A Black Beret’s Vietnam Odyssey

My arrival in Vietnam was a study in surrealism. The air-conditioned Boeing 707 descended with its million candlepower lights through the pitch black night, while outside this thin-skinned silver bird, tracers, exploding artillery, and flares could be seen on the horizon.

The immediate feeling of helplessness was increased by the night landing and the ensuing drive into Saigon along blackened streets with vaporous images of individuals seen through screened bus windows.

Culture shock was immediate, nor was it was lessened by the first few days at Koepler Compound. This former French hotel, which bespoke volumes about French culture, was the inprocessing point for all Military Assistance Command (MACV) personnel who were to become advisors to the various Republic of Vietnam military units, to include the para-military Regional (RF’) and Popular Force (PF) units. It was here that armor officers and noncommissioned officers found out if they would advise Vietnamese armor/cavalry units, or be assigned to straight leg infantry with the RF or PF advisory teams.

Once all the brief formalities were over, another bus ride took us to the airfield for embarkation aboard various types of aircraft for movement to the field.

In the case of Armor advisors to the 6th Cavalry, located at My Tho, south of Saigon, the flight was normally on a Caribou aircraft to Dong Tam, the combat and support base for the 9th (U. S