.” It was weeks before I really began to believe him. There were just too many written theories about why these dowsers might work. Then one day I leafed through a sheaf of papers that consisted entirely of mathematical formulas. Its summary explained that the formulas proved that it was impossible for these heavy dowsers to be affected by a minute gravity change such as that experienced when walking over a tunnel or an underground stream—and that therefore they could only be activated by the subconscious mind—as Harry had told me. Nevertheless, the commanding general of one of the Marine divisions ordered some dowsers for use during an operation. The results were inconclusive, although he was reported to have said, “With those dowsers in their hands, my Marines were more careful and saw more booby traps and trip wires than they ever saw before. Don’t ever tell them that their dowsers don’t work.” My scientist friend Harry tells me that it will always be this way, that some people will believe in dowsing and will actually get results, but that the results will always be inconclusive. Yet there is that Australian warrant officer up near Da Nang whose friends say that he can even tell how far down the water is and which direction it is flowing.

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MONDAY 15 MAY 1967—THE TUNNEL LOOKS LONGER

The week before my scheduled R&R, Ted Fielding sends me to III MAF and Nha Trang with two Australians and a U.S. Army officer. My mission is to orient Australian Major Jack Fletcher and a contemporary of his10, and U.S. Army First Lieutenant Ziegler. Jack, described elsewhere, is Peter McDougall’s replacement. Ziegler, a slim, dark, five-foot-ten twenty-five-year-old with a Latin-styled mustache, is Harry Holeman’s parttime assistant. He does aerial photography and other intelligence photography, and is particularly handy in Saigon because he has access to a reconstructed jeep.11 He fits loosely into whatever chain of command he finds himself in. Nha Trang, situated on a turquoise and indigo bay, has a long white beach from where you can swim to a wooden float and forget that there is a war—if you don’t open your eyes and see the destroyers coming in from their naval gunfire missions. Unlike Da Nang, which is completely out of bounds, Nha Trang is integrated. The personnel from I Field Force Vietnam appear to live in villas spread throughout the town. This seems to be the Army way. Ziegler, who is familiar with Nha Trang, finds us a small, unfurnished, masonry villa in a neighborhood of Vietnamese families. He says that we won’t be bothered by VC because Nha Trang is a VC R&R center. The villa, with neither electricity nor window screens, is a place where men from Ziegler’s unit come to “throw down” whenever they’re in Nha Trang. The town is rather clean by Vietnamese standards. If the streets were paved and grass grew around the houses, you could almost believe that it was like a town in the States. Almost. But as we walk through town, pimps make their pitches. One offers me a “numbah one American girl” for 1,000 piasters. I tell him that I am a “numbah one American man” and that she would have to pay me 1,000 piasters. For a minute I am afraid that the deal is accepted, and I would have to lose face by backing out. But the situation settles down and we continue our stroll. After sunset Ziegler drives us around the back streets without lights, and we hear the world-wide call from the doorways as we drive past, “Where you go, GI?” Yes, it looks like Nha Trang is integrated, but I don’t think we’re winning the hearts and minds in the same way that the Marines are doing in I Corps. We return to our pitch-black villa for the night.

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After we win this war, Nha Trang, like most of the coastal areas, should be a tourist paradise. It has enough fishing, swimming, and scenery to attract American tourists at high prices. Fortunes can be made by owning a stretch of that beach and instituting American vice and sin, on a higher class level than now, of course. But none of this will happen during my lifetime. It’s going to take too long to win the war and develop the country. The next day, after visiting the 5th Special Forces, I Field Force and II Corps headquarters, we climb aboard an aircraft and wave goodbye to the great white Buddha statue which overlooks all of Nha Trang.

1 2

This information was provided by the Australians I met there that evening. Besides talking about the Vietnamese tactical situation, Peter Badcoe and I

discussed the possibility of bringing water to the Outback. Although he said that it had been studied without results, we agreed to meet after the war to find a way to exploit that great desert. 3

Chronicle of the 20th Century reported that on 24 December a U.S. cargo plane

crashed into a village in South Vietnam, killing 125 civilians (Danniell, 957). 4

It took a linguistic exercise to understand what they were referring to when they said, “Sigh Ai Sigh.” 5

In a similar instance, the press reported that an Army spokesman had said, “We

had to destroy the village in order to save it.” 6 This journal was not mailed. 7

After this number of years, I’m sure that Ted Fielding wouldn’t mind my iden-

tifying him as the senior officer who held my unlimited trust and respect. 8

Of all the flights I had taken on Market Time aircraft, and all the times Leo had been my pilot, why was I between trips that day? Who knows? 9

Cubi Point was a U.S. Naval Air Station that abutted the huge U.S. Naval Base

complex at Subic Bay. Both were subsequently turned over to the Philippines. 10 I do not remember the name of Jack Fletcher’s contemporary. 11

Ziegler’s “reconstructed jeep” had been created from many nearly destroyed

jeeps by members of his unit. It was painted silver-gray with no military markings and had some sort of a Vietnamese license number on the bumpers. Ziegler couldn’t fuel it at a military site.

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Chapter 6

Sabbatical TUESDAY 2 MAY 1967—INTERNATIONAL MEDICINE

I receive notification that I’m booked for an R&R flight to Hawaii on the twenty-first. To be eligible for the flight, I’ll need a new smallpox vaccination. Of course I discover that there is no smallpox vaccine anywhere in the United States Military Assistance Command headquarters! I review the options. Navy? Air Force? Marines in I Corps? Then I think of the obvious, and pick up the phone. I contact my friend, Major Bill Broderick, who is the Scientific Advisor at the Australian section of the Free World Military Forces headquarters. I explain that, in spite of all the technology and all the money the Americans have brought to Vietnam, they can’t provide one lousy smallpox vaccination for a Marine Major. I tell him that I’ll bet the Australians can help. “You must have a fresh vaccination to leave the country?” “Yes, and I don’t have enough time before the R&R flight for a vaccination not to take.” He doesn’t understand my English, so I explain that the vaccination has to fester the first time. I have known Bill Broderick since he and I worked out an international loan of Small Starlight 183

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Scopes between the Australians and the Marine 1st Recon Battalion. At five-ten, he is taller than most Australians I’ve met. He keeps his dark hair long enough to comb. I picture him running his fingers through it and thinking, “Bloody Americans and their red tape,” but I know that he’s too polite to say it. He merely says, “Come over to the compound, Fred.” He leaves me in the care of a thin, brown-haired captain my age. The captain produces a fresh vial of vaccine, and laments that the leftovers must be destroyed, because after being opened the vaccine can’t be kept. “No problem, though. Myjer Broderick says I’m to give you VIP treatment, so I’ll just charge the cost to his budget.” I shuck off my short-sleeved khaki shirt, and the captain proceeds to scrub my right arm from shoulder to elbow with soapy water! “You Americans use alcohol,” he says, “and wonder why the vaccine dies. I guarantee this will work.” He waits until my arm has air dried, then spreads on the vaccine like butter on toast. He whips out a hypodermic needle, and commences to puncture my arm like a tattoo artist. “Now, don’t take a shower for three days, and try not to perspire. Come back when it festers and you’ll get your R&R trip. And don’t scratch it, no matter how much it itches.” It festered, and it itched. Postscript The Small Starlight Scope mentioned in the journal entry was an early version of a personal night vision device. If memory serves correctly, the Australians had brought a supply of these into country, but had decided that it would be more cost effective for a long-range patrol to use a pair of 7 x 50 binoculars than to risk losing a very expensive Small Starlight Scope. I had told Major Frank Riney in 1stReconBn that the Australians had stored them in a warehouse. Hence came the request for a loan, which I arranged. If my memory is faulty, the lenders and recipients would have been reversed.

21–26 MAY 1967—R&R IN HAWAII

I could have taken R&R much earlier than after nine months in country, but once taken, there would be nothing else to look forward to except the end of the tour. Additionally, there was just too much to do during

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the first nine months. This indicates once again that the tours should be much longer. So it seemed right to wait until now. I get up at 0330 on Sunday morning in order to arrive at the check-in desk by 0600. First a shower—and there’s water. Then comes the tropical worsted uniform that I haven’t worn for over nine months, with the new set of ribbons over the left breast pocket. No food because I’m too sick with the dread of missing the flight. I am so fearful of the upcoming hours that I almost call it off and go back to my room. I know that such fears are unreasonable after the real threats I’ve survived for nine months. But I’ve heard that some people—including senior officers and NCOs—have canceled out of R&R for the same reason. Is this really true? I am afraid to actually hope that my wife and I really will be in Hawaii together in less than twenty-four hours. I wait in the empty lobby of the Hong Kong Hotel for a military taxi. The vehicle arrives like any other ordinary miracle and I leave for the airport. The check-in area is empty! A blackboard notice explains that the flight will be delayed two hours. I’m the only one there at this dark hour, so apparently all the others who are going knew about the delay. At least I’m here in plenty of time! Dawn breaks, and khaki-clad troops with fresh ribbons on their chests begin moving out of nearby tents. There is no horseplay and no laughter, as you normally would expect from a large group of unsupervised troops. Too many friends didn’t live long enough for their R&R. “Field grade officers step to the head of the line.” That’s the first time this has happened to me since I have been in Vietnam. At 1100 we board the plane, a Pan American bird painted gold. The great golden bird! When we are airborne and out of ground fire range, we begin eating a steak meal and watching movies. Maybe this R&R dream will come true. Marine Major John F. Delaney on the seat next to me says that Pan American led the other airlines in running R&R flights, and charges the government only $1 per flight. We refuel at Guam. Everybody lines up and buys five fifths of no-tax booze, and off we go again. Finally we are approaching the runway at Honolulu. After a last ironical thought that we could crash upon landing, the plane is safely on the ground.

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We are sped through customs and bused to the Waikiki R&R Center. How quiet and clean an American city is at 4:00 in the morning, even Honolulu. Two young wives who were waiting at the end of the customs line are on our bus with their husbands. The emotion they generate overwhelms the caustic, bitter bile of war. It’s not sexual emotion—that will come in private. Their kisses, tears and hushed words simply dissolve months of raw, lonely anguish. At the R&R Center auditorium we are herded into the center seats of a bulls-eye with dependents seated in the outer circles. The buffer space between is palpable. Don’t get near the animals until they are made civilized! After a briefing that includes little more than “Don’t forget to get back on the plane,” the bulls-eye dissolves. I take a taxi to the hotel where my wife is waiting, I hope. Two dollars for four blocks. Worse than Saigon. At the hotel there is a key in the box at the desk. Maybe she didn’t get here after all! I grab the key and go to the door of the room. A hand-lettered, multi-colored sign covering the entire top half of the door advises, “Absolutely do not disturb!” I unlock the door. I open the door. And there she is! It has been a long, long time. We will have a few moments of sanity.

Pauline Edwards Honolulu, May 1967

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SATURDAY 27 MAY 1967—RETURN FROM R&R

The tightening of the guts begins two nights before I must leave Hawaii. At the hotel desk at midnight that night a young couple are paying their bill. She is signing dozens of travelers’ checks. She asks for ice and 7-Up to be sent up. He asks to be called at 0300. The clerk doesn’t understand. The young man, in civilian clothes, explains that he has to get up early “in order to go back . . . over there.” In this land of no-war it seems that you must apologize to civilians for going to such a dirty, filthy place as Vietnam. Tomorrow night is my turn. Tomorrow night comes, and we attend the floor show at Fort Derussy. We stay late, and follow good steaks with fine wine. At midnight I also ask the desk clerk for a call at 0300. I tell him it’s because I have to catch an airplane. After the 0300 call, my wife and I drive to the airport in our rented car. Again no food. Not interested. Young couples are desperately embracing. I’m glad that I’m a senior officer and can’t do that because it only makes goodbye worse. I can’t wait to get on the plane and get it over with. I explain to my wife that in only six more weeks I’ll be home for good. Thank God. This helps. The time comes. I kiss her quickly and tell her I’ll see her later. Then we’re airborne. With six weeks firmly in my mind, for the first time I begin to think that I’ll make it back from this war. At Tan Son Nhut airport rain is beginning to fall. The mud and filth! All over again! My friend Harry Holeman—the eternal showman and con artist—has oiled the machinery and hustles me out of the receiving area immediately. Having a friend to meet you makes returning to this godforsaken place possible. Almost immediately I am at the Hong Kong Hotel, unpacking, and describing my R&R to those who were left behind. My roommate, Squadron Leader Brian H. Candy, gives me an icy stove-pipe can of Foster’s Australian beer. Later we go down to the dining room for dinner. I determine to not let anything in this country bother me. In my mind I will never return from Hawaii to Vietnam. Postscript Walt, Commanding General of III MAF, also was preparing to leave Vietnam. Newsweek announced on 29 May that he would be relieved on 1 June by Major General Robert E. Cushman. He was leaving under a cloud. The

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article stated that he had underestimated the danger from the North Vietnamese regulars and main force VC units, and had ignored warnings to that effect from the MACV headquarters (“The War in Vietnam,” 29 May 1967, 47–48). The key to the controversy, say writers such as Sheehan, is that the Marines disagreed with the massive sweep operations that Westmoreland wanted. He writes (as previously discussed in this book) that the Marines insisted that pacification, including combined action companies such as I had visited, was the key to victory, and that there were not enough Marines to both pacify and sweep. Walt, the senior Marine general under Westmoreland’s command, took the blame (Sheehan, 629–43). However, Walt would become Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps in January 1968 (while Johnson was still president) and would be promoted to full general in June 1969 as that position was converted to the second general’s billet in the Marine Corps (Kutler, 619). Walt wasn’t the only key player who would leave under a cloud. On 19 May, McNamara had submitted a memorandum to Johnson stating that the U.S. could not win the war. In his book published in 1995, McNamara states that the memorandum showed that the U.S. should, “through either negotiation or direct action,” begin withdrawal from South Vietnam. On 22 November, he will read in a newspaper that he is leaving the Pentagon to become president of the World Bank (266–71, 313).

Transition • 189

Chapter 7

Transition JUNE 1967—BIEN HOA HIGHWAY

Lieutenant Colonel Harry Holeman, the J-2 MACV science advisor, wants to discuss a project involving long-range patrolling with several members of G-2 and G-3 at II Field Force headquarters in Long Binh.1 Harry’s clearance precludes in-country trips outside of American-held territory, but his fighter pilot spirit influences him to go anyway. Except for an official trip to Tokyo, he hasn’t been out of Saigon/Cholon, and is looking forward to this trip. I draw a pair of pistols and pick him up in the office jeep. The rotund little man looks incongruous in his Air Force khaki tropical worsted and blue frame cap, with a .45 automatic strapped around his waist, but I guess that Air Force scientists don’t bring field uniforms to Vietnam. On the Bien Hoa highway a tragi-comic act with a Lambretta unfolds. A Lambretta is a motorbike with one wheel in front and two wheels on an axle in the rear. Built over this triangular frame is an enclosure which houses the driver in front and his cargo in the rear. A Lambretta can carry four Americans or a dozen Vietnamese. Thousands of Lambrettas serve as taxies, buses, and cargo trucks in the Saigon-Cholon-Bien Hoa area. This Lambretta’s cargo is a full load of freshly 189

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Lieutenant Colonel Harry H. Holeman Cholon, 1967

charcoaled logs, each about six inches in diameter and five feet long. One of these logs has flared up, and smoke is pouring out of the back of the Lambretta. The Vietnamese driver is on the verge of a giant sized cook-out! The poor little bastard is pulling out logs as fast as he can and throwing them all over the highway, trying to find the one that is burning! He is black with soot, and the whole scene would be a comedy, except that the Lambretta and its load probably represent his total capital. No Vietnamese stops to help him, and it is not wise for us to stop. A worse tragedy involving a Honda takes place farther down the highway. A Honda is a motorbike with only two standard wheels. The Honda is to the Vietnamese in the Saigon area what the Ford was to the Americans in the thirties. I have actually seen a Vietnamese family of six on one Honda. Many Vietnamese are injured and killed daily on their Hondas, often by hitting another Honda and being thrown head first over the handle bars. Just last week I saw a Vietnamese man do this and fly right over the

Transition • 191

front of his bike. He hit head-first, blood spurted from both ears, and he was dead before his trunk and legs reached the pavement. Today on the Bien Hoa highway we see a flatbed truck with a load of steel girders destined for new American construction in Long Binh. The truck’s tires are a good five feet high. The driver had been turning off the highway, and apparently failed to see a young Vietnamese couple who were riding on their Honda beside a pair of those tires. By the time he stopped his truck, the Honda and the Vietnamese were directly underneath one of the tires. There just isn’t much left. There is so little that the two National Police at the scene haven’t even bothered to have the truck driver move his vehicle while they write up their report. The sole consolation from dying by violence is that the person who dies never has to see how bad he looks after his final performance. The Vietnamese, like most Asians, seem to place little value on life. I remember seeing a dead Vietnamese man stretched out on the dirt in a park across the street from the MACV III compound. He had blood on his stomach and appeared to have been stabbed. During the two hours he was there, Vietnamese passersby and their children crowded around the body in the same way as they used to gather around the public execution wall during the days of Ngo Dinh Diem. Eventually the body was taken away. When Harry and I finish our business at II FF, we return to the shock of Saigon. I have never gotten used to seeing mothers and grandmothers and children who must live a life of filth. You have to see and smell the garbage piles of Saigon to comprehend how poor a person must be in order to climb barefooted onto that rotting refuse, and dig with bare hands for anything salvageable. I have never gotten used to children from five to twelve years old shining shoes, begging, pimping, and selling dirty pictures outside of American installations. These same children sleep on pieces of paper on the sidewalks where they work in the daytime. Their only baths come from the monsoon rains. By age twelve they disappear from the streets. The boys probably go to the Army, or the VC, or become black-market operators. The girls either go to the bars, or worse. I have never gotten used to being approached by a female—either under age twelve or over age fifty—saying, “You buy fuck pictures? Number one.”

