Once the village defenders were established, the SF teams supervised programs to improve the quality of life for villagers. They established infirmaries and provided minor medical treatment, constructed shelters, improved sanitation, and generally helped in any way they could. As soon as a mutually supporting cluster of villages had been established, the process began all over again, and the perimeter was pushed out farther to include other villages.
The success of the two A-Detachments was extraordinary, and by April 1962, forty villages in Darlac Province had voluntarily entered the program. In May 1962, eight more teams were sent from Okinawa to Vietnam, and the success continued. In July, the CIA requested sixteen more SF teams, and by August, approximately two hundred villages were participating in the program. Overall, the Special Forces defensive strategy, focused on denying the Viet Cong access to the indigenous population and the resources they could provide, was working very well.
It differed markedly from the Strategic Hamlet Program in that it was able to provide an effective presence, and it involved no forced resettlement.
MACV TAKES CHARGE
As the size, scope, and effectiveness of the CIDG continued to grow, it became doubtful whether the CIA had the personnel and resources to manage the number of SF troops involved. Washington therefore decided to switch control of SF operations from the CIA to MACV. The transfer (called Operation SWITCHBACK) was completed in July 1963. Once MACV was in command, both the missions assigned to Special Forces and the execution of the CIDG program began to change.
The change was for the worse. MACV understood neither the nature of special operations nor the special requirements of counterinsurgency.
For starters, MACV viewed SF involvement in the CIDG program as “static training activities,” and felt the Special Forces would be better used in more “active and offensive operations.” As a result, Army SF were largely removed from their role in administering and expanding the CIDG Program and were instead assigned to provide surveillance along the Cambodian and Laotian borders and to conduct offensive, direct-action missions against Viet Cong bases.
This mission change began in late 1963, and was completed near the end of 1964. On January 1, 1965, Colonel John Speers, the commander of the newly organized and established 5th Special Forces Group, issued a letter of instruction outlining the mission assigned to the group by MACV. These were “border surveillance and control, operations against infiltration routes, and operations against VC war zones and base areas.” All of these missions clearly reflected MACV’s offensive strategy and focused on finding, fixing, and destroying the enemy forces in the field.
In order to free up U.S. Special Forces for offensive operations and border surveillance, the responsibility both for administering the CIDG program and for training strike forces and village defenders was transferred to the Vietnamese Special Forces (LLDB). Unfortunately, the LLDB possessed neither the skills nor the leadership of their U.S. counterparts, and worse, they came equipped with the normal Vietnamese contempt for the minority populations on which the CIDG Program had focused. As a result, many gains made earlier in “winning” the population were lost.
In a further change, the government of Vietnam integrated the CIDG Program’s strike forces into the ARVN, and MACV began employing them in an offensive role, for which they had never been intended.
Before long, the strike forces were being airlifted from one place to another, in support of Special Forces raids, surveillance missions, or conventional ARVN operations. In October 1963, MACV unveiled a plan to use CIDG strike forces, in conjunction with SF, to “attack VC base camps and interdict the infiltration of men and supplies from North Vietnam.”
Removing the strike forces from their local area of operations and employing them in areas unfamiliar to them drastically reduced their effectiveness. This in turn not only weakened the mutually supporting village defense system of the original CIA-SF designed program, but without detailed familiarity with the local terrain, strike forces became little more than marginally trained infantry.
Partly to exploit the success of the program and partly to make greater military use of CIDG camps and villages, MACV tried to expand the program—and quickly. CIDG camps began to be located for strictly military reasons, without regard to political or demographic realities. For example, camps were set astride suspected infiltration routes or in areas of heavy Viet Cong or North Vietnamese Army (NVA) activity. Neither served the original purpose of population control.
MEANWHILE, in spite of the best efforts of MACV, ARVN, and all the U.S. and Vietnamese government agencies involved, the situation in Vietnam worsened. By the end of 1964, the Viet Cong were conducting coordinated regimental operations. In early January 1965, the insurgents attacked and seized the village of Binh Gia, only forty miles from Saigon. In reclaiming the town, ARVN forces suffered 201 men killed in action, compared with only thirty-two confirmed VC killed. This event, and others like it, ultimately led to the commitment of U.S. combat troops to Vietnam.
The first U.S. division to be deployed as a whole was the 1st Air Cavalry Division. Once in country, in November 1965, it was immediately deployed to the Central Highlands, one of the areas of greatest VC strength, to begin search-and-destroy operations. They quickly encountered and attacked a large concentration of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese in the la Drang Valley. The battle resulted in 1,200 enemy killed in action, with the 1st Cav losing only a comparatively small 200. This success reinforced the Army’s belief that attrition was an appropriate strategy. The victory also reinforced MACV’s conviction that North Vietnam was behind the insurgency (though North Vietnam troops were not actively involved until the United States itself began sending regular troops).13
More U.S. troops followed, in ever greater numbers—and MACV continued its strategy of attrition, supported by the application of maximum firepower, until U.S. troops began to be withdrawn from Vietnam.