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Let’s don’t let it happen to our country. Operation Fairfax is being conducted by the U.S. 199th Light Infantry Brigade (199thBde) in Gia Dinh (Zha Dinn) Province, which comprises the greater Saigon-Cholon-Gia Dinh complex. So here Harry and I are, returning to our homes, which are surrounded by an ongoing operation. The paradox is exemplified by a jeep loaded with grubby American soldiers with body armor and weapons, driving into the Cholon PX and filling their trailer with electric fans and refrigerators. Standing in the PX checkout line with them is a Red Cross girl, and behind her a tanned American civilian woman in a white mini-skirt, neither of whom really understand that a war is going on not fifteen minutes away by jeep. The women remind me of a stewardess on my R&R flight to Hawaii who ridiculed her contract providing for accumulation of her pay in case she became missing or a prisoner as a result of flying over Vietnam. Those of us who heard her were sick with disgust. She should see a group of young Americans lying around a bus stop in pools of their own blood. She should see the bodies of men who have been shot down, or have crash-landed. Or at least she should shut up until she realizes the nature of this strange war. Meanwhile Operation Fairfax continues with light contact. At least it is more reassuring to see friendly blue lines drawn on the maps around Saigon that indicate Fairfax than to see only the red rectangles indicating enemy units that our maps have shown for so long.2 Postscript During my after-R&R transition in June, U.S. troops were fighting in the Mekong Delta. In another anomaly of the war, the Mobile Riverine Force (MRF), then composed of the Army’s 2nd Brigade of the 9th Infantry Division (9thInfDiv), had been formed and trained in the States to conduct amphibious operations in the Delta while the U.S. Marine Corps was mired down in I Corps in sustained ground warfare that was not part of its doctrine. Based at Dong Tam, an island created from the My Tho River, the Navy’s River Assault Force supported the MRF with converted landing craft and LSTs, for barracks, logistics support, and amphibious craft. This avoided using land needed by the dense population for its agriculture. Artillery support was provided by 81mm mortars and 105mm howitzers secured to LCM-8 “Mike” boats, which would be made fast to the beach.

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(See Cutler, 236–53 for details.) Based on the journals, I did not visit the MRF.

JUNE 1967—SAIGON REDUX: COWBOYS AND COWGIRLS

The latest fad among the VC in Cholon comes straight out of our western movies. A Honda driver who is reckless and whom we might call a “hot rodder” in the States is called a “cowboy” in Saigon/Cholon. He might even wear a hat that resembles a sombrero, and attach a picture of a cowboy on a bronco to his rear license plate. The VC went one step farther and started shooting from the saddle. At least three of them did. The name of the game was for a boy driver to carry a girl passenger who could shoot a pistol. As the innocent-appearing couple on the Honda went past an American, the girl would shoot, then the driver would speed away. They got two Americans this way. Excellent aim. And they got away. The Americans didn’t. We speculated a great deal about this topnotch female marksman. Eventually, during a routine police check of an apartment near the Hong Kong BOQ, three VC males were apprehended. Documents found there disclosed that they were the assassins. The real name of the game was that, each time there was a “mission,” one of them would take his turn in rotation dressing like a female and riding as the passenger. Another would drive. And the third would stay home. The real, real name of the game was that they were all homosexuals. Who’s up? Who’s out? Who’s on first? Will the real homosexual please stand up? What a way to mix business with pleasure.

JUNE 1967—NEW GUYS IN THE TUNNEL

Many of the Old Guys call the recent arrivals “FNG’s” (Fucking New Guys), for a variety of reasons. But the new guys won’t carry the appellation long because if they’re going to be here only twelve months they need to get to be old guys fast. And they will have to carry on long after we are gone. Some are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and some are not.

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An Air Force lieutenant colonel named John is one of the NGs at J-2.3 He is a short, pudgy, soft-looking man with a mild personality. Based upon appearance, I would not select him to be a Marine Corps drill instructor, or even a Marine. In addition to his physical characteristics, John must be the original Joe Blfstk of the comics. Soon after he arrived in country he was afflicted with a sudden case of diarrhea. While he was rushing to the toilet the electricity went off. Before he could find his way in the darkness, he discovered that he no longer needed the toilet. It was more important that he return to his room, take a shower, and put on clean trousers. Three days later when John was climbing out of a jeep he tripped over the safety strap. The fall not only broke his ankle, it also sprained it and chipped it. His entire leg had to go into a cast. After a few days in the cast, John’s leg began to itch. His doctor put on a new cast that would free his leg to the air. The doctor didn’t tell him not to scratch, so he spent that evening scratching and rubbing his leg and ankle. John’s leg also had been bruised, and the scratching and rubbing loosened a blood clot. The clot went through his heart and lodged in his lung. He did not know at the time that the passage through his heart caused a severe heart attack. He just passed out on the bed, and awoke to a painful lung filled with fluid. The doctors kept John in isolation until he got well enough to be medically evacuated to the States. Unfortunately, they couldn’t find the blood clot. So they had to find a way to dissolve it, and that would take time. In fact they couldn’t tell if he had only one clot. The day he left, John did his own checking out. When he came by in a wheelchair to say goodbye, he said, “I’ll be back to finish my tour of duty.” We thought little of this because we knew that John was flying home on a stretcher. We didn’t know that John got himself sent to Japan for his recovery period. When he was considered well enough to return to partial duty, he was sent to catch an airplane home. It seems that there was an airplane going each direction that day. So John boarded the one going to Vietnam. Just seventy-eight days after he was evacuated in a stretcher John returned to his place of duty. New guys like this will do well.

Transition • 195

When an Air Force captain named Don arrived in country he was made a temporary occupant of the Virginia BOQ, a newly-contracted hotel BOQ located six blocks away on the VC side of the Hong Kong BOQ.4 Within six weeks he was supposed to be reassigned to a permanent room in another BOQ. That is the way things are done here. The Virginia BOQ has no dining room, and there is no restaurant nearby except local Vietnamese “Howard Johnsons.” Americans don’t eat in a “Howard Johnson” in Cholon in 1967, not more than once. The nearest safe eating place to the Virginia BOQ is at the Hong Kong BOQ. Don said he didn’t mind walking over to the Hong Kong for breakfast each morning, because he only would have to do that for six weeks. Well, Don only had to stay at the Virginia for a month. Near the end of that month he started hiking to the Hong Kong for breakfast the last time. The first round from a VC’s .45 automatic hit him in the back of the head. He didn’t even know when he hit the ground. The second and third rounds hit him in the chest, but they really weren’t necessary. Don had joked about needing an M-16 and an armed patrol to escort him for meals. Looks like it was no joke. The new guys can die just as fast as did the old guys, and Saigon Commandos still earn their combat pay.

Major Jack Fletcher, thirty-five, of the Australian Special Air Service, is one of the NGs. On paper he is the replacement for an Australian known as “The Galloping Major,” late of I Corps. The Galloping Major was the second of two consecutive majors in the same assignment who were killed in action. In order to break that chain, Jack Fletcher will work with me for the time being, and will travel throughout the country with me for indoctrination. Jack is only five-feet-nine-inches tall in height, but he is a giant in deeds. During two years in the States he was trained by the Special Forces as well as by U.S. Marine Corps force reconnaissance instructors. From the States he went to his first war in another country in Southeast Asia, and then he came to Vietnam.5 He has earned the Australian Army’s George Medal, which puts him in an exclusive group of warriors. He wears a neatly-clipped British mustache, and keeps his dark hair just long enough to comb. He customarily smokes with an ivory cigarette

196 • The Bridges of Vietnam

holder. His calling card merely lists his name and “Major—The Special Air Service Regiment.” Because of his personality and his diverse background, Jack likes to present a varied role of images. When he visits U.S. Army units he wears what he calls his “Christmas Tree Shirt.” On this are his U.S. Army master jump wings, Ranger patch, Recondo patch, and miscellaneous other indicia for which he is qualified. When he visits U.S. Marines he wears only the golden USMC master parachutist wings he earned with force recon. He habitually wears a light blue cummerbund with his field uniform. Jack likes to enter an American officers’ bar in his exotic uniform, order a drink, ostentatiously fill his cigarette holder, hold up his glass and say in his best British accent, “Here’s to that great British patriot, Benedict Arnold.” Jack is good, and will do well during his year here. Let’s hope he breaks the losing streak of his predecessors.

JUNE 1967—PILGRIMAGE

Memories abound as I start my final round of flights throughout the Republic of Vietnam. Below us now is the great white Buddha statue at Nha Trang. I remember the huge photograph of it in somebody’s office signed, “Love, Buddha.” Next we fly over an area where I once was shot at. At another time one of our photographers took fire while flying over the same area. Neither he nor the pilot were as lucky as me. We recovered their bodies the next day during a sweep. Since we don’t have enough troops to permanently occupy all of Vietnam, Charlie moved back into the area after we left. He lives in the jungle and we live in the cities and base camps. He attacks us and we attack him. But both sides continue to exist. The headquarters of 5th Special Forces has changed. When I first visited last year, strips of metal containing names of Special Forces officers and men killed in action occupied two large shields attached to the entrance wall. Now a third shield has been added, and is already full. One of the new names is that of the new team sergeant at the Duc Co camp. I suppose that all men who are spared in war sometimes wonder why they were selected for such a gift. When this nervous senior sergeant

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and I sat at the same table drinking beer last year, did we know that only one of us would leave Duc Co alive? Which one would it be? I think I saw the answer in his face. Which one should it be? Who can say? Another new name strip identifies an Australian warrant officer who was on loan to 5th Special Forces. My Saigon roommate Brian Candy was responsible for returning his body to Australia for a military funeral. Ten minutes before the funeral began in Australia, the officials decided to postpone it long enough for a double funeral. His wife had just committed suicide.6 Every place I visit I am confronted by new names and faces. Most of the old ones are gone or dead. I notice that we old guys feel reluctant to turn the war over to the newcomers. But at the same time we hope that they will learn quicker, and make fewer mistakes. Who are we to think that because of a few months’ experience we are experts? Yes, let them learn quicker and make no mistakes. Let their efforts win the war. At least make them believe during the beginning months of their tours that this is possible. As we fly on to our next destination, my Australian companion Jack Fletcher is invited to the pilot’s cabin to see the view. I think of a roommate who once asked me to share the pilot’s cabin. I didn’t share it with him on his final flight. Although memories are a vital part of life, I realize that staying young is a matter of looking forward to tomorrow, and of making plans which will form tomorrow’s memories. Therefore, in gratitude for my ability to do so, I look forward to tomorrow. Postscript While at the Special Forces headquarters at Nha Trang on this trip, I approached a chained little monkey that I had seen there during my previous visit. I reached to pet him, but he clamped both his hands around my arm, and buried his face into the inside of my elbow. A passing Special Forces sergeant said, “Major, he’ll bite into your blood veins!” By the time I escaped him, he had peeled off an inch of skin as neatly and painlessly as peeling a decal off its backing. My first thought was that I would be quarantined and prevented from returning to the States on schedule. My second thought was, “Bull shit.” I raced across the compound to the aid station, and confronted a squeaky-

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clean Montagnard girl in a nurse’s crisp, white uniform. I found a bottle of alcohol and a container of cotton balls, and pantomimed a brisk scrubbing motion over my arm. I kept her working over that spot with alcohol until my flesh looked like it had been scraped with a wire brush. Then she rinsed it in fresh alcohol and bandaged it with a sterile compress. I arranged for the animal to be watched for three weeks. After that I’d be in the States, and they could quarantine me as long as they wanted. Not very sophisticated actions for an old Asia hand.

FRIDAY 30 JUNE 1967—DEJA VU

Ted Fielding’s new boss has been reassigned, and another Army colonel arrives.7 Before he departed the States, a West Point classmate had told him that he had prepared a study at MACV eighteen months earlier that would activate an American long-range patrol regiment (LRPR), under the operational control of COMUSMACV. Although the study had been approved, the new colonel and his friend had been unable to find any such regiment being formed in the States. He asks me if this is within our area of responsibility, and I reply that we would monitor it if we knew about it. He says, “Major, I’ve never been a staff officer before, but I’ve had my fill of experience with staffs. If they ‘monitor’ they have no control. The only way a staff officer can control is to manage. I may not have the authority to command this regiment, but I intend to manage it, and manage it actively.” It seems clear to me that 5th Special Forces is handling the LRPR function. They even have a liaison detachment in Saigon through which MACV can place LRPR missions.8 However, a statement about who exercises full operational control depends upon whether the speaker is from MACV or 5th Special Forces. And the new colonel—frustrated by not having a command—wants an LRPR composed of Americans, reporting to . . . him. There seems to be no corporate knowledge of the staff study, because anybody connected with it went home long before Ted Fielding and I arrived. But the colonel drags me through offices from J-1 through J-5. We know we are on to something when we meet another Army colonel who says he won’t discuss force level planning because we don’t have a

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need to know! I am asked to leave the office, and close the door behind me. After a few minutes the door opens, and the new colonel leads the other colonel—now red-faced—to another office. He beckons for me to follow them. In the other office the red-faced colonel tells a master sergeant to unlock a file cabinet in the back of the room and get the longrange patrol regiment folder. “But sir,” says the master sergeant with a frown. “These officers aren’t on the access list.” “Let them read it, sergeant,” orders the red-faced colonel. He turns on his heel and returns to his office. The study has been endorsed for approval, but handwriting on the front page says, “File without action.” “What’s this all about, sergeant?” asks the colonel. The master sergeant hems and haws. Finally he says, “Colonel, we get studies like this sometimes, and just don’t have the force level to support them. So we file them without action.” “We?” “Sir, I just do what I’m told. Sometimes the colonel comes out of a meeting and tells me to file something without action.” “An approved study?” More hems and haws, until he mumbles that General Westmoreland has never been refused any formal request he has sent to Washington. And the policy is that he won’t be. After we leave, the new colonel tells me that we will make an updated study. I will visit every major unit in country for fresh justification. He says, “Let’s have it staffed and ready for decision in thirty days.” I look at the date on my PX wristwatch. “Colonel, did Commander Fielding tell you that I’m scheduled to rotate in exactly two weeks?”9

1

He didn’t volunteer to tell me what his project was, and I didn’t ask.

2

Pimlott does not list Operation Fairfax as a decisive battle.

3

Last name was not recorded and cannot be remembered. Same note as above.

4 5

Jack told me it was a country where the Australian SAS was operating clandes-

tinely, so I left it out of the journal. I can’t remember it now.

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6

Was he the warrant officer I mentioned in the notes for Chapter 3, Friday 21

October? I don’t know. 7 8 9

According to my notes, he might have been Army Colonel Robert E. McMahon. The Saigon liaison detachment was B-55. Young writes: “I was at a point where the war ceased to have any meaning for

me, and I just wanted to go home. Vietnam had become like a movie you sit down to watch after it’s started and leave before it’s over” (243).

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Chapter 8

Initiation TUESDAY 6 JUNE 1967—END-OF-TOUR MEDALS1

My boss, who works at the MACV I compound when in Saigon, comes to confer with me at the MACV III compound. He leads me from my seat at the row of desks into the private office in the front of the room. “Fred, I’ve been informed that everybody here works long hours and lives with danger and hardships for a year. As a morale-booster, the policy is that each person who completes a satisfactory tour of duty at MACV should know that he will go home with more than a campaign medal.” Commander Fielding doesn’t surprise me, because I have attended a number of medal presentations for departing officers and enlisted men. The medals range from Legions of Merit for the more senior officers, to Bronze Stars for junior officers and senior NCOs; and Joint Service, or individual Service Commendation Medals for lower-ranking enlisted men. Often, a staff officer who has ridden in an AC-47 Dragon ship the required number of hours and times will also be presented an Air Medal. Sometimes a naval aviator receives an Air Medal for riding Navy multi-engine reconnaissance aircraft during long night missions. Occasionally a departing MACV officer or NCO is also wearing a “real” medal earned for specific acts. 201

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Ted Fielding says, “I know you and I feel embarrassed about talking of these things, but my boss is new in country. He told me that he doesn’t know enough details about what we’ve done in the field during the last ten months to write appropriate recommendations. He wants us to write drafts, and he’s quite insistent.” Ted is right, because I do feel embarrassed. I have to ask, “For what medals?” “Either Bronze Stars or Joint Service Commendations.” He looks at me, also abashed. “I’ve already got a Bronze Star, along with everything else,” he says. “I got it in Korea for doing something more important than just getting shot at. Write me up for a Joint Service Commendation Medal. And if you don’t think this is appropriate, feel free to talk to my boss.” “No problem, Commander.” I know that Ted rates this lowest-ranking personal medal more than the people who get theirs after sitting behind desks in Saigon shuffling papers for twelve months. “What about you, Fred? I’ll recommend you for a Bronze Star if that’s what you want.” “No, sir. If you rate a Joint Service Commendation Medal, so do I.” 2

SATURDAY 1 JULY 1967—FLIGHT H244

Flight H244 will leave Saigon at 7:45 P.M. on the fourteenth of July and will arrive at Travis Air Force Base, California, at approximately the same time (due to the International Date Line and other time changes, which even the pilots who fly these routes for years tell me they don’t really understand). This is one of several flights to Travis that day, but this one is important for one reason. With any luck this flight will be the GREAT GOLDEN BIRD WHICH GOES BACK TO THE LAND OF THE BIG PX AND THE ROUNDEYES. This is MY flight. I know that the youngsters making this flight with me will do no childish celebrating on the way back. Too much has passed through their lives since last year. Too many buddies won’t be coming back. No, the passengers on this flight will be just like the ones with whom I flew to Hawaii last month. They’ll have a sense of awe because of the possibility that it may be all over for them now. I suspect that they now know more about life, and death, and philosophy than most other Americans will ever know.