CARL STINER
The Army sent Carl Stiner to Vietnam in 19 e tells us about his tour there.
Stiner:
I COMPLETED the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth in mid-June 1967, and was given a couple of weeks’ leave to resettle my family (in Columbus, Georgia) before heading to Vietnam.
Half of my class had already served there; the other half was now going. Four of us, all close friends and all majors (though one was on the list for lieutenant colonel), had been assigned to the 4th Infantry Division.
We flew on a commercial chartered flight with something like two hundred other replacements, and arrived about dark at Long-Bin, the Army replacement center just outside Saigon. By midnight, after we’d been in-processed and issued our personal combat gear, and had received briefings on the general situation and the threat, we and over a hundred other replacements of all grades were loaded onto a C-130 and headed for drop-off at our respective unit locations.
Aboard the C-130, we sat on our duffel bags and held on to cargo straps stretched across the fuselage about sixteen inches off the floor. The 130 landed three or four times before reaching Pleiku in the Central Highlands, where the 4th Infantry Division Headquarters and its main support base were located, arriving just before daylight. We continued to in-process, and we received our specific unit assignments. All four of us ended up in the 1st Brigade, located at a firebase named Jackson’s Hole near the Laotian Border. We were then given detailed briefings on the tactical situation in the 4th Division area of operations, and were issued weapons and ammunition. During our brief stop at Division, we had time for a welcome hot breakfast, where we were joined by a couple of staff officers who gave us a heads-up on Colonel Richard “Zoot” Johnson, our brigade commander at Jackson’s Hole. We learned that Johnson was an impressive man—part Indian, a tough warfighter, and a totally dedicated “no-nonsense” officer. We looked forward to serving under him.
At 1500 hours, the four of us boarded a UH-1 (Hucy) and headed about twenty-five kilometers west to Jackson’s Hole.
During our in-briefing, we had been told that an intense battle was under way involving a battalion of the 1st Brigade and a suspected NVA regiment: suspected, because when the first shots are fired, you don’t really know the nature and size of the enemy unit; as the battle develops, it soon becomes apparent what you are up against.
As we approached the firebase, we could see several artillery batteries firing in support of the engaged battalion. To keep out of their way, we flew through a designated “safe-fly corridor.” After landing, we were ushered into a bunker, where we were told that Colonel Johnson wanted to talk to us before he made our assignments, but he was up taking part in the fighting and might not be back before morning. We were then given a C-ration meal and briefed on the current battle.
It later became clear that Colonel Johnson would not return that night, and we were told we might as well get some sleep. Sounded good to me; we hadn’t had much since leaving the States. We rolled out our air mattresses and poncho liners on the dirt floor of the bunker, but didn’t get much sleep: A 155mm artillery battery was firing directly over the bunker. Every time it fired (all night long) dirt fell right down on us out of the sandbags that had been placed on top of the bunker for overhead cover.
Soon after Colonel Johnson returned to the camp early the next morning, he sent his sergeant major to invite us to join him for breakfast. Meanwhile, the four of us had been discussing possible assignments. The three of us who weren’t then up for promotion had agreed to ask for assignment as infantry battalion S-3’s (operations officers). And we would recommend the fourth, Major(P) Maurice Edmonds, for the brigade S-3 job. Since Edmonds was about to be promoted, he was most deserving of higher responsibility. Owing to our training at Leavenworth, we all felt competent to do any job, but we wanted to be operations officers, which was in keeping with our backgrounds.
Over breakfast, Colonel Johnson welcomed us to the brigade, and then told us that he had checked our records a couple of months earlier and had picked us for the exact assignments that we wanted.
Before we left for our units, “Cherokee” (Johnson’s call sign and the name we came to call him) gave us some serious advice and guidance:
“We are operating in NVA country,” he told us. “They are good fighters and must be respected as such—a heck of a lot tougher and more capable than the VC, which are few in this AO [area of operations]. You can expect to encounter, and be attacked on short notice by, regimental-size units—and you must always be prepared for such action.
“Therefore:”All air assaults should be supported by a substantial and sufficient artillery preparation of the LZ [landing zone].
“Never maneuver a single company by itself. Always move two together. [A month before our arrival, the 173rd Airborne Brigade had lost the greater part of two companies moving separately into an NVA ambush at Dak To.]
”Never occupy a night defensive position with only one company. One company cannot last the night against a regimental-size attack. But two with appropriate artillery fire support can.
“Always have rifle companies reach night bed-down locations in sufficient time to dig defensive positions and register their DEFCONs [defensive fire concentrations] with every artillery unit in range before darkness.
“Leave night bed-down locations before daylight and at varying times so as not to establish a pattern. And always recon by fire before starting your movement—just in case the NVA has moved in around your position during the night.”
This sage advice reflected not only Johnson’s tactical proficiency and competence, but also what he had learned in fighting the NVA. It proved very beneficial to us in fulfilling our responsibilities in our days to come.