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They have this right to know because they have completed a year of postgraduate schooling. I hope they will be able to return and get their intermediate schooling before their turn comes to run our world. I remember writing about percentages during my flight into country. Well, percentages are interesting, although I don’t know if they mean anything when you apply them to your one-on-one personal chances of survival. I had estimated that only one of our incoming group would not make the return trip. This figure was too low because casualty rates accelerated. Whether or not percentages demanded it, helicopter driver Pete Samaras, my roommate during the Okinawa layover, and fellow passenger on the flight down south, didn’t make it. He and I had many talks about that very possibility for each of us, as if we knew that one of us was due. Sorry, Pete. So what do percentages mean? Although luck, or providence, or whatever term is used, seems to be the great decider, some men have gone through three or more wars, yet others haven’t lived beyond more than a few minutes in their first. In any event, all of us who are booked aboard that aircraft will get aboard. And for awhile we will share similar plans and goals for a better life based upon what we have learned. Later perhaps we will stray, and forget the hallowed responsibility for happiness that we owe the dead for being alive. But the most important thing is that we are going to get aboard that aircraft! Postscript I mentioned percentages. Early in my tour I had eaten breakfast with my friend, Major Cornelius H. “Corky” Ram, who was recovering from wounds, and was going home. In early 1971 I learned that Corky had voluntarily returned to Vietnam early in order to rotate back to the States in time to begin a senior level professional school. I was told that, during his second tour he was killed when he stepped off a helicopter and onto a booby-trapped 105mm howitzer round. His name on the Vietnam Wall in Washington reads that Corky, thirty-nine, died in Quang Nam Province on 10 January 1971. Percentages have no meaning in cases like this.

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SUNDAY 9 JULY 1967—THE LAST SUNDAY3

My roommate, Squadron Leader Brian Candy, coordinates administrative and logistical flights between Australia and Vietnam. This puts him in a position to import critical supplies for the Australian Task Force and other recipients. For example, after I had complained for three weeks that the package store at the American PX in Cholon was out of rum, Brian came to the rescue. I returned from the field to our room in the Hong Kong Hotel one evening to find bottles of rum placed on desks, bedside tables, and armoires, and stacked high on both beds. Virtually every brand of rum I’d ever heard of was represented in the cache, and underneath each group of bottles was a note from Brian, dedicating it to his American Marine mate Fred Edwards, courtesy of Australia’s people-to-people program. This Sunday Brian continues the people-to-people program. I’ve just returned from work at noon when he arrives in his khaki uniform, complete with shorts and knee socks, and his Australian Army hat with the brim flattened, the way the RAAF officers do. He is trailed by three breathless, rawboned Australian lieutenants dressed in field uniforms, and lugging bags made from old camouflaged parachute material. The lieutenants look like runts next to Brian, who fills the doorway, then the room, as he enters. The bags contain Foster’s beer, in cans the diameter of stovepipes. “It’s overflow, myte,” says Brian. “Our beer boxes at Tan Son Nhut are full. We can’t give it or sell it to anybody without breaking one bloody law or another. So we’ll just have to drink it.” At 1230, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Harry Holeman, who treasures memories of Australia from World War II, arrives at our room, by now dubbed “Australia House.” He tells the lieutenants that they could be his sons, and almost causes an international paternity incident. Finally he convinces them that he meant only that they were young enough to be his sons. At 1300, Army Major Bill Banner, who lives in the adjoining room, returns from his job. Bill, a short, black-haired, roundish, former football player, is assigned at MACV J-4. He has endured two roommates in a row who developed “adult reactions.” The first was a young Army captain who took a liking to loud Beethoven tapes for the twelve hours a day he was in the room. The second was a retired Army sergeant first class who had come to Vietnam as a civilian to earn enough salary to pay off his mort-

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gage, but had become dysfunctional.4 Bill is pleased to quaff a few beers with reasonably adjusted professionals. At 1400, Australian Major Jack Fletcher arrives. By then we have erected a column of empty beer cans on each desk, and are racing to see which column will reach the ceiling first. Cigarette smoke is so thick that the afternoon sun recoils from the window like a searchlight bouncing off of ground fog. Harry, Bill, and I learn that many Australians can’t fathom the Americans’ love affair with the song, “Waltzing Matilda,” and indeed don’t even know the words. So we teach the Australians the verses while they translate their meaning. Our octet sings “Waltzing Matilda” over and over, until we do it loud and well. At 1500 we exit the Hong Kong and ride the two Australian jeeps to a local Chinese restaurant. The food is hot and heavy on top of Foster’s beer. By 1600 we return, and the party is over. I mean it’s really over. We try to park at the corner of Dong Khanh and Duong Ngo Quyen, so we can walk down the latter to get into the Hong Kong Hotel. A white mouse (the Quan Canh, or QC, police that wear immaculately-tailored white uniforms and aviator’s sunglasses) is standing in the entrance of the nearest bar and waves us off. Without leaving the shelter of the entrance, he points upward and says, “Snipers.” The VC like to blow out a bar front, wait for Americans to gather on the street to gawk, and pick them off from a nearby roof. The Hong Kong Hotel is not likely to be the target, because each end of Duong Ngo Quyen that leads to the Hong Kong is barricaded against vehicles, making it difficult to bring in explosives. We figure that snipers are probably on the roof of one of the buildings fronting busy Dong Khanh. If so, we can rush down the sidewalks of Duong Ngo Quyen, using the buildings as cover, and get into the Hong Kong Hotel before the VC make their move. Jack Fletcher and the Australian lieutenants let Harry, Brian, Bill, and me out; and safely speed away to their hotels out near Tan Son Nhut Airport. We can see Americans in civilian clothes inside several bars on Dong Khanh, busy buying Saigon Tea. Somebody remarks that the bar owners must have paid their VC taxes. As we slip along Duong Ngo Quyen, we pass two Americans near the American bus stop who have taken cover in doorways. I tell each of them to either stay under cover or follow us to the Hong Kong. They look at me like I’m crazy, and stay put.

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At the Hong Kong, I find that a second American MP has taken station behind the barricade of fifty-five-gallon, sand-filled drums. He has an M-16, spare ammo, and a backup radio. I ask him about security on the roof. He says that a Navy officer wearing lieutenant colonel leaves5 (a commander) who lives on the top floor has the .45 caliber grease gun normally kept at the lobby desk, and is guarding the roof exit. In minutes we are in my room on the sixth floor (actually seventh floor), and Bill Banner returns to his room next door. “What the fuck do we do now, mytes?” asks Brian. “First we lock our door and barricade it,” says Harry. “And then we mix drinks,” Harry and I say together. We sip rums and cokes and stay clear of the one window that’s not protected by an armoire. I decide that this is a hell of a way for a couple of hundred officers to spend a Sunday afternoon, defended by two enlisted men downstairs, and a Navy officer with a grease gun upstairs. The sound of the blast radiates from where we had planned to park our jeeps, bouncing between the rows of buildings with that jarring, grating sound that comes when explosives go off in concrete corridors. I move beside the window and draw the curtain past the edge of the air conditioner, so that I can see a small sector of the street. “Nobody’s moving right now,” I say, “but there are a lot of Americans pressed tightly into the doorways.” Harry looks at his watch, frowns, shakes his head, and says, “If nothing else happens for sixty seconds, watch some stupid American come out on the street and get killed.” Sixty seconds later I sigh, “You’re right.” Small groups of Americans have left the bars on Dong Khanh, and are strolling down the middle of Duong Ngo Quyen, just like it’s Sunday afternoon at home. When the sniper fire starts, it sounds like corn popping over the sound of our air conditioner. All of the Americans leap into covered doorways except one. He sprints like a track runner toward the Hong Kong, until he’s hit. This small, slim stranger with closely trimmed black hair looks like a fastidiously neat staff officer. It is absurd to see him run right out of his brightly shined Cordovan penny-loafers, and fall face-down onto the street. It is obscene to see streaks of yellow mud grind into his sharply pressed dark trousers, and a blotch of red blood defile his blue and yellow Hawaiian shirt. I have the unreasonable thought that if he was wearing a field uniform and carrying a rifle, he

Initiation • 207

could have withstood the fire. “Goddammit,” I say, “they got one.” Harry frowns again, and glances at his watch. I know what he’s doing . . . another sixty-second countdown. An American tentatively approaches the man who is down. When nothing happens, another joins him. The shooting starts again. One goes down and the other escapes around the corner of the building across from the Hong Kong’s lobby. Other Americans are back in the street now, running. Another falls. I move away so that Harry can observe through the peephole. “Three of them hit,” he says, grim-faced, after the popcorn noise stops. “The one’s not moving.” He drains his drink and mixes a double. I hear the sirens of the reaction vehicles, and figure it’s over. Brian, who thinks we’ve been joking, takes a look through the peephole, and his face turns ashen. Later, after the street has been cleaned up, Harry walks safely along the same route, back to his hotel. “Thank God this is my last goddam Sunday,” I tell Brian. “Go fuck off, myte. After you leave, I’ll have to live in this stinking, fucking place for months.”

JULY 1967—ODE TO SAIGON6 (AUTHOR UNKNOWN)

I awoke this morning; as the bright new day was born. A robin perched upon the sill; to signal the coming dawn. The bird was graceful, young and gay; and sweetly did it sing. The thought of joy and happiness; within my heart did ring. So I smiled at his cheery song; then paused—a moment’s lull. And I gently closed the window; and crushed his fucking skull.

JULY 1967—HOW CAN AMERICAN FIGHTING MEN REALLY UNDERSTAND A PEOPLE . . .7

How can American fighting men really understand a people: Whose national heroines are two sisters whose fame is that they com-

208 • The Bridges of Vietnam

mitted suicide after the country was defeated while under their leadership? Who are in total war for their very freedom, yet whose capital city teems with civilian males of military age? Whose Armed Forces in time of war observe noon siestas; and Saturday afternoon, Sunday and national holidays? Who will gather in a circle on the sidewalk in daylight to watch a man beat a woman—and neither ask questions nor seek help? Whose men work in shorts and whose women wear long pants? Of whom probably ninety-nine percent do not know how or do not care to dance? Whose inhabitants will use leeches to cure a sore throat? Will throw away their aspirins and submit their foreheads to pinches until they are covered with bright bruises in order to cure a headache? Will allow their entire bodies to be pinched black and blue to cure a fever? Whose national language isn’t even understood by one third of the inhabitants of the capital city?

FRIDAY 14 JULY 1967 THE LAST DAY—AIRPLANE TO TRAVIS

I have already shipped my foot locker and other bulky personal effects. My only responsibilities today are to check in for Flight H244 for Travis Air Force Base at least two hours before takeoff at 1945—and to attend a going away party that my Australian friend Brian Candy will throw at the Wallaby Flight Line at 1730. Except for those two engagements, I intend to make the day as uneventful as possible. At mid-afternoon I leave the Hong Kong BOQ for the last time, and Harry Holeman picks me up in a military sedan. The Vietnamese driver puts my Val Pak in the trunk, and I keep my ditty bag, which contains my orders. The driver is upset, because he was dispatched to pick up a “VIP” (a full colonel). Although there is little verbal communication, Harry’s facial expressions, body language, and plain perseverance convince the driver that he has all the VIPs aboard that he can handle. I check in for my flight, and explain that I have business to conduct on the other side of the base. The Air Force sergeant says, “Major, according to regulations, once you’re checked in, you’re required to stay in the

Initiation • 209

area, in case the flight is changed.” He looks through a folder of messages. “Let’s put it this way. The plane can’t possibly get here in time to depart before 1945. I plan to call roll and start loading passengers at 1845. Anybody not here when I call his name doesn’t get aboard. He will have to explain why he was late to his parent unit tomorrow or whenever he’s found.” He smiles. “Don’t miss roll call, major.” At the Wallaby Flight Line, Brian Candy introduces me to his ground crew, and offers me a choice of Foster’s stove pipes of beer—fresh from Australia, or rum and coke. I choose both. The crew members drink a beer apiece, and rush to catch their hotel transportation. Jack Fletcher arrives with a jeep, and he, Brian, Harry, and I finish the Foster’s and the rum. Then Jack drives us to my terminal. We arrive five minutes late—and the plane is not outside the terminal building by the loading gate where it is supposed to be. In fact, it’s not in sight. The inside of the terminal is deserted. No troops, no friendly Air Force sergeant, nothing but a silence like a vacuum. Have I missed the big golden bird? In my ditty bag is a civilian ticket for a connecting flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles. My wife will be driving from Oceanside to Los Angeles to meet me. If I’ve missed the golden bird, I won’t be on the flight to Los Angeles, and she’ll fear the worst. Harry says, “That plane isn’t even due on the ground for another fiftyfive minutes. You haven’t missed it. Something else is going on.” “Maybe they moved the boarding area, and took the troops to the new location by bus,” I say, wondering how I could find such a location. I stride out to the boarding gate, and Harry marches ahead of me to read a note attached to the mesh door. “I knew it,” he says, and reads aloud. “Flight H244 has been delayed for two hours. All passengers who were here for roll call were ferried to the mess hall for chow, and will be returned on time. All others are reminded that they must be at this gate no later than 2045.” Harry peers at me with an impish smile. “All others is you,” he says. I insist on reading the note before I believe him. By this time the two hours has shrunk to an hour-and-a-half, but that should be enough time to go to an American slop chute on the other side of the base for hamburgers. It takes thirty minutes to get there. The place is packed with enlisted

210 • The Bridges of Vietnam

airmen celebrating Friday night. They try to ignore us, but it’s not easy: a feisty little Air Force lieutenant colonel wearing a blue frame cap; a tall Australian Air Force squadron leader wearing khaki shorts, short sleeves, and a wide-brimmed “digger” hat, without one side turned up the way the Australian Army does; a mid-sized Australian army major with an ivory cigarette holder, wearing a light blue cummerbund and a beret with his field uniform; and a Marine Corps major in khaki, with an overstuffed Val Pack and a ditty bag close at hand. My calculations tell me that we have just thirty minutes to eat our hamburgers and go. The hamburgers arrive after twenty minutes and two beers, and I down my beers in four gulps. I rise to go, and these bastards commence a long discussion on the merits of having a second hamburger. They studiously ignore my demands to leave. Finally Jack Fletcher says, “Yes, I think I’ll have another one, this time with cheese.” He seems to notice me for the first time. “Oh, Fred, you’re still here? I thought you’d gone to catch your flight. Well, no problem, myte. When I finish my cheeseburger, I’ll be glad to take you. I know a short-cut that will get you back in plenty of time.” I’m damned unhappy about their idea of a joke, but I’m trapped. They don’t give a damn because they’ve got to stay in Vietnam whether or not I leave tonight. I could steal Jack’s Australian jeep, but even if I did, I don’t know the way back to the loading area. After twenty more minutes and two more beers apiece, we leave, carrying fresh, dripping cheeseburgers to spill on ourselves en route. I climb in back with Brian, and Harry rides shotgun in front. Jack flicks on the brights and drives off into the blackness that has fallen, muttering about teaching a United States Marine how to conduct a long-range reconnaissance patrol at Tan Son Nhut Air Base at night. I’ve got fifteen minutes until check-in and still hope we will make it, but Jack is driving in gigantic circles and figure-eights. I don’t know if he’s lost or still playing out their joke. I suddenly find that it’s no joke, when we race down a narrow lane and screech to a stop. Two feet in front of the jeep’s bumper are two Vietnamese who are guarding a locked and barred perimeter gate with AK-47s at port arms. “No lights. No lights,” one of them snarls, while Jack jockeys to turn the jeep around.

Initiation • 211

“We’re Americans,” yells Harry. “This Marine’s got to catch a plane.” Jack, now crosswise in the lane, makes a final arc by backing up almost into the Vietnamese. One of them works the action on his AK-47. “Don’t you dare point that goddam weapon at me,” yells somebody from our jeep. In the back, there’s nothing more than a seat cushion between me and the guard. This would be a hell of a way to end up my last night in Vietnam—blown away by an enraged ARVN guard, in the Vietnamese sector of the base, after drinking beer in an enlisted men’s slop chute, and partying at the Wallaby Flight Line. “Sorry,” I say. “Sorry.” I see the other guard take hold of his pal’s arm. “Jack, turn out the lights, and drive off very, very slowly until we’re out of sight and range. Then drive like a bat out of hell.” He does, and he does. When we get to my boarding gate, the first two passengers have just started up the ramp. “Gangway, gangway,” bellows Harry. “I’m putting a Marine on this airplane.” Almost two hundred potential passengers step aside. I see only one other lieutenant colonel in the throng, and can tell by his expression that he has decided Harry is legit. Harry marches me to the foot of the ramp. “Now major, I want you to get on this airplane, and you’re not to debark until you reach Travis Air Force Base. Understand?” “Yes, sir, colonel.” The boarding sergeant takes my luggage and places it on a passing cart. With a raised eyebrow I salute Harry Holeman and march up the ramp, the third person to board. Postscript I had written my wife, Pauline, that I would take a commercial flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles, so she drove, with our two children, north from Oceanside to Los Angeles to meet me. I missed the San Francisco connection because of incredibly inept immigration and processing procedures at three in the morning at Travis AFB. Thus, my ticketed flight departed the San Francisco airport while I was still on the bus between Travis and San Francisco, and unable to even make a phone call. (There were no cell phones in 1967.) After Pauline personally searched the plane that landed in Los Angeles, she drove back to Oceanside, fearing the worst.

212 • The Bridges of Vietnam

I eventually was able to call home and inform her I was okay and would be on the next flight I could catch—to San Diego. So she then drove south from Oceanside to San Diego, having spent the entire night on a southern California freeway and in two airports. We needed my old friend Harry Holeman to expedite things for us in the States, and things would have gone smoothly. As I finished my first tour in Vietnam, Westmoreland was quoted as saying that the war was not a stalemate, and that North Vietnam was paying a tremendous price with nothing to show for it. He also was asking for 100,000 more troops to augment the 464,000 already serving in Vietnam. (See Chronology entry for 30 July 1967.) I would be back six years later. The End

1

This journal was not mailed.

2

We wrote citations for each other, and assumed that “the system” would award them to us authorizing the combat “V” for valor because of where we had been and what we had done. Wrong. We were supposed to write the “V” into the recommendations ourselves. 3 4

This journal was not mailed. I don’t remember the names of his two roommates, but I won’t forget the

Beethoven music nor the retired sergeant first class. 5 6

The silver leaf of an Army lieutenant colonel is the same as a Navy commander. Brian Candy liked to recite this in his best English, and scribbled it down for

my notes. 7

I would have liked to exclude or modify this journal entry, but this is how it was

written in July of 1967.

Retirement ceremony, Washington, D.C., 30 April 1979 General Louis H. Wilson, USMC, Commandant of the Marine Corps; Lieutenant Colonel Fred L. Edwards, Jr., USMC; Pauline Edwards; daughter Jerri Jane Edwards

Epilogue • 215

Epilogue

Before my first trip to Vietnam, I believed that most politicians, professional soldiers, and concerned citizens accepted the concept of going to war to protect their country’s national interest. I didn’t know that many of those responsible for war-making decisions ignored Clausewitz’s philosophy: “No one starts a war—or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so—without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it.” And I didn’t know that national interest could be turned on and off like a faucet, drowning warriors in blood and leaving them hanging to drain like slaughtered pigs. In Vietnam I saw men sucked into an abstract pull of war, because the rules had changed. For some, it was like they could be little boys again. They could escape orderly society’s day-to-day boredom for awhile, and run with the gang. They could cuss without looking over their shoulders to see who was listening. They could escape their parents’ supervision. They could kill somebody and earn a medal instead of a prison sentence. I also saw men so strongly welded to their buddies, their troops, their units, and their way of life, that their unreal world became their only reality. Many extended their tours, or if they rotated home, 215

216 • The Bridges of Vietnam

they returned to Vietnam early. Unlike Young, who wrote that Vietnam was like a movie that you entered in the middle of and left in the middle of, these men wanted to stay to see the end. For some of them, the distinction between warriors and mercenaries blurred. I learned to be speculative and wary of senior officers from any service. I discovered that donning leaves, eagles or stars does not automatically confer a minimum level of knowledge and integrity upon an officer. I confirmed what I had been taught for seventeen years, that maturity comes from training, whether it be at home, in school, or in the service. Military training produces the cohesive thought and discipline that can carry men through the unreal world of war, and return them to the real world. Military training teaches men to do bestial acts without becoming animals. Military training creates units that can win, based upon the fact that a unit of two people can do more than two separate individuals. Above all, I learned that, once committed to war and combat, most men become heroes. They endure more hardships—away from home, away from family, living unnatural day-to-day lives, killing, blood, dirt, agony, indignity—than their trainers could ever have created artificially. They will sacrifice on one level for their country and for their units, but on the personal level they will sacrifice for their buddies. If they’re lucky, they return home with the same bodies they had when they left. If they’re unlucky, they go home with parts of their bodies maimed or missing, or they don’t go home at all. In summary, war is an anomaly because it suspends certain rules of civilization while tightening others, and even interjecting new ones. War is obscene, because it offers a legitimate reason to perform the most illegitimate acts. War is sanctifying, because it takes a saintly act to sacrifice yourself for a fellow human being. War produces maturation because it brings warriors face-to-face with the unfaceable. Above all, war is a three-letter-word that overpowers the sum of every four-letter-word in existence. A Marine engineer officer, hours back from Vietnam in 1968, was asked by a reporter from the Nevada State Journal in my presence to comment upon his last thirteen months. After reflecting for a moment, he said, “It was the most fantastic experience anybody could ever have.” Asked to expand, he said, “Completely different from reality.” Perhaps that’s why troopers in Vietnam began calling the United States “the world.”

Epilogue • 217

A Marine helicopter pilot attending the University of Nevada in 1969 said it this way to me: “I’m attending a class given by a professor who’s never been to war. He talks to students about ethics in life-and-death situations. He has neat, clinical answers to all this theory. But he has no idea what it’s like to be on night medevac standby for four hours, pacing back and forth, smoking cigarette after cigarette, ears glued to the radio for the transmission that’s gonna send you into a hot LZ.” Retired Army General H. Norman Schwarzkopf said it perhaps most succinctly and most thoroughly during the television program, CBS Reports, “Schwarzkopf in Vietnam—A Soldier Returns,” on 30 June 1993. Standing upon Vietnamese soil, he simply said, “War is insanity.” But he quickly added, “I’m not ashamed of myself and I don’t think anybody who was over here should be ashamed of himself. . . . It was the single most momentous event in our lifetime.” When I returned to the States on 14 July 1967, I merely classified the Vietnam War as a bad war, because I had learned that all wars are bad wars. However, I knew that as a professional I would participate as many times as necessary—in Vietnam or wherever I might be sent. It concerned an oath I had sworn and a job I was paid to do. I continued to participate until I retired twelve years later. Finally, I knew that I had acquired a solemn, awesome obligation to all those who died. I was compelled to focus my remaining life upward, the way they might have done had they been given the chance. Further, I had inherited a duty to treat future decisions in a way that would place me above the animal level. In short, I was obliged to build the best package I could with my spared life—a package big enough to include every one of them. I later learned that my obligations are not unique. In his article, “Our Heritage,” in the November 1993 Marine Corps Gazette, Michael Norman wrote: “It is the duty of the living to give meaning to the dead. That, in part, is why some of us build memorials and why some of us write books. In so doing we pay our debt.” And thus I have crossed my bridges of Vietnam. As for some of those I met who haven’t been given a final mention within the book: ✯ Marine Captains Chuck Dawson and Don Lohmeier. At midnight on 11

218 • The Bridges of Vietnam

August 1966, Chuck, Don, and I shared beers and toaster-heated sandwiches in the Long Branch Saloon at Travis Air Force Base. I haven’t seen Chuck since we went into country, and I hope the best for him. Don Lohmeier and I often met for meals in Saigon, where he was assigned to an intelligence job at another MACV compound. In 1998 I encountered him via e-mail when we were working on a mutual project for The Retired Officers Association. After retiring, he had obtained a Ph.D. in international relations, had formed and supervised a Junior Navy Reserve Officers Training unit for eight years, and was teaching at a university in Georgia. ✯ Navy Commander Bert Nelson. Bert retired from the Navy while I was representing the Marine Corps as Inspector-Instructor in Reno, Nevada. In 1969 my wife and I welcomed Bert and his bride Terri when they moved to Reno. ✯ Navy Commander Teddy R. (Ted) Fielding. Ted was promoted to captain and became commanding officer of the Navy’s unconventional warfare center in San Diego. I passed through there while stationed in Reno in 1968, but he was in conference and I was short of time. Using Naval courtesy that Ted Fielding would appreciate, I left my calling card. In 1999 when preparing this book for publication I found a phone number in Ted’s name via the Internet and called, to discover that he had been buried at Arlington National Cemetery two years earlier. ✯ Marine Major Frank Riney. Frank rose to the rank of colonel. We were stationed at Marine Corps Headquarters in 1979, where I had the pleasure to present an intelligence overview to his officers during a business luncheon. When this book was prepared for publication, Frank and his long-time wife, Esther, were retired in Southern California. ✯ Australian Special Air Service Captain Peter M. McDougall. Peter recovered completely from a twisted nerve. I saw him and his petite wife Joan in Washington, D.C., in October 1977. They had driven an hour and a half through the confusing American urban traffic for a short visit. A lieutenant colonel, Peter had just completed the U.S. Army’s Command & Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He was touring the United States

Epilogue • 219

before returning home to become the Australian Army’s national training officer. ✯ Montagnards. Former Special Forces lieutenant Don Bendell relates in “The Mountain Warriors of Vietnam” (The Retired Officer Magazine, July 1993) the location of Montagnards in 1993. The U.S. government, along with various organizations and concerned Americans, had helped move more than 600 FULRO families to the United States, mostly in North Carolina. A few hundred lived in Denmark, and a few hundred more in France. Many who remained in Southeast Asia were hiding out in the mountainous jungles of south Vietnam, eastern Laos, and northeastern Cambodia. ✯ Navy Commander Stanton P. Dunlap. During his next tour in Vietnamese waters, Stan flew RF-4s, photographing strike results in North Vietnam while successfully dodging surface-to-air missiles. He was later promoted to captain. I last saw him and his gracious wife Lorrie in Virginia Beach, Virginia, in 1979 when my wife, Pauline, and I were house guests. In 1996 he was felled by an enemy more relentless than North Vietnamese SAMs— cancer. ✯ Marine Major Rick Spooner, the junior major I saluted. He told me that evening that he would retire as soon as he was eligible, and he did. He opened the Globe & Laurel Restaurant near Quantico, Virginia, which became well known to generations of Marines. ✯ Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Harry Holeman. The last time I saw Harry was on 14 July 1967 when he marched me to the head of the boarding line in Vietnam for my flight home. On Saturday 19 December 1970, as I was leaving home to pick up a cap and gown for commencement ceremonies for my basic degree, I found a small envelope in my mailbox. The sender was Dawn Holeman. She wrote, “I understand that you and Harry were close friends in Vietnam, so I thought you would want to know about this.” It was a funeral home foldover from Harry’s funeral. His heart attack prevented Harry and me from completing our plans to resume our association in Florida “after we retire.”

220 • The Bridges of Vietnam

One morning in January of 1977 my wife and I drove a rental car to the lane leading to Dawn Holeman’s home in Florida and stopped. We debated whether we should drive on to the home, or return to our motel and call, or simply not interfere after seven years. We selected the last option. I didn’t know that I would be contacting her twenty-three years later to tell her that her late husband would be mentioned in a book. ✯ Squadron Leader Brian H. Candy of the Royal Australian Air Force. In 1969 Brian was posted to Washington, D.C., as the Australian Assistant Air Attaché. I was stationed in Reno, Nevada, and asked him to call me as soon as he arrived in the States, so that I could be the first to welcome him. He called at 0530 during a refueling stop in San Francisco. ✯ Major Jack Fletcher of the Special Air Service Regiment. Peter McDougall told me in 1977 that Jack Fletcher escaped the death cycle of Australian majors in Vietnam. Jack eventually retired from the Australian army as a lieutenant colonel, and became the equivalent of chief of police in a major Australian city. He subsequently retired from that job and, in Peter’s words, “Hey, myte, he became what you Americans call a ‘double dipper.’” ✯ Marine Major Fred L. Edwards, Jr. After his first Vietnam trip, the author earned a dual bachelor of arts degree, summa cum laude, in sociology and literature. He later completed the extension program in national security management provided by the Industrial College of the Armed Forces. In 1973 he returned to Vietnam as Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2 (Intelligence) of the 9th Marine Amphibious Brigade. In 1975 and 1976, as a U.S. Defense Attaché, he officially visited Mauritania and the former Spanish Sahara to find another country under attack by a military force that was being supported from outside its borders. While in that region he traveled with brave Mauritanians who reminded him of the best of the ARVN and Free World Military Forces he had met in Vietnam. He was decorated with the Legion of Merit for intelligence and representational operations in eight countries in West and Central Africa. He retired from the Marine Corps in 1979 as a lieutenant colonel, to focus upon the obligations from his 1966–67 trip to Vietnam.

Appendix A: Selected Vietnam War Chronology • 221

Appendix A Selected Vietnam War Chronology (Books cited are listed in the bibliography. For periodicals, refer to respective archives.)

After years of working to consolidate religious and colonial control over that portion of Southeast Asia that includes present-day Vietnam, in 1883 France established a “protectorate” over Annam and Tonkin, and was ruling Cochinchina as a colony (Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History, 47–85). Thus was created the foundation for the conflict that has been variously described as “the Vietnam War,” “the two Vietnam Wars,” and “the war for independence.” The chronology that follows summarizes milestones that led to the end of that conflict. September 1940

Japan occupies Indochina, but leaves the French colonial administration intact as part of the Vichy government (Karnow, 672–73).

February 1941

After a thirty-year absence from Vietnam as a revolutionary and a Communist in the USSR, China, and elsewhere, Nguyen Ai Quoc (Nguyen the Patriot), born Nguyen Tat Thanh in 1890, infiltrates from China back into Vietnam and takes the alias Ho Chi Minh (He Who Enlightens). Operating from a cave, he meets with Vo Nguyen Giap, twenty-two years his junior, who addresses him respectfully as “Uncle.” With Giap as his military chief, Ho will fight the Japanese and the French for independence, and will then fight the United States (Karnow, 118–26, 688, 221

222 • The Bridges of Vietnam

692. Also see Cooper, Sheehan, and other documented histories of Vietnam.). May 1941

Ho convenes the Central Committee of the Vietnamese Communist Party and creates the Vietnamese Independence Brotherhood League (Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi, or Viet Minh) to wage a war “of national salvation” and to “overthrow the Japanese and French and their [Vietnamese] jackals.” Communists and non-Communists will be accepted as members (Sheehan, 159).

July 1945

As World War II nears its end, the Allied leaders meet in Potsdam and plan for disarmament of the Japanese in Vietnam. They will use Nationalist Chinese in the north and British in the south (Karnow, 147).

16 August 1945

The day after Japan surrenders, Ho forms a National Liberation Committee, naming himself as president, and leads Vietminh detachments into Hanoi unopposed. The Communists will cite this as “The August Revolution” (Karnow, 146–47, 688).

25 August 1945

Vietnamese Emperor Bao Dai hands over “sovereign power” to the Vietminh force, which proclaims itself the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). Ho will remain President of the DRV until his death in September 1969 (Karnow, 146–47, 688).

September 1945

In accordance with the Potsdam agreement, British Major General Douglas Gracey lands in Saigon to disarm Japanese forces. He finds chaos, and on 21 September proclaims martial law. With only 1,800 British troops, he releases and arms 1,400 French Foreign Legionnaires who had been interned by the Japanese. They run amuck (Karnow, 148–49).

24 September 1945

The Vietminh in Saigon counter with a general strike accompanied by violence. The British pull out, to be replaced by French forces from Europe (Karnow, 147–50).

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September 1945

As part of the Potsdam agreement, Chinese General Lu Han arrives in Hanoi, and his troops begin to pillage. After intricate political maneuvers, Ho trades a pullout of the Chinese for the return of French forces (Karnow, 151–55).

20 November 1946

After a dispute over customs duties in Haiphong escalates, French aircraft bomb and strafe Haiphong. On 23 November, a French cruiser shells the city. The conflict spills over into Hanoi, and on 19 December Giap issues a virtual declaration of war, accompanied by an assault on the central power station in Hanoi. The war will continue until Dien Bien Phu falls, seven-and-a-half years later (Karnow, 155– 57).

Mid-1949

Bao Dai returns from exile, and, under French and American sponsorship, reassumes his status as emperor (Sheehan, 170).

1949

Mao Zedong’s Chinese Communist forces conquer mainland China and reach the borders of Vietnam. This intensifies the “domino theory,” that if another country in Asia should fall to Communism, other countries would follow. President Truman adds to American foreign policy the “containment” of Communism in Asia, and earmarks $15 million in aid to French forces in Indochina. Over the next four years, American assistance to the French will build to nearly $2 billion (Karnow, 162, 164, 169).

1950

Moscow and Beijing recognize the DRV, leading the West to view Ho’s government as a satellite in a monolithic Soviet empire (Karnow, 175).

25 June 1950

The domino theory gains credence as Communist North Korea invades South Korea (Karnow, 169). On 16 October, Communist China begins moving troops into North Korea (Davis, Marine!, 241, 299– 300).

224 • The Bridges of Vietnam

2 August 1950

A U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) is established in Saigon (Cooper, 63, 474).

7 May 1954

The French bastion at Dien Bien Phu falls to the Vietminh. The war ends on 20 July, and the French depart. Ninety-five thousand French and French colonials have died in battle or in prison camps (Fall, 280).

18 June 1954

Emperor Bao Dai, with U.S support, sets up Ngo Dinh Diem as prime minister (Karnow, 214–18).

July 1954

A provisional agreement in Geneva establishes a cease fire and a partition of Vietnam at the 17th parallel. French forces will withdraw from the north and Viet Minh troops from the south. An International Control Commission (ICC, also called Commission for Supervision and Control) is created to monitor the armistice. Composed of delegations from Communist Poland, anti-Communist Canada, and neutral India, the ICC will serve only to circulate with diplomatic status in Hanoi and Saigon. Elections for unification are to be held in two years. The elections will never take place (Karnow, 198– 204, 226. Also see Sheehan, 138, 307.).

1954

The U.S. moves into South Vietnam to fill the void left by the French. In Operation Exodus, 900,000 refugees are transported to South Vietnam by the U.S. Seventh Fleet and General Claire Chennault’s Civil Air Transport. Two-thirds of the refugees are Roman Catholics, of whom many non-Catholic Vietnamese in the south will be intolerant. Thus U.S. support of South Vietnam’s president, Catholic Jean Baptiste (Ngo Dinh) Diem, makes non-Catholics perceive the U.S. as another occupying power that has replaced the French (Sheehan, 136–37, 143).

1955

A U.S. Military Aid and Assistance Group begins converting the small, mobile units of the French-

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trained South Vietnamese army into seven regular divisions armed with American weapons, including Marine, Ranger, and paratrooper battalions, and begins formation of a navy and air force. The new Vietnamese armed forces are outfitted with American-made uniforms. By 1962, a chain of command will be established from Saigon to four corps commanders, from there to military district and province chiefs, and from there to village chiefs (Fitzgerald, 121–22). May 1959

The Hanoi government creates Group 559, assigned to enlarge the Ho Chi Minh Trail into the south (Karnow, 237).

20 December 1960

Ho forms the National Liberation Front (NLF) in the south, as a copy of the Viet Minh, bringing together various groups opposed to Diem, whether or not they are Communists (Karnow, 238).

April 1961

President Kennedy agrees to send an additional 100 U.S. military advisors to Vietnam, bringing the total to nearly 800 (Karnow, 250. Also see Sheehan, 270.). Kennedy creates the U.S. Military Assistance Command (MACV), with Army General Paul Harkins in command. American military strength will more than triple during 1962 from 3,200 to 11,300 (Sheehan, 37).

February 1962

Kennedy assigns Marine Brigadier General Victor Krulak as the Defense Secretary’s Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities. Krulak, who first met Kennedy aboard his PT boat in 1943, will make forty-five trips to Vietnam (Sheehan 296–98, 635).

May 1962

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, accompanied by Krulak, says in Saigon, “Every quantitative measurement we have shows that we’re winning this war” (Sheehan, 290).