BEFORE I move on to my unit, the 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry, I’d like to give you a general overview of what we were facing. But please be aware that as an infantry major, I had very little knowledge of the overall strategic situation in which I found myself. My focus was very simple: to take the fight to the enemy, and to win every battle with minimum loss of life to our troops.
I can point out, however, that our position set us athwart one of the major funnel outlets for the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which explains the predominant presence of NVA rather than Viet Cong forces. The Trail had “exits” and troop staging and resupply facilities in the vicinity of the most strategically important locations. Dak To was one such location. Our mission was to deny the NVA control over this area. If we had failed to put the cork in that bottle, disaster would have soon followed. The NVA could have taken control of the Central Highlands carly in the war.
I didn’t have to go more than a couple of hundred yards to join my unit.
The previous year, the 4th Division had deployed as a unit from Fort Lewis, Washington, and had suffered quite a few casualties during its first year in Vietnam. Replacements had been received and integrated into my battalion throughout the year, but now it was time for the original members to complete their tour and return home. When they left, the battalion would be down to about fifty percent strength, requiring a large number of replacements (officers, NCOs, and new enlisted men) and an intensive training program to bring the entire battalion back up to combat proficiency. Most new replacements had never met one another; all of them would have to be trained and integrated into the battalion.
A fourth rifle company was also added to each battalion in order to increase its overall effectiveness.
For a month, my new unit, the 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry, was given the mission of firebase security for the brigade headquarters. The battalion was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Pat Volmer.
Because it was my responsibility as the battalion operations and training officer, I quickly developed a training program, which was blessed by Lieutenant Colonel Volmer. As a first step, officers and NCOs with the most experience in Vietnam were cross-leveled between companies within the battalion to create a common base of experience, and within a couple of days the program was under way.
The area around Jackson’s Hole turned out to be an ideal environment for training, since just about every day each unit was likely to experience some form of low-level enemy activity—sniper activity or maybe a mortar round near where they happened to be—just enough to let everyone know they were involved in serious business.
The battalion recon platoon consisted of only twelve men. Its normal modus operandi involved insertion of four-man teams for a four- or five-day mission. During this time they’d observe and report, but would call for extraction if there was any risk they’d become decisively engaged. This method of operation tended to leave a large time gap between their observations of enemy activity and any possible successful response to it.
I had a somewhat different concept, which I tried out on the battalion commander, and he approved. The concept was to reorganize and train a much more capable platoon, which would function like Rangers; they would set ambushes rather than just observe and get extracted. Once the ambush was sprung, we would react immediately with on-call preplanned artillery and mortar fire, followed by the insertion of (minimally) a rifle company. This new platoon consisted of four squads of nine men each. Each squad was organized as two M-60 machine gun teams, and every man was armed with an antipersonnel claymore mine. This concept proved to be extremely effective—and the new platoon suffered very few casualties.
After six to eight weeks of day-and-night intensive training, we completed the program. We then deployed by helo to an area called VC Valley, which was located about forty kilometers east of Jackson Hole and fifteen kilometers south of An Khe (the 1st Cav Division main base).
VC Valley was a remote, desolate, and sparsely populated area, surrounded by very high mountains and controlled by an NVA cadre of squad-and platoon-size forces (its inhabitants had been impressed into growing crops for them). Our mission was to “clean it out”—an ideal mission for a newly formed and trained battalion, because the occupying NVA forces were present in only small units. In fact, the enemy did no
t turn out to be the biggest challenge there. Instead, it was the infection caused by the bite of a small green mite, which left boil-like sores that wouldn’t heal. Everybody had them.
While conducting our operations, one of our rifle companies discovered a “lost tribe” of about 500 people living in carved-out caves in a mountain-side—together with their chickens, pigs, monkeys, and water buffalo.
The Vietnamese government decided to evacuate the tribe to the Edep E Nang Refugee Center, a large camp near Pleiku, made of several hundred tin buildings. One problem: The people refused to leave without their animals. They agreed to be flown out only if we would load the chickens, pigs, and monkeys on board with them, and we had to promise to bring the water buffalo later.
Just about every Chinook (CH-47 twin-rotor helicopters) in the division was tied up for four days on this operation. And the water buffalo required special treatment. They were too mean and unpredictable to risk internal loading and hauling inside aircraft. They had to be captured, tied in cargo nets, and then sling-loaded underneath Hueys.
The battalion commander saddled me with this mission, probably because I grew up on a farm. I selected eight of our best “cowboys” and developed a technique that worked. We’d spread a cargo net on the ground and land a Hucy on it. Then as the chopper lifted off to chase the water buffalo, eight “cowboys” would sit four on each side, holding the cargo net. When we were directly over one, and about five feet above its back, we’d drop the net on the buffalo, the chopper would quickly move to one side and a little lower to the ground, and we would jump out, pull the net around the buffalo, and wrestle him to the ground. Then we’d tie his legs together and arrange the net for sling-loading. Once all this was done, the Huey could fly to the refugee center with the buffalo slung underneath.