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July 1962

At a meeting in Honolulu, McNamara instructs Harkins to draw up plans to phase out U.S. troops by the end of 1965, two years later than Harkins believes is necessary (Sheehan, 290–91).

September 1962

The U.S. Air Force contingent grows from 2,000 to 6,500, becoming one-third the size of VNAF (Sheehan, 114). Harkins briefs Army General Maxwell Taylor, Chairman of the JCS, in Saigon about his “Three M” program (Men, Money, and Materiel) which will include a buildup of ARVN, Civil Guard and Self Defense Corps, and creation of more than 2,800 strategic hamlets. Harkins introduces an attrition strategy, using body count and aircraft sorties as a gauge of when the North Vietnamese will no longer be able to fight (Sheehan, 287–89).

2 January 1963

VC forces defeat ARVN troops at Ap Bac, a village in the Mekong Delta forty miles southwest of Saigon. Because of the VC victory, Hanoi decides to start infiltration of skilled cadre and heavy weapons, and to increase ammunition delivery by trawler. By now, twelve American generals are in country (Sheehan, 272, 312–14. Also see Karnow, 259–62, Pimlott).

18 January 1963

Krulak, now a major general, returns to Vietnam with a JCS team of six generals with the question, “Are we winning or are we losing?” Harkins convinces the team chief, an Army general, that the U.S. is winning. The final report of Ap Bac attributes the report of the South Vietnamese defeat to misguided media reporting (Sheehan, 298–304).

January 1963

The U.S. begins distributing 250,000 arms to the Vietnamese Civil Guard and Self-Defense Corps militia outposts, and Strategic Hamlets. The subsequent capture and warehousing of many of these weapons by the VC will influence Ho to significantly

Appendix A: Selected Vietnam War Chronology • 227

increase his main striking force personnel in the South (Sheehan, 308). 1963

In Hanoi, Pham Van Dong, Ho’s prime minister, asks the senior Polish delegate of the ICC if the Americans really believe they are winning. When told “yes,” he says, “You’re joking. Surely the American generals cannot be that naive” (Sheehan, 307–8).

May 1963

McNamara orders CIA Station Chief William Colby to increase the number of sabotage teams being parachuted into North Vietnam. All continue to be intercepted (Sheehan, 375).

11 June 1963

Buddhist monk Quang Duc incinerates himself in gasoline on a Saigon street to protest the deaths of nine Buddhists in Hue. The Buddhists had been demonstrating against Catholic Diem’s decree that prohibited displaying the Buddhist flag on Buddha’s birthday (Karnow, 279–81).

20 August 1963

Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, order an assault on Buddhist compounds in major cities of confrontation (Karnow, 285). Monks protesting religious persecution dramatize their case by immolating themselves in the Saigon streets. Diem refuses to appease them (Sheehan, 334–36).

August 1963

Ambassador Frederick Nolting departs South Vietnam. On 22 August his replacement, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., arrives, and publicly supports the Buddhists. He secretly begins to plan for a coup against Diem. He circumvents Harkins to report to Kennedy that the war is not being won (Sheehan, 353–64).

6 September 1963

Krulak and Joseph Mendenhall from the State Department fly to Vietnam and return with diametrically opposed reports for the National Security Council. Two weeks later McNamara and Taylor go to Vietnam and report that the end of the war by December 1965 is still on schedule (Sheehan, 364–66).

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5 October 1963

Another Buddhist burns himself to death in Saigon, and the confrontation continues (Karnow, 295–96).

1 November 1963

Fearing the war will be lost, the U.S. supports a South Vietnamese military coup that overthrows Diem. On 2 November Diem and Nhu will be murdered by a South Vietnamese courier while in transit from a church in Cholon, where they had taken refuge (Karnow, 299–311).

9 November 1963

The Viet Cong commence “Ap Bac Emulation Drive, Phase Two” by overrunning outposts in the Mekong Delta and the provinces surrounding Saigon (Sheehan, 371–72).

22 November 1963

Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson becomes president. There are now 17,000 U.S. servicemen in South Vietnam. Almost 120 Americans have been killed (Sheehan, 375).

January 1964

President Johnson approves Krulak’s Operation Plan 34-A (OpPlan 34-A) for raids into North Vietnam by Vietnamese, Chinese and Filipino mercenaries. Operations will be controlled by Studies and Observations Group (SOG) at Harkins’ headquarters in Saigon (Sheehan, 376–77).

Early 1964

Krulak is promoted to lieutenant general and becomes Commanding General of Fleet Marine Forces, Pacific (Sheehan, 378). This removes him from the presidential sphere as well as from his association with the chain of command leading to MACV in Saigon.

June 1964

General Earle G. Wheeler moves from Army C/S to Chairman of JCS. Taylor moves from Chairman of JCS to replace Lodge as ambassador to South Vietnam. Harkins is reduced from co-equal status with the ambassador (Sheehan, 378–79).

Appendix A: Selected Vietnam War Chronology • 229

18 June 1964

Secretary of State Dean Rusk asks the Canadian member of ICC to warn the North Vietnamese prime minister, Pham Van Dong, in Hanoi, about interfering with OpPlan 34-A raids. Dong replies that he is committed to a course of action that he will not change (Sheehan, 379–80).

August 1964

Harkins retires and is succeeded by his deputy, Army General William C. Westmoreland. The OpPlan 34A raids provoke an incident in the Gulf of Tonkin (Sheehan, 379. Also see following entry).

2 August 1964

On the heels of a U.S. PT boat attack against North Vietnam, the American destroyer Maddox, conducting electronic espionage (code named “DeSoto missions”) in the vicinity, is attacked by North Vietnamese torpedo boats in international waters. Unharmed, Maddox is joined by a second destroyer, C. Turner Joy, and on 4 August, during another U.S. PT boat raid, reports emanate that both destroyers have been attacked. Subsequent research will indicate with almost total certainty that the second attack never happened. However, Johnson orders retaliatory air strikes and Congress passes the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, a virtual carte blanche for him to continue military operations (Karnow, 366–76).

10 August 1964

The Canadian member of the ICC returns to Hanoi after the U.S. air strikes against North Vietnam. He reports that Dong is not intimidated and will pursue the North Vietnamese course to a successful conclusion. In short, he is prepared for total war (Sheehan, 380).

December 1964

VC in regimental strength overrun ARVN units around Saigon. The 9th VC Division becomes the first operational VC division in South Vietnam. ARVN forces are expected to crumble without U.S. ground force support (Sheehan, 381–82).

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6 February 1965

VC mortar and mine a U.S. advisory compound and air base at Pleiku in the central highlands. Eight Americans are killed and more than a hundred are wounded. Johnson retaliates with air strikes inside North Vietnam (Moore, 13).

2 March 1965

Johnson commences Operation Rolling Thunder, using Navy aircraft from carriers at Yankee Station (above the 17th parallel in the South China Sea) and U.S. and Vietnamese Air Force planes from Da Nang. Rolling Thunder is a bombing effort that moves gradually northward from the 17th Parallel (DMZ) to the 19th, conceived to convince the North Vietnamese that escalating the war is too costly (Moore, 13. Also Westmoreland, 117–18.).

8 March 1965

A U.S. Marine battalion lands at China Beach near Da Nang. Soon two other battalions will land at Da Nang to secure the air base for Rolling Thunder. Marines will commence offensive ground operations in April (Moore and Galloway, 13–14).

28 April 1965

Johnson orders Marines into the Dominican Republic to prevent a Communist takeover (McMaster, 282).

June 1965

Lewis W. Walt, CG of III MAF in the South Vietnamese I Corps Tactical Zone, is appointed major general (Sheehan, 634).

July 1965

Johnson grants a request from Westmoreland for nearly 200,000 U.S. troops to maintain a hold in South Vietnam (Sheehan, 536).

28 July 1965

Johnson orders the 1stCavDiv to South Vietnam. Marine and Army troops have now been committed without a declaration of emergency. Thus an undeclared war has begun, implying that no reserves will be called up and no enlistments will be extended. This will require continual training of new recruits to serve single tours in Vietnam. Army C/S

Appendix A: Selected Vietnam War Chronology • 231

General Harold K. Johnson takes off his stars and drives to the White House to resign in protest. En route he decides to work within the system and returns to the Pentagon (Moore and Galloway, 15– 16). 18 August 1965

Marines conduct Operation Starlite southeast of Chu Lai 18–21 August (Pimlott).

September 1965

The 1stCavDiv establishes a base camp north of An Khe on Route 19, and commences operations on 23 October, deploying forces west toward the Cambodian border. On 1 November the NVA 66th People’s Army Regiment will cross into South Vietnam from Cambodia, moving eastward along the Ia (River) Drang. As they clash, the entire NVA B-3 Front, including 320th, 33rd, and 66th regiments, will be thrown into the battle of the Ia Drang Valley (Moore and Galloway, 236–39, 346).

14 November 1965

The Ia Drang campaign begins, and will result in 3,561 NVA estimated killed and 305 American soldiers dead. At a kill ratio of twelve to one, Westmoreland will decide that such attrition (body count) will defeat the North Vietnamese. In Hanoi, however, Ho will judge Ia Drang as a draw, which he sees as a victory. He will accept twelve-to-one losses until the American will to fight disintegrates, just as the French will had crumbled during their fight against his Viet Minh (Moore and Galloway, 339).

27 November 1965

The remnants of the NVA B-3 Front withdraw into Cambodia, and Washington prohibits U.S. attacks across the border. Moore later writes that surrendering this initiative to North Vietnam meant that the U.S. would never win, and that by the time President Richard Nixon authorized a Cambodian incursion in 1970 it was too late (Moore and Galloway, 314–15).

232 • The Bridges of Vietnam

November 1965

Westmoreland asks McNamara for 41,500 more U.S. troops, which would put 375,000 troops in country, and wants that upped to 400,000 by the end of 1966. U.S. KIA are expected to reach 1,000 a month. McNamara notes that North Vietnam is exceeding the American buildup. He says the U.S. should find a way out, because even if the U.S. raises its troop level to 600,000, it still could face a military standoff by early 1967 (Moore and Galloway, 340–41).

December 1965

Krulak determines that Westmoreland’s attrition strategy will fail, because it is the enemy’s game. He cites the Ia Drang battle, where the NVA leader used “clinging to the belt” tactics, keeping his troops so close to the Americans that they could not use supporting arms to increase the twelve-to-one kill ratio. He notes that the French pullout also was due to attrition. He concludes that 10,000 Americans and 165,000 South Vietnamese soldiers would have to die “to reduce the enemy manpower pool by only a modest twenty percent.” He proposes a pacification program in lieu of the attrition plan, backed up by interdiction of Haiphong Harbor and Chinese railroad lines. Meanwhile, Walt, in spite of Westmoreland’s prodding, continues his pacification program in I Corps, assigning Combined Action Companies and Combined Action Platoons at village and hamlet level (Sheehan, 630–36).

25 December 1965

By Christmas there are 185,000 Americans in South Vietnam. Dixie Station is established as a launch and recovery area in the South China Sea for U.S. Navy aircraft strikes in South Vietnam. Johnson suspends Rolling Thunder until 31 January 1966, with no reaction from Hanoi. Westmoreland’s troop requirements have risen to 459,000 (Sheehan, 536, 580).

9 January 1966

The largest offensive of the war begins with 8,000 U.S., Australian and New Zealanders attacking in

Appendix A: Selected Vietnam War Chronology • 233

the Iron Triangle, northwest of Saigon (See “8,000 G.I.’s open Biggest Attack of Vietnam War,” Arleen Keylin and Sun Boiangiu, eds. Front Page Vietnam: as reported by the New York Times, 9 January 1966, 76). March 1966

NVA 95B and 101C Regiments attack and overrun A Shau Special Forces camp in Western Thua Thien Province. The North Vietnamese begin to develop A Shau Valley for major infiltration into the South (Pearson, 6–8).

June 1966

At least 5,000 troops of the NVA 324B division infiltrate Quang Tri Province from the DMZ. By the end of July they are driven back across the DMZ by Operation Hastings, involving 8,000 Marines and 3,000 ARVN troops. 324B will return in late August, precipitating Operation Prairie to protect the populated eastern part of the province (Pearson, 9–11).

August 1966

General Wallace M. Greene (CMC) privately argues unsuccessfully against Marine deployment to the DMZ with Westmoreland at Westmoreland’s villa on Tran Quy Cap in Saigon. Green’s position is equivalent to the Army’s chief of staff, but is outside of Westmoreland’s chain of command (Sheehan, 639–40).

7 August 1966

Seven U.S. planes are lost in North Vietnam, the most lost in one day (Danniell, 952).

11 August 1966

In Vietnam U.S. planes attack a U.S. Coast Guard cutter, killing two (Danniell, 952).

18 August 1966

The Australian Task Force commences Operation Long Tan, carrying out their own doctrine called “COIN” (COunterINsurgency). They eventually will take control of all of their assigned province of Phuoc Tuy (Pimlott, also sketch map number 4).

27 August 1966

A poll in Ohio shows fifty-four percent think the U.S. role in Vietnam is a mistake (Danniell, 952).

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29 August 1966

Newsweek reports that more than half of South Vietnam’s population of 16 million lives in the 11,000 square miles of the Mekong Delta (“The War in Vietnam,” Newsweek, 22).

September 1966

Westmoreland sends Seabees to improve a dirt airstrip at the Special Forces camp at Khe Sanh, and orders Walt to send in a battalion of Marines. Krulak again visits Westmoreland, portraying the Marines as bait for a trap that Westmoreland doesn’t have the strength to spring. Krulak is unsuccessful (Sheehan, 640).

14 September 1966

Operation Attleboro begins near the Cambodian border in War Zone C, when the 196thBde stumbles onto the southern flank of the VC 9th Division. Before the operation is over on 24 November, it will commit 20,000 troops from 196thBde, 25thInfDiv, 4thInfDiv, and 173rd A/B Bde, and will be the largest U.S. operation of the war to date (“The War in Vietnam,” Newsweek, 58. Also see Pimlott, particularly for units and dates not reported by Newsweek.).

28 September 1966

The U.S. accidentally bombs a friendly village in South Vietnam, killing twenty-eight (Danniell, 953).

October 1966

Under pressure from Westmoreland, Walt deploys the 3rdMarDiv to strongpoints along the DMZ at Gio Linh, Con Thien, Cam Lo, Camp Carroll (named for Marine Captain James Carroll who died to seize a nearby ridge), The Rockpile, Ca Lu, and Khe Sanh. Westmoreland reinforces the 3rdMarDiv with 175mm guns that can throw a 147-pound shell twenty miles, and with 105mm self-propelled howitzers. The deployment makes the 1stMarDiv responsible for all of I Corps south of Thua Thien province (Sheehan, 642).

6 October 1966

Hanoi insists that the U.S. end the bombing before peace talks begin (Danniell, 955).

Appendix A: Selected Vietnam War Chronology • 235

9 October 1966

The U.S. reports that the Vietnam war is now costing $2 billion per month (Danniell, 955).

17 October 1966

Early in the week advance elements of the 4thInfDiv arrive in South Vietnam, bringing U.S. ground strength to 321,000, which is 30,000 more than the Saigon government has in its regular force. In one week, U.S. combat casualties throughout the country are 741 dead and wounded, which is more than twice as high as for South Vietnam. Most U.S. casualties occur in Operation Prairie on the south edge of the DMZ. As part of Prairie, Marines of 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, throw the enemy off Hill 484. In Binh Dinh province, Operation Irving, consisting of 1stCavDiv, elements of the South Korean Army, and Vietnamese Rangers, surround the NVA 610 Regiment and drive it toward the sea. The total number of U.S. planes lost in North Vietnam during the past nineteen months is 393, due to the most advanced air defense system U.S. planes have ever encountered (“The War in Vietnam,” Newsweek, 40–41).

24 October 1966

Newsweek reports that Westmoreland wants to increase troop strength from 328,000 to 600,000 by mid-1968. The article mentions a “McNamara fence”—a $1 billion mine field across the 17th parallel, backed with a blocking force of 250,000 Americans. McNamara is quoted as saying that he will keep the twelve-month tours. He also says that there will not be a major U.S. buildup in the Delta (“The War in Vietnam,” Newsweek, 51).

26 October 1966

Johnson goes to Cam Ranh Bay, where he is greeted by 7,000 U.S. servicemen, including a 900-man honor guard (“The Visit to Cam Ranh Bay,” Newsweek, 7 November 1966, 24). While there, he awards Westmoreland a surprise Distinguished Ser-

236 • The Bridges of Vietnam

vice Medal (Danniell, “LBJ Pays a Surprise Visit to the Boys in ‘Nam,’” 955). 27 October 1966

Hanoi rejects the Manila plan (conceived by Johnson and his advisors) for ending the war (Danniell, 955).

31 October 1966

In Australia Johnson says, “I believe there is light at the end of what has been a long and lonely tunnel.” (“The War in Vietnam,” Newsweek, 48).

12 November 1966

Chronicle of the 20th Century reports that corruption in Saigon is taking up to 40% of U.S. aid (Danniell, 956).

14 November 1966

The VC fire recoilless rifles into the Saigon Central Market, bus station, and Basilica of Our Lady during the National Day parade. Seven South Vietnamese and one U.S. Naval officer are killed. Navy river patrol boats and Air Force helicopters sink fifty sampans and junks attempting to ferry a VC battalion across the Mekong. The 196thBde is fighting in War Zone C near the Cambodian border. After a long investigation of Captain Archie C. Kuntze’s two-year tour in Saigon, the Navy begins a court martial in San Francisco. He is accused of “living openly and notoriously” with an attractive Chinese girl, Jannie Suen, while he commanded the U.S. administrative infrastructure in Saigon (“The War in Vietnam,” Newsweek, 54).

28 November 1966

Newsweek reports that the U.S. Navy sank eight cargo vessels and damaged eighteen more off the southern coast of North Vietnam between 25 October and 13 November. This brings the total sunk to 150. Six miles from Da Nang, NVA troops attack at An Trach village.

Appendix A: Selected Vietnam War Chronology • 237

Near Plei Djereng, NVA troops pour 500 mortar rounds into a 4thInfDiv camp. Further south, a company of 25thInfDiv suffers heavy losses. The Kuntze court martial ends, finding him primarily guilty of living “openly and notoriously” (conduct unbecoming of an officer). He receives a reprimand and a 100-place drop on the lineal list (seniority roster), and will retire (“The War in Vietnam,” Newsweek, 36). 1 December 1966

In California 5,000 students boycott Berkeley classes to protest Navy recruitment (Danniell, 957).

5 December 1966

Dick Gregory goes to Hanoi, defying the U.S. (Danniell, 958)

19 December 1966

Terrorists bomb a U.S. billet in Saigon and another in Can Tho, wounding ten Americans. VC penetrate Tan Son Nhut. Premier Nguyen Cao Key says American troops will be fighting in the Delta by Christmas (“The War in Vietnam,” Newsweek, 55).

23 December 1966

Westmoreland has 385,000 U.S. troops in South Vietnam and is far advanced into Phase II, the preparing-to-win phase, of his war of attrition (Sheehan, 617).

24 December 1966

A U.S. cargo plane crashes into a village in South Vietnam, killing 125 civilians (Danniell, 957).

1967

Operation Phoenix commences, designed to jail, kill, or intimidate into surrender the Viet Cong infrastructure (VCI) in the South. Phoenix is advised by a CIA-supported U.S. program. CIA assassination squads, formerly Counter Terror Teams, become Provincial Reconnaissance Units (PRUs), which sometimes employ RF and PF. By 1971, reportedly 20,000 VCI will have been killed (Sheehan, 18, 732– 33).

238 • The Bridges of Vietnam

6 January 1967

Some 16,000 U.S. and 14,000 South Vietnamese troops start the biggest attack ever in the Iron Triangle northwest of Saigon (Danniell, 959).

19 January 1967

Danniell reports two records set the previous week: (1) The casualty toll was the highest of the war with 144 killed and 1,044 wounded; (2) American pilots flew 549 missions, most of them twenty-five miles north of Saigon (Danniell, 259).

23 January 1967

Operation Cedar Falls begins early Sunday morning in the Iron Triangle, northwest of Saigon. Forces include 1stInfDiv, 196thBde, 25thInfDiv, 11thACR, and 173rd A/B Bde. In the Mekong Delta, U.S. Marines wade ashore in their first sweep through the Delta (“The War in Vietnam,” Newsweek, 38).

29 January 1967

Thirty-one civilians are killed by a U.S. helicopter attack in South Vietnam (Danniell, 959).

15 February 1967

Thirteen U.S. helicopters are downed in one day. In Washington 2,500 women storm the Pentagon demanding to see “the generals who send our sons to die” (Danniell, 960, 961).

22 February 1967

Operation Junction City (including preliminary operations Gadsen and Tucson), the largest offensive of the war, begins near the Cambodian border in War Zone C, in Tay Ninh Province. Forces committed include four South Vietnamese battalions, and twenty-two American battalions from 4thInfDiv, 196thBde, 1stInfDiv, 25thInfDiv, 11thACR, 9thInfDiv, and the 173rd A/B Bde. By the time the operation ends on 14 May, the 173rd A/B Bde will have made the only major combat unit parachute jump that occurred during the war (See Pimlott, Danniell 960, Westmoreland, 206.).

27 February 1967

A mortar tube stuck through the roof of a house on Vuon Choi Street fires three mortar rounds toward Westmoreland’s headquarters eight blocks away. The

Appendix A: Selected Vietnam War Chronology • 239

rounds fall short, killing ten ARVN paratroopers on a truck and wounding ten. On the Long Tao River, the main shipping channel into Saigon, a U.S. minesweeper is blown to bits (“The War in Vietnam,” Newsweek, 34). March 1967

Westmoreland asks for a total “minimum essential force” of 550,500 men no later than 1 July 1968. He says he would prefer to have an additional 207,838 for an “optimum force” of 678,000 (Sheehan, 628).

6 March 1967

Newsweek reports that the previous week Bernard Fall died on the Street Without Joy, a stretch of highway north of Hue. He was killed on the second day of a Marine search-and-destroy mission north of Hue when a Marine sergeant tripped off a VC booby trap. A Professor of International Relations at Howard University, Fall had lectured at the U.S. Foreign Service Institute and the National War College. He had returned to Vietnam to prepare a study of the VC during 1966 and 1967 (“The War in Vietnam,” Newsweek, 23).

10 March 1967

U.S. jets conduct the first bombing of a major industrial installation in North Vietnam (Danniell, 962).

15 March 1967

Johnson names Ellsworth Bunker to replace Lodge as Ambassador to Vietnam (Danniell, 962).

20 March 1967

There are now 417,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam, and 18 allied operations are in progress (“The War in Vietnam,” Newsweek, 40).

21 March 1967

In South Vietnam outnumbered GIs crush a VC attack, killing 423 (Danniell, 962).

24 March 1967

In South Vietnam the VC ambush a truck convoy, damaging 82 out of 121 vehicles (Danniell, 962).

26 March 1967

Ten thousand hippies gather in Central Park, chanting L-O-V-E (Danniell, “10,000 Hippies Rally at New York Be-in,” 962).

240 • The Bridges of Vietnam

Spring 1967

Army Major General Joseph McChristian, the MACV J-2, notifies Westmoreland that Westmoreland is underestimating the enemy in South Vietnam by a couple of hundred thousand. Westmoreland replaces him (Sheehan, 695–96).

April 1967

Westmoreland commits Task Force Oregon (later named the “Americal Division”) to Chu Lai to reinforce 1stMarDiv (Sheehan, 642). In two weeks of fighting, the Marines at Khe Sanh incur 155 KIA and 425 WIA. Then the NVA shifts east to Con Thien, firing 4,200 rounds on Marine positions with 85mm, 100mm, 122mm, and 130mm guns; 120mm mortars; 122mm Katyusha rockets; and by July, 152mm guns (Sheehan, 649).

3 April 1967

The U.S. State Department says Hanoi may be brainwashing American prisoners (Danniell, 963).

4 April 1967

The U.S. loses the 500th plane of the war (Danniell, 963).

6 April 1967

Fifteen hundred VC attack Quang Tri, in the northeastern sector of I Corps (Danniell, 963).

15 April 1967

“100,000 Rally at U.N. Against Vietnam War” (New York Times, 16 April 1967, in Keylin, 97).

20 April 1967

U.S. jets knock out a power plant in Haiphong (Danniell, 963).

24 April 1967

Newsweek reports that the previous week Saigon airlifted 4,500 men of the 196thBde to Chu Lai. Quang Tri is expecting an attack. The Saigon government begins work on a “fortified barrier zone” (“The War in Vietnam,” Newsweek, 40).

May 1967

Robert Komer, a civilian given equivalent rank of four stars, establishes CORDS (Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support), a civilian pacification organization (Sheehan, 653–57).

Appendix A: Selected Vietnam War Chronology • 241

1 May 1967

Construction of the “McNamara Fence” begins in I Corps. Marine engineers begin a seven-mile long barrier zone south of the DMZ. It is to be seeded with booby traps and land mines, and sealed off with barbed wire. Watch towers, pill boxes, and anti-personnel radars are planned for strategic points. Most of the 28,000 residents will be relocated. Indications are that the fence will be extended clear across South Vietnam and into Laos. Marines say it will require hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops (“The War in Vietnam,” Newsweek, 44).

8 May 1967

In the States, Westmoreland addresses a joint session of Congress. By now there are 440,000 troops in Vietnam with an increase to 480,000 expected by the end of the year (“The Home Front War,” Newsweek, 31).

13 May 1967

In New York, 70,000 march to support the Vietnam War (Danniell, 964).

15 May 1967

Marines take Hills 861, 881N and 881S, suffering the heaviest Marine losses of the war to date. The enemy attacks the Special Forces camp at Lang Vei, four miles west of Khe Sanh. Arnaud de Borchgrave, senior editor of Newsweek, writes in support of the barrier plan. The plan has an expected cost of $1 billion and an additional three divisions of American troops (“The War in Vietnam,” Newsweek, 42).

19 May 1967

U.S. jets make first downtown attack on Hanoi (Danniell, 964). McNamara gives Johnson a memorandum saying that Johnson cannot win the war in Vietnam and ought to negotiate an unfavorable peace (Sheehan, 684. Also McNamara, 266–71).

22 May 1967

NVA troops attack Con Thien (“The War in Vietnam,” Newsweek, 46).

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29 May 1967

Newsweek announces Walt will be relieved on 1 June by Marine Major General Robert E. Cushman, Jr. Walt is reassigned as Director of Personnel at Marine Corps headquarters, a job that some say is not important enough for his three-star rank. The article states that he had underestimated the danger from the North Vietnamese regulars and main force VC units, and ignored at least two warnings to that effect from the MACV headquarters (“The War in Vietnam,” Newsweek, 47–48). The key to the controversy, say writers such as Neil Sheehan, is that the Marines disagreed with the massive sweeps that the Army favored. The Marines insisted that pacification was the key to victory, and that there were not enough Marines to both pacify and sweep. Walt, the senior Marine general under Westmoreland’s control, took the blame (Sheehan, 634–50). Walt will become Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps in January 1968 (while Johnson is still president) and will be promoted to full general in June 1969 (Kutler, Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War, 619).

June 1967

McNamara commissions top-secret Pentagon Papers, in which he asks essentially, “How did we get here and what are we doing here?” He will never read the 7,000-page report while he is Secretary of Defense. The archive will be published by the New York Times in June and July 1971 (Sheehan, 685– 86).

28 June 1967

Headline “Israel smashes Arabs in Six-Day War” (Danniell, 966).

7 July 1967

Westmoreland asks McNamara for more troops in Vietnam (Danniell, 967).

17 July 1967

Two companies of the 1st Battalion, Ninth Marines are ambushed by NVA forces south of Con Thien,

Appendix A: Selected Vietnam War Chronology • 243

resulting in the Marines’ bloodiest loss yet in a single engagement (“The War in Vietnam,” Newsweek, 45). 24 July 1967

The enemy uses 122mm rockets in the worst-ever attack against Da Nang, resulting in $80 million worth of equipment lost and a temporary shutdown of the air base (“The War in Vietnam,” Newsweek, 43).

28 July 1967

The U.S. loses eight planes in North Vietnam (Danniell, 967).

29 July 1967

In the South China Sea, a fire on the U.S. aircraft carrier Forrestal demolishes twenty-nine planes. Danniell reports on 30 July that at least seventy men are dead and eighty-nine are missing from the Forrestal fire (Later 134 are reported killed.) (Danniell, 967–68).

30 July 1967

Westmoreland says, “The war is not a stalemate . . . North Vietnam is paying a tremendous price with nothing to show for it.” He has asked for an additional 100,000 men. Currently 464,000 American troops are serving in Vietnam (Danniell, “U.S. General Wants More Men in Vietnam,” 968).

September 1967

Giap publishes an article in Military People’s Daily, hailing the NVA DMZ campaigns as successes to be emulated (Sheehan, 693).

15 September 1967

The Mobile Riverine Force conducts the battle of the Rach Ba Rai River, in the Mekong Delta.

31 October 1967

At the regular Tuesday luncheon in Washington, McNamara openly tries to convince Johnson to change his policy. He follows up with a written memorandum to Johnson on 1 November (Sheehan, 690). At a meeting of key advisors on 2 November, Johnson neither distributes nor discusses the memorandum (McNamara, 305–11).

21 November 1967 Westmoreland tells the National Press Club, “We have reached an important point when the end be-

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gins to come into view.” His victory phase, “Phase III,” would begin in earnest with the onset of 1968, and would conclude with a new phase, “Phase IV,” the final phase (Sheehan, 698–99). 27 November 1967

The London Financial Times prints a rumor of McNamara’s nomination as president of the World Bank. Three days later, Johnson announces that McNamara is leaving the Pentagon for that post (McNamara, 313).

December 1967

Intelligence indicates a massive NVA and local force buildup in III Corps, aimed at Bien Hoa and Long Binh, near Saigon. Army Lieutenant General Fred Weyend (CG III Corps) convinces Westmoreland to postpone the U.S. 1968 attack campaign. In northern I Corps, NVA 304 and 325C divisions move into the ridges around the airstrip at Khe Sanh. Cushman deploys a second Marine battalion to Khe Sanh. Westmoreland continues to plan for a Dien Bien Phu in reverse at Khe Sanh. Johnson has blocked an appointment of Krulak as Commandant of the Marine Corps. Almost three decades later, that job will go to Krulak’s son, Charles C. Krulak (See Sheehan, 701–4).

January 1968

Cushman deploys a third Marine battalion to Khe Sanh. Westmoreland moves the 1stCavDiv to northern I Corps, and forms MACV Forward Command Post at Phu Bai, which is senior to III MAF, commanded by Army General Creighton Abrams. Now forty percent of all American infantry and armor battalions are in I Corps. A total of 6,680 Americans and ARVN rangers are defending Khe Sanh, and 205 Marines will die (Sheehan, 704–6).

30 January 1968

During the Vietnamese new year’s celebration of Tet, NVA and VC forces attack U.S. troops and their allies at Da Nang, Qui Nhon, Nha Trang, Ban Me

Appendix A: Selected Vietnam War Chronology • 245

Thuot, Kontum, Pleiku, Hue, Bien Hoa, and Saigon. Fifteen VC battalions (6,000 troops) move into Saigon. Weyend saves Tan Son Nhut and probably Saigon with a flying column from the armored cavalry squadron of the 25thInfDiv at Cu Chi (Sheehan, 709–16). The NVA moves a regiment to Hue from each of the 304 and 325C divisions at Khe Sanh. Westmoreland continues to concentrate on Khe Sanh, leaving the battle for Hue to the ARVN and two reinforced battalions of Marines. Some 90,000 of the 140,000 inhabitants of Hue become homeless. The enemy kills 3,000 Vietnamese civilian leaders (Sheehan, 719–20). The enemy fails to topple the Saigon regime and is eventually routed from the cities. However, the Tet uprising apprises the American public that the end of the war does not seem to be near at all (Sheehan, 718). The battles cost the lives of 2,000 Americans and an estimated 50,000 VC (Karnow, 534). 16 March 1968

As many as 347 civilians are killed, and other atrocities committed, in the hamlet of My Lai, in the village of Son My, about seven miles northeast of Quang Ngai city, in an incident involving Second Lieutenant William Calley, Jr., a platoon leader in the 23rd Infantry Division (Americal), which had earlier been Task Force Oregon. Calley is sentenced to life imprisonment, but is confined for only three years, most of the time under house arrest in his apartment at Fort Benning (Sheehan, 689).

22 March 1968

Johnson announces that Westmoreland is returning to the U.S. to become Chief of Staff of the Army. This occurs after Westmoreland and Wheeler had attempted to force Johnson to mobilize the reserves, for another 206,756 men (See Sheehan, 720. How-

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ever, see Karnow, 548–60, for the possibility that Johnson originally offered to send reinforcements.). Army General Creighton W. Abrams becomes COMUSMACV, and continues the attrition (body count) strategy (Sheehan, 741–42). 26 March 1968

Johnson convenes his senior counselors, who argue that he has no hope of winning the war as presently prosecuted. On 31 March he announces restriction of the bombing of North Vietnam and renounces another term as president (Karnow, 561–65).

5 April 1968

North Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Duy Trinh states that North Vietnam will negotiate. Talks will drag on for five years and more Americans will be killed in Vietnam than had died there previously (Karnow, 566).

1969

Giap says that North Vietnam has lost a half million troops in the war against the United States and South Vietnam, but will continue to fight “as long as necessary—ten, fifteen, twenty, fifty years” (Karnow, 141).

May 1969

During the period 11–20 May, Hill 937 in the A Shau valley will become known as Hamburger Hill, where fifty-five men of the 101st A/B Div will die (Sheehan, 741–42. Also Pimlott).

June 1969

U.S. troops in Vietnam reach final peak of 546,000 (Maclear, 265). However, Kutler sets the figure at 543,400 on 30 April (Kutler, 413), and Westmoreland writes that the peak was 549,000 (Westmoreland, 288).

July 1969

President Richard Nixon announces a de-Americanization, or Vietnamization, program of withdrawing U.S. troops while supporting the ARVN with advisors, equipment, and U.S. aircraft sorties. By the time withdrawal is complete, 21,000 more Americans will be killed, and morale and discipline within

Appendix A: Selected Vietnam War Chronology • 247

the U.S. Armed Forces will have significantly deteriorated (Karnow, 593–95; Sheehan, 741). 20 July 1969

Colonel Robert B. Rheault, C. O. of 5th Special Forces Group, and seven of his staff are arrested and imprisoned in the Long Binh stockade for the suspected murder of a Vietnamese known as Thai Khac Chuyen, rumored to be a double- or tripleagent. Abrams reportedly says, “Clean them out . . . The Special Forces are going to have to show a higher regard for human life.” The news media report suspected SOG and Special Forces covert operations, including use of Montagnard, Meo, Cambodian and Nung troops in Laos, Cambodia, North Vietnam and South Vietnam. In October, Secretary of the Army Stanley R. Resor will announce that all charges against the Green Berets are being dismissed because the CIA, which was involved, will not permit its agents to testify. Rheault and the others will be released, and Rheault will be reassigned (“The War in Vietnam,” Newsweek, 18 August 1969 ; 25 August 1969; 13 October 1969).

September 1969

Ho dies. The New York Times reports that the death occurred on 3 September (“Ho Chi Minh dead at 79,” New York Times). However, Bui Tin, in Following Ho Chi Minh: Memoirs of a North Vietnamese Colonel insists that Ho died on 2 September, but that the announcement was delayed a day so as not to mar the celebration of North Vietnam’s national day (Tin, 67).

13 October 1969

Senator Abraham Ribicoff, acting chairman of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, holds hearings on graft and corruption in the Army NCO club system in Germany and Vietnam. CID witnesses implicate Sergeant Major William O. Wooldridge, 47, and some half dozen other senior Army NCOs who over the previous six years built

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up an empire of NCO clubs ranging from Germany to Vietnam and back to Fort Benning, GA. Newsweek reports that the NCOs formed a California based corporation in 1967, and had been doing a $3- to $4-million business in bar equipment, and food and liquor sales to the NCO clubs they had been running. They also were involved in U.S. and Vietnamese currency deals of unspecified amounts. In South Vietnam, Wooldridge had been Division Sergeant Major of the 1stInfDiv, and the other NCOs had been custodians of NCO clubs throughout the country. After their Vietnam tours, Wooldridge had become Sergeant Major of the Army, and the other NCO’s had returned to stateside bases. Newsweek also reported that CID agents testified that Major General Carl C. Turner, while the Army’s Provost Marshall General, had sent word to drop the probe and strike Wooldridge’s name from investigative records. Turner is accused by CID agents of arms sales for personal profit. The Army withdraws a recommendation for Wooldridge’s Distinguished Service Medal and revokes Turner’s Distinguished Service Medal (“National Affairs: Armed Forces: Khaki Cosa Nostra,” Newsweek, 13 October 1969; “National Affairs: Armed Forces: The Guns of Turner,” Newsweek, 20 October 1969). April 1970

Nixon authorizes a ground incursion into Cambodia (Karnow, 608–9).

14 April 1971

III MAF redeploys from Vietnam. 1stMarDiv returns to Camp Pendleton to be welcomed home personally by Nixon on 30 April (The Pendleton Scout, Camp Pendleton, CA, 30 April 1971).

30 March 1972

North Vietnam launches an Easter invasion with 120,000 NVA troops and thousands of VC. U.S.

Appendix A: Selected Vietnam War Chronology • 249

forces now number 70,000, of whom only 6,000 are combat troops. Nixon retaliates by providing air support to areas under attack in the South, conducting air strikes in the Hanoi-Haiphong area, and mining Haiphong harbor (Karnow, 640–46). July 1972

Jane Fonda earns nickname, “Hanoi Jane,” during unauthorized trip to Hanoi, during which she broadcasts an appeal over Hanoi radio urging U.S. pilots to stop bombing North Vietnam (New York Times, 15 July 1972, 9; 16 July 1972, 3).

18 December 1972

Nixon, after a landslide re-election, orders massive bombing north of the 20th parallel. For the next eleven days, B-52s rain some 40,000 tons of bombs on the heavily populated Hanoi-Haiphong corridor. According to official North Vietnamese statistics, 1,318 civilians in Hanoi and 305 in Haiphong are killed. The North Vietnamese down twenty-six U.S. aircraft, including fifteen B-52s. Ninety-three pilots and crew members are lost, thirty-one of whom are captured. On 26 December, the North Vietnamese signal their willingness to talk again as soon as the bombing halts. By 30 December, all American targets are exhausted and the North Vietnamese have expended their supply of 1,200 SAMs (Karnow, 651–54).

27 January 1973

Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho sign a cease-fire agreement in Paris. The conflict ends, with Communist forces in the south retaining the areas they control. With a political solution pending, the Saigon regime gains time to prepare for a Communist challenge (Karnow, 654–56).

12 February 1973

The first group of American prisoners of war are freed and are flown to Clark Field in the Philippines (Karnow, 655).

4 June 1973

Congress blocks funds for any further U.S. military activities in Indochina, thus taking the first step in

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totally disengaging America from Southeast Asia (Karnow, 656). 9 August 1974

Nixon resigns to avoid impeachment. Vice President Gerald Ford becomes President (Karnow, 661).

January 1975

Hanoi commences a graduated campaign to defeat the South. Unexpected victories turn into an ARVN rout. Hanoi exploits the success by moving on Saigon (Karnow, 663–68).

17 April 1975

The domino theory becomes reality as Phnom Penh, in Cambodia, falls to the Khmer Rouge (Karnow, 685).

29 April 1975

Over a span of eighteen hours, a fleet of seventy U.S. Marine Corps helicopters evacuates more than 1,000 Americans and nearly 6,000 Vietnamese from Saigon to aircraft carriers standing offshore. Some 2,000 of those transported are taken from the American Embassy while Communist rockets are raking the Saigon airport (Karnow, 668).

30 April 1975

Colonel Bui Tin, deputy editor of the North Vietnamese army newspaper, who had hitchhiked to town on a tank to cover the “liberation,” finds himself the ranking officer and takes the surrender in the presidential palace, saying, “The war for our country is over” (Karnow, 669). Tin had been a Communist since observing the “August Revolution” at age eighteen in 1945. In September 1990, 62-yearold Tin will voluntarily exile himself to France in order to combat a Vietnamese government which he says has betrayed the revolution (Bui Tin, Following Ho Chi Minh).

Appendix A: Selected Vietnam War Chronology • 251

Appendix B Terms and Acronyms

1stMarDiv, 1stInfDiv, 101st A/B Div, etc. Abbreviations for First Marine Division, First Infantry Division, 101st Airborne Division, etc. 5th Special Forces Group. The senior USSF command in Vietnam. 7th Air Force. The senior U.S. Air Force command in Vietnam. III MAF. Third Marine Amphibious Force. The senior Marine command in Vietnam. AID. Agency for International Development. Arc Light. Code name for B-52 strikes. ARVN. Army of the Republic of Vietnam. Ba Mui Ba. Locally produced beer. Name translates to “33.” BAR. Browning Automatic Rifle. A World War II weapon provided to ARVN, CIDG and Mike Forces. BDA. Bomb damage assessment, conducted to determine results of B-52 strikes, often by Mike Force patrols and other LRRP’s. Beaver. A single-engine aircraft built by deHavilland in Canada. BEQ. Bachelor Enlisted Quarters. Living quarters used by enlisted men who are unmarried or who are unaccompanied by their spouses. Billet. U.S. Army term for a billeting structure or compound. U.S. Marine Corps term for a job position. BOQ. Bachelor Officers’ Quarters. Living quarters used by officers who are unmarried or who are unaccompanied by their spouses. 251

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Caribou. Canadian-made twin-engine deHavilland Short-Takeoff-andLanding (STOL) aircraft, originally obtained by U.S. Army. It was initially designated AC-1, later CV-2, then transferred to the U.S. Air Force in 1967 and redesignated C-7. CAT. Civil Air Transport. A fleet of transport aircraft operated by General Claire Chennault from Taiwan. CBU. Cluster Bomb Units, antipersonnel bombs. Cercle Sportif. French tennis and swimming club in Saigon. Charlie. Term for the Viet Cong. Comes from the phonetic alphabet, i.e., Victor Charlie means VC. CID. U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division or Detachment. CIDG. Civilian Irregular Defense Group, composed of mercenary indigenous troops, and led by either LLDB (ARVN Special Forces), or USSF. Claymore Mine. A command-detonated, antipersonnel mine designed to aim and focus its lethal charge. CMC. Commandant of the Marine Corps. COLA. Cost of Living Allowance. Additional allowance to defray costs of living in BOQs and BEQs in Saigon and other cities. Combined Action Company. (See Combined Action Platoon.) Combined Action Platoon (CAP). As part of the Marines’ pacification campaign, a USMC CAP would move into a hamlet and form a company with local militiamen, working with the villagers for their health care and protection. See Cap Môt: The Story of a Marine Special Forces Unit in Vietnam by Barry L. Goodson. Combined Intelligence Effort at MACV. Combined U.S. and ARVN organizations: CICV (Combined Intelligence Center, Vietnam), CDEC (Combined Document Exploitation Center), CMEC (Combined Materiel Exploitation Center), CMIC (Combined Military Interrogation Center) Command Detonated. Activated by the user, as opposed to being detonated by the victim’s actions or by a timer. Company Grade Officers. Warrant officers, lieutenants and captains in the Army and Marine Corps.

Appendix B: Terms and Acronyms • 253

COMUSMACV. Commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. CORDS. Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support. A civilian pacification organization using overt and covert methods. Associated with Operation Phoenix. Corps Tactical Zones. South Vietnamese corps-level areas of military responsibility, paralleled by U.S. corps-level organizations. From the north, southward: I Corps (Initially III MAF, headquartered at Da Nang), II Corps (I Field Force, with headquarters at Nha Trang), III Corps (II FF, headquartered at Bien Hoa), and IV Corps (III FF at Can Tho). Corps were commanded by ARVN officers, Field Forces by U.S. Army officers, and III MAF by a U.S. Marine officer. COSVN. Central Office for South Vietnam, formerly Nam Bo (South Region) Central Committee. COSVN directed the Viet Minh during French war, and was operational during the U.S. war. C/S. Chief of Staff Daisy Cutters. Antipersonnel bombs that explode two feet off the ground. Daniel Boone. Code name for USSF/SOG long range patrol operations in Cambodia. Delta Project. Code name for USSF long range patrol organization trained for operations inside South Vietnam. Ditty Bag. Any small bag used as an overnight bag. Probably of nautical origin, as recreational sailors today use ditty bags to carry sewing materials for sails. Dixie Station. Area in the South China Sea used by the U.S. Navy for launch and recovery of air strikes into South Vietnam. DMZ. The Ben Hai River, near the 17th parallel. Domino Theory. The theory that if a non-Communist country in the Far East fell to the Communists, neighboring countries would fall. It was proven partly correct because of takeovers in Laos and Cambodia in connection with the fall of South Vietnam. EE-8. Double E Eight, a hand-cranked military field phone.

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Fatigues. U.S. Army field uniform. May be camouflaged or olive drab. See Utility Uniform. Field Grade Officers. Majors, lieutenant colonels and colonels in the Army and Marine Corps. Five O’clock Follies. Nickname for the daily press briefing at the JUSPAO auditorium in downtown Saigon. Flag Officers. Generals and admirals, so named because each flies a flag carrying the number of stars commensurate with his or her rank. Fleet Marine Force Pacific (FMFPAC). A “type” command, wherein the commander is responsible for training and administration of all Marines assigned to the Pacific forces, but has no operational control. The Joint Chiefs of Staff (including CMC) have similar responsibilities for their respective services worldwide. Free World Military Assistance Forces. Third country friendly forces, including the Australian Task Force, the New Zealand Contingent, a Thai battalion, the South Korean force, and a Philippine Medical detachment. FULRO. Front United for the Liberation of the Racially Oppressed, a Montagnard independence movement against the Vietnamese. FWMAF. See Free World Military Assistance Forces. Game Warden. U.S. Navy’s river interdiction operation in the Mekong Delta and the Rung Sat Special Zone. Gunny. Honorific slang term for gunnery sergeant, a senior Marine SNCO in paygrade E-7. Hamlet. A grouping of family and business huts within a village complex. Huey. Nickname for the Army’s workhorse helicopter in Vietnam, one model being HUE-1. ICC. International Control Commission. Also called International Commission for Supervision and Control (ICSC). Formed to administer the truce of the Geneva Accords after the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. ICSC. See ICC. In country. In South Vietnam.

Appendix B: Terms and Acronyms • 255

Indochina. Former French Indochina—Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. JCS. Joint Chiefs of Staff. JUSPAO. Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office on Le Loi Street in Saigon. KIA. Killed in action. LLDB. Lac Luong Dac Biet. Vietnamese Special Forces. LRRP. U.S. Army term for long-range reconnaissance patrol. MACV. U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. MAAG. U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group. Forerunner to MACV. Marine Air Group (MAG). In the Marine Corps a squadron was commanded by a lieutenant colonel, a MAG (group of squadrons) by a colonel, and a MAW (Marine Air Wing) by a brigadier or major general, depending upon the size. Market Time. U.S. Navy’s inshore interdiction effort. Medal of Honor. Sometimes called a Congressional Medal of Honor because it is authorized by Congress. Medevac. Medical evacuation, generally by aircraft. Mike Force. A USSF mobile strike force of indigenous troops for use as a corps level reserve to reinforce USSF camps and to conduct BDAs. Montagnard. Yards, Mountainyards. Malayo-Polynesian and Mon-Khmer ethnic groups who reside in the central highlands, called “moi” (savage) by the Vietnamese. The largest of their thirty-one tribes include Bahnar, Jarai, Rhade and Koho. MPC. U. S. Military Payment Certificate, script, funny money. Traded at an official (artificial) rate of 118 piasters (Ps) to the dollar. National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (NLF). Formerly the Viet Minh League. Was called Viet Cong (Vietnamese Communists) as an American political tool. NCO, NonCom. Non-commissioned officer, a senior ranking enlisted man or woman. NLF. National Liberation Front of South Vietnam.

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Nungs. Chinese immigrant mercenaries used by USSF. Nungs fought for the French until Dien Bien Phu, then went to South Vietnam. NVA. North Vietnamese Army. Omega, Project. Code name for USSF/SOG long range patrol organization trained for cross-border operations. Otter. DeHavilland of Canada U-1A “Otter”. The largest single-engine utility aircraft in U.S. military service in the sixties, the Otter was capable of carrying eleven troops. Petty Officer. Navy and Coast Guard equivalent of an NCO. Phoenix, Operation. (Also called “Phoenix Program.) Formed from the CIA’s former Counter Terror Teams (assassination squads) and renamed Provisional Reconnaissance Units. The Phoenix mission was to eliminate the Viet Cong Infrastructure (VCI). Plane Captain. In the Navy and Marine Corps, the senior enlisted man or woman responsible for the aircraft. The Air Force term is crew chief. Popular Forces (PF). The Vietnamese Civilian Defense Group (CDG) became the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG), which became Popular Forces (PF). Used for local security. See Regional Forces. Prairie Fire. Code name for USSF/SOG long-range patrol operations in eastern Laos. Prick 25. A PRC-25 FM radio. Puff the Magic Dragon. A gunship, also called “Dragonship,” and “Spooky,” (because it spooked the VC). Puff was a modified C-47 aircraft armed with Gatling guns, and loaded with 24,000 rounds of ammunition and forty-five 200,000-candlepower flares. A similar, more powerful weapon was developed from the C-130. R&R. Rest and Recuperation, generally six or seven days outside of Vietnam, to locations such as Australia, Singapore, Hawaii, and Japan. Ranch Hand. Defoliant operation, using Agent Orange (Dioxin) delivered by twin-engine C-123s. Ranks. South Vietnamese equivalents are dai-thong, general. thieu ta, major. dai uy, captain, theu uy, lieutenant.

Appendix B: Terms and Acronyms • 257

RAOR. Reconnaissance Area of Responsibility. Regional Forces (RF). The Vietnamese SDG became RF. Rolling Thunder. Rolling Thunder was a graduated bombing northward from the 17th Parallel (DMZ) instituted to convince the North Vietnamese that escalating the war was too costly. RVN. Republic of Vietnam. Also called South Vietnam. SAM. Surface-to-air missile. SAS. The Australian Special Air Service, a long-range patrol force similar to USSF and USMC Force Recon. SDG. South Vietnamese Sector Defense Group. Seal Teams. Seal teams and their detachments are U.S. Navy special warfare units that operate in a SEa-Air-Land environment. Their predecessors were UDTs (Underwater Demolition Teams), and before that NCDUs (Navy Combat Demolition Units), begun in World War II. Shining Brass. Code name for USSF/SOG long-range patrol operations in eastern Laos. Sigma Project. Code name for USSF/SOG long-range patrol organization trained for cross-border operations. Skipper. Captain of a vessel. Also an honorific term for a Marine captain, probably deriving from the Marine Corps’ naval background. Slop Chute. Marine term for an enlisted club or bar-and-grill. SNCO. See Staff NCO. SOG. Studies and Observations Group (originally Special Operations Group). SOG was the largest U.S. clandestine military unit created since the OSS of World War II. Its cross-border operations included intelligence collection, ambushes, mining, raids, prisoner snatches, black propaganda, recovery of Americans and others, recovery of highly sensitive parts from crashed aircraft, insertion and handling of intelligence agents, and maritime raids. Spooky. See Puff the Magic Dragon. Staff NCO. A staff non-commissioned officer. Senior NCO.

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Strategic Hamlet Program. A MACV theory that guerrillas would be cut off from the people by bringing villagers within fortified hamlets guarded by irregulars. The program was deficient because (1) villagers were forcefully relocated from their land and ancestors’ graves, and their homes were burned. (2) VC and sympathizers were part of the villages, and (3) villagers had to leave the safety of the hamlets daily to till the farms. Street Without Joy. A sixty-kilometer section of Route 1, north of Hue, so named by the French because they suffered such heavy losses trying to traverse it, and never opened it permanently. Tan Son Nhut. Saigon airport, location of U.S. 8th Aerial Port. TAOR. Tactical Area of Responsibility. Task Force 77. Navy carrier force from the U.S. 7th Fleet. Tiger Beer. Biere Larue (“street beer”), locally produced beer called “Tiger” because of a representation of a tiger on the bottle. Tiger Suit. Special camouflage field uniform worn by the Vietnamese marines and rangers and their U.S. advisors, and also worn by some members of the CIDG. Travis Air Force Base. A major USAF transportation hub located east of San Francisco. USMACV. See MACV. UDT. See Seal Teams. USSF. U.S. Special Forces. Utility Uniform, utilities. U.S. Marine field uniform. May be camouflaged or olive drab. See Fatigues. VC. Viet Cong. Viet Cong. Vietnamese Communist, a term coined by South Vietnamese President Diem and embraced by the U.S. Viet Minh. Vietnamese Independence Brotherhood League (Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi). A front organization formed in 1941 by the Central Committee of the Vietnamese Communist Party (Ho Chi Minh and others) to overthrow the Japanese and French.

Appendix B: Terms and Acronyms • 259

Village. A geographical grouping of hamlets. VNAF. Vietnamese Air Force. War Zone C. Centered at Loc Ninh in III Corps. WestPac. Western Pacific. Includes Vietnam. White Mice. Quan Canh, or QC. Saigon police, who wore immaculately tailored white uniforms and aviator’s sunglasses. Called white mice in derision because they were perceived as never responding to criminal activities taking place in their presence. WIA. Wounded in action. Yankee Station. Area in the South China Sea above the 17th parallel used by the U.S. Navy for launch and recovery of air strikes into North Vietnam.

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Appendix C Bibliography

Andradé, Dale. Trial by Fire: The 1972 Easter Offensive, America’s Last Vietnam Battle. NY: Hippocrene Books, 1995. Bendell, Don. “The Mountain Warriors of Vietnam.” The Retired Officer Magazine (July 1993), 28–33. Bergerud, Eric M. Red Thunder, Tropic Lightning: The World of a Combat Division in Vietnam. Boulder: Westview Press, 1993. Boston Publishing Company, eds. War in the Shadows: The Vietnam Experience. Boston, MA: Boston Publishing Company, 1988. Colby, William Egan. Lost Victory: A Firsthand Account of America’s Sixteenyear Involvement in Vietnam. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1989. Cooper, Chester L. The Lost Crusade; America in Vietnam. Foreword by W. Averell Harriman. NY: Dodd, Mead, 1970. Corson, William R. The Betrayal. NY: W. W. Norton, 1968. Cutler, Thomas J. Brown Water, Black Berets: Coastal and Riverine Warfare in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988. Danniell, Clifton, ed. Chronicle of the 20th Century. Mount Kisco, NY: Chronicle Publications. Distributed in the USA by Prentice Hall Trade, 1987. Davis, Burke. Marine!: The Life of Lt. Gen. Lewis B. (Chesty) Puller, USMC (Ret.). Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1962. Fall, Bernard B. Street Without Joy: Indochina at War 1946–1954. Harrisburg, PA: The Stackpole Company, 1961. Fitzgerald, Frances. Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam. Boston: Little, Brown, 1972. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. NY: Viking Press, 1983.

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Keeton, George & Georg Schwarzenberger, eds. The Year Book of World Affairs 1966. NY: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966. Keylin, Arleen, and Sun Boiangiu, eds. Front Page Vietnam: As Reported by the New York Times. NY: Arno Press, 1981. Kutler, Stanley I., ed. Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War. NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons; London: Simon & Schuster/Prentice Hall International, 1996. Kowet, Don. A Matter of Honor. NY: Macmillan, 1984. Maclear, Michael. The Ten Thousand Day War. NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1981. McChristian, Joseph. The Role of Military Intelligence 1965–1967. Washington, DC: GPO, 1973. McMaster, H. R. Dereliction of Duty. NY: HarperCollins, 1997. McNamara, Robert S. with Brian VanDeMark. In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. NY: Random House (Times Books), 1995. Moore, Harold G. & Joseph L. Galloway. We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young: Ia Drang: The Battle that Changed the War in Vietnam. NY: Random House, 1992. Norman, Michael. “Our Heritage.” Marine Corps Gazette (November 1993). Palmer, Bruce. The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam. Lexington, KY: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1984. Pearson, Willard. The War in the Northern Provinces, 1966–1968. Washington, DC: GPO, 1975. Pimlott, John. Vietnam: The Decisive Battles. NY: Macmillan, 1990. Plaster, John L. SOG: The Secret Wars of America’s Commandos in Vietnam. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1997. Samarov, Michael V. “Will Dan Daly Be There When We Need Him?” Marine Corps Gazette (August 1999), 53–54. Schwarzkopf, H. Norman. It Doesn’t Take a Hero. NY: Bantam Books, 1992. Sheehan, Neil. A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. NY: Random House (Vintage Books), 1988. Tin, Bui. Following Ho Chi Minh: Memoirs of a North Vietnamese Colonel. Honolulu: Univ. of Hawaii Press, 1995. Walt, Lewis W. Strange War, Strange Strategy. NY: Funk & Wagnalls, 1970. Westmoreland, William C. A Soldier Reports. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976. Young, Paul R. First Recon—Second to None: A Marine Reconnaissance Battalion in Vietnam 1967–68. NY: Ivy Books (Published by Ballentine Books), 1992.

266 • The Bridges of Vietnam

Index • 267

Index

Numbered Military Units I Corps, vii, x, 234; club, 159 1st Battalion, Ninth Marines, 242 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, 73–74 1st Force Recon Company, 136 1stMarDiv (1st Marine Division), 14– 17, 135 st 1 Recon Battalion, 45–47, 136 II Field Force Vietnam, 123 2nd Battalion, 28th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division, 65–66 nd 2 Brigade, 9thInfDiv, 192 III Corps, 123, 244 III Marine Amphibious Force (III MAF), vii, 6, 41, 135, 181; headquarters described, 10–11, 133–34; schism with MACV, 19, 106, 188 3rd Battalion, Fourth Marines (Company M), 54 rd 3 Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, 73–74 rd 3 Marine Division (3rd MarDiv), 109, 135, 138–39, 234 rd 3 Recon Battalion, 44–45 4th U.S. Infantry Division, 98–99, 146–47

5th Special Forces Group, 70–72, 125– 26, 196–97, 247 th 9 VC Division, 229 25th Infantry Division (25th InfDiv), 28, 67–68, 147–48 324B Division (NVA), 19, 42, 108, 233

A A Shau, 48, 81n.7, 233 admiral in Da Nang (unnamed), 42– 44 “adult reaction,” 75–76, 82n.28 Air America, 74 Americal Division, 107, 158, 178, 240 An Khe, 66 An Trach, 236 Anderson, Karl, 5, 6 ao dai, 30 Ap Bac, 226 Aralin pills, 39, 80n.3 attrition: introduced by Harkins, 226; strategy continued by Abrams, 246; Westmoreland’s policy of, xv, 106, 231, 232 Australian forces in Vietnam, 76–80, 134, 233.

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268 • The Bridges of Vietnam

B Ba Muoi Ba beer, 84, 87 Badcoe, Peter J., 159, 176–77, 178 Badolato, Ed, 13–14, 40, 80n.2 Bao Dai, Emperor, 222, 223, 224 Beaver (aircraft), 73 Bendell, Don, 219 Berry, Doyle, x Bien Hoa, 122–124 Bien Hoa highway, 189–91 Biere Larue, 110 “Big Red One” (1st Infantry Division), 65–66 body count. See attrition Bon Homme Richard, USS, viii boots, on black market, 22–23 Bost, Warren and Sally, 7, 8, 135 Broderick, Bill, 179, 183 Bunker, Ellsworth, 239

C C-47 airplane, 39, 40, 75 C. Turner Joy, 229 Calley, William, Jr., 235 Cam Ranh Bay, 40, 235 Cambodia, 248; sanctuary for NVA, 90–91 Camp Reasoner, 136 Can Tho, 151–52 Candy, Brian H., 174–75, 204, 220 Caribou (aircraft), 69 Catecka Tea Plantation, 74 central highlands, 98–99 Chaisson, Major General, 101 “chogy” stick, 29–30, 134 Cholon, 56, 60 Chu Lai, 14–17, 37n.13, 45 CIDG (Civilian Irregular Defense Group), 48

Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support, 240 Civilian Irregular Defense Group. See CIDG Clausewitz’s philosophy, 215 Coastal Defense Group 13, 53 Colby, William, 6 Combined Action campaign, Marine, 32 Combined Action Company (CAC), 160 Company M, 3rd Battalion, Fourth Marines, 54–55 compartmentalization, 85–86, 103–4 Con Thien, 241 Continental Palace, 87 Cook, Donald G., 114n.11 CORDS, 240 crossbows, Montagnard, 95, 114n.8 Cu Chi, 67 Cushman, Robert E., 187, 242

D Da Nang, 9–24, 135–36, 159, 230, 243; described, 15, 137–40 Da Nang River, 12 Daniel Boone patrols, 104 Dave (Marine Captain), 88 Dawson, Chuck, 2–3, 63, 217–18 Daly, Dan, 155 deckhouse operations, 151, 153 decompartmentalization, 111–12 Demetrius, James, 75–76 DePuy, William E., 66 Devine, Doug, 13, 14 Di Anh, 65–66 Dick (Navy lieutenant), 53–56 Division Ambush Academy, 67 Dogpatch (Da Nang), 22–24

Index • 269

Don (Air Force captain), 195 Dooley, Tom, 34 dowsers, 178–80 Duc Co, 89–95, 196–97 Dunlap, Stan, 101, 219 dysentery, 129

E Edwards, Fred L., Jr.: arrives at Saigon, 25; assignment from Little, 35; birthday celebration, 87–88; bit by monkey, 197–98; celebrates Thanksgiving, 119–20; at Da Nang, 9–24; dysentery of, 127–29; epilogue on, 220; fired at for first time, 59; last days in Vietnam, 204–11; moves to Hong Kong Hotel, 59–61; ordered to COMUSMACV in Saigon, 18; promoted, 99–100; promotion lost, 99–100; R&R in Hawaii, 185– 86; photos of, xvi, 77, 214 Edwards, Pauline, xi–xii, xiii, 211–12; in Hawaii, 186; receives elephants, 133; photos of, 186, 214 Elephant Pass, 13 elephants, ceramic, 132–33

F Fall, Bernard, 9, 239 Fielding, Ted R., 35, 39, 41, 49, 65, 85, 100, 108, 146, 150; buried at Arlington, 218; requests Joint Service Commendation Medal, 201–2 fire team, 14 Five Oceans Hotel, 27, 31, 173–74 “flap,” 104–6 Fletcher, Jack, 181, 195–96, 205, 220

Fonda, Jane, 249 Forrestal, 243 French, war with Vietnam, 224 FULRO (Front United for the Liberation of the Racially Oppressed). See Montagnards

G Galloway, Joseph. See We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young Game Warden, Operation, 39, 42 Gia Dinh, 192 Giap. See Vo Nguyen Giap Gray Elephant Hotel, 41 Green Berets, 71–72, 247. See also 5th Special Forces Group Greene, Wallace M, Jr., xi, 45, 99, 106, 233 Gregory, Dick, 237 Group 559, 225 Gulf of Tonkin incident, 52, 229

H hair spray, 15, 37n.11 Haiphong harbor, 223, 249 Hamburger Hill, 246 Harkins, Paul, viii, 225; attrition strategy of, 226; “Three M” program, 226 Hester, Chris, 170–72 Hester, Leo, 40, 62, 101, 110, 120–21, 143; becomes Edwards’ roommate; death of, 169, 170–71 Highway 1, 9, 14 Hill 488, 47 Hill 937, 246 Ho Chi Minh, 221–47; forms Vietminh, 222; dies, 247 Hoa Vang, 160–62

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Holeman, Dawn, 219, 220 Holeman, Harry, 83, 110, 120–21, 129–31, 146, 155, 163, 180; death of, 219; photo of, 190 Honda motorcycle, 190, 193; snipers on, 193 Hong Kong Hotel, 60–61 Howard, Jimmie E., 47 HU1E helicopter. See Huey helicopter Huey, General, 27 Huey helicopter, 13 Huffman, Steve, 177–78 Huntley, Chet, 89

I Ia (River) Drang, xiv n.3, 91, 231 In Retrospect (McNamara), xv Intelligence Summary (IntSum), 17

J John (Air Force lieutenant colonel), 194 Johnson, Lyndon B., vii, 109, 228, 235, 246 junk fleet, 53–56, 149–50

K Kelly, Francis J. “Black Jack,” 48 Kennedy, John F., viii Kinnard, Harry W. O., 91 Kissinger, Henry, 249 Koelper Compound, 25–26 Korean troops, 32, 33, 117 Krulak, Victor, xv, 6, 15, 107, 226, 227, 228, 244; proposes pacification program, 232 Kuntze, Archie C., 118–19, 236, 237

L Lambretta, 189 Le Duc Tho, 249 Little, John T., 35, 107; leaves for U.S., 145; orders for Edwards and Fielding, 35; rejects automatic kill policy, 64–65 Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr., 227 Lohmeier, Don, 3, 63, 217–18 Long Binh, 122–24 Long Branch Saloon, Travis Air Force Base, 3, 4 long-range patrol regiment (LRPR), 198 Lost Command, The, 1 Lost Victory (Colby), 6 Lowe, Keith, 4

M MacKenzie’s Raiders, 68 MACV, 19, 225; schism with III MAF, 19, 106, 188 MACV Recondo School, 144 Maddox, 229 MAG 11, 22 Marble Mountain, Da Nang, 9, 12, 161 Marine Corps, Korean, 117 Marine Corps, Vietnamese, 117 Marine Corps birthday, 116–17 Marine Corps Gazette, 46 Marine Expeditionary Corps, name changed, 10, 37n.7 Marines: land at China Beach, 230; professionalism of, 33–34 Market Time, 39, 42, 109 Martin, Al, 146, 153 Martin, Henry V., 99 McAvoy, Paul, 33 McChristian, Joseph, 107, 178, 240

Index • 271

McDougall, Peter, 68–70, 76, 91, 158, 218–19; in hospital, 168–69; photo of, 89 McMahon, Robert E., 200 McMillan, Rick, 151 McNamara, Robert, xv, 188, 225, 226, 227, 232, 242, 243; leaves State Department to head World Bank, 244 McNamara Fence, 102–3, 163–64, 235, 241 Mekong Delta, 151, 192 Mendenhall, Joseph, 6, 227 Midway, USS, 34 Mike Forces, 48, 49 Military Aid and Assistance Group, 224 Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG), 224 Military Assistance CommandVietnam. See MACV Mobile Riverine Force (MRF), 192, 243 Mobile Strike Forces. See Mike Forces money exchange, 84 Monkey Mountain, 13–14 Montagnards, 71, 92, 94–95, 97–98, 126, 219 Moore, Harold. See We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young MRF. See Mobile Riverine Force My Lai, 245

Nguyen Ai Quoc. See Ho Chi Minh Nguyen Cao Key, 237 Nguyen Tat Thanh. See Ho Chi Minh Nha Be, 149–50 Nha Trang, 69–70, 124–25, 144, 181– 82, 196 Nixon, Richard M., 246; authorizes incursions into Cambodia, 248 Nolting, Frederick, 227 Norman, Michael, 217 Nui Dat, 76

O “Ode to Saigon,” 207 Ontos, 81n.13 Operations: Attleboro, 148, 234 Cedar Falls, 238 Exodus, 224 Fairfax, 192 Game Warden, 39, 150–51 Hastings, 19, 233 Irving, 235 Junction City, 238 Pawnee, 51, 54 Phoenix, 73, 237 Prairie, 19, 233, 235 Ranch Hand, 81n.11 Rolling Thunder, 230, 232 Starlite, 231 Operation Plan 34-A (OpPlan 34-A), 228, 229 Otter aircraft, 108

N Nasties, 52 National Liberation Front (NLF), 225 Navy SEALs, 149–50 Nelson, Bert, 34, 218 Ngo Dinh Diem, 224, 228

P Patrol Boats, River (PBRs), 149, 151 Pentagon Papers, 242 Pham Van Dong, 227 Phu Bai, 108–9, 138–39 player piano, admiral’s, 43

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Plei Djereng, 95–96, 236–37 Pleiku, 74, 98–99, 147, 230 Potsdam agreement, 222, 223 prisoners of war, 249 Project Delta, 72, 144 Project Omega, 72 Project Sigma, 72 Provincial Reconnaissance Units (PRUs), 73, 237 Puff the Magic Dragon, 75 PX, 56; scandals, 15, 121–22, 165, 236

Q Quan Canh. See White Mouse Quang Duc, 227 Quang Tri, 178, 233, 240

R Rach Ba Rai River, Battle of, 243 Ram, Cornelius H., 203 Retired Officers Association, 218 Rheault, Robert B., 247 Riney, Frank, 46, 218 Rissel, Barry, 176 Rochford, Phil, 142 Rung Sat Special Zone, 149–50 Rusk, Dean, 229

S Saigon: described, 29–31, 191; corruption in, 236; curfew in, 113n; shopping in, 56, 110–11 Saigon Central Market, 110–11 Samaras, Pete, 5, 6, 8, 19–20, 173 Schwarzkopf, H. Norman, 91, 217 SEALs (SEa, Air and Land), 149–50 “short time,” 23 Siler, Jerry E., 141 Singlaub, Jack, 112 Small, Charles D., 46

Small Starlight scopes, 183–84 smallpox vaccination, 183–84 snipers, 193, 205–7 SOG, 112–13 Special Air Service (Australian), 76– 80 Special Forces, 48, 91–94, 95–96 Special Operations Group (SOG), 112–13 Spooner, Rick, 99, 219 St. Clair, 46, 80n.4 Stewart, Bill, 58 Stingray patrol, 141 Stone Elephant, 41 “Street Without Joy” (Highway 1), 9, 14, 239 Surface Surveillance and Reconnaissance Section, selection of name, 149 Swift boat, 49–52

T Task Force Oregon, 107, 158, 178, 240 Tepera, Joe, 120 The Ten Thousand Day War, 9 Tet Offensive, 244–45 33 Beer, 84 Tiger Beer. See Biere Larue Tin, Bui, 250 Trainor, Bernard E., vii Tu Do Street, 84–85, 86 Turley, Gerry H., 3 Turner, Carl C., 167, 248 Tuttle, Ronald B., 21–24 Tuy Hoa, 74

U U-8 aircraft, 144 U.S. Army Intelligence Training Center, Ft. Holabird, viii

Index • 273

U.S. Army Special Forces. See Special Forces U.S. Military Assistance Command, 2, 19, 225; created, viii; schism with III MAF, 19, 106, 188

V VC. See Viet Cong Viet Cong, source of term, 5; 9th Division, 229 Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi. See Vietminh Vietminh: formed by Ho, 222; 324B Division, 19, 42, 108, 233; on strike, 222 Vietnam Independence Brotherhood League. See Vietminh Vietnamese language, 172 Vietnamese medicine, 134–35 Vietnamese peasants, attitude toward, 28 Vietnamese River Assault Groups. See junk fleet

Vo Nguyen Giap, 221, 243 Vung Tau, 76–77, 167–69

W Walt, Lewis W., 13, 14, 187–88, 230, 242 We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young (Moore and Galloway), xiv n.3 Western Pacific Ground Forces, x Westmoreland, William C., 32, 232, 234; and attrition policy, xv, 106, 231, 232, 237; and money policy, 86; and recondo school, 144 WestPac. See Western Pacific Ground Forces Weyend, Fred, 244, 245 White Elephant, 41 White Mouse (Quan Canh), 140 Wooldridge, William O., 166–67, 247–48

Z Ziegler, Lieutenant, 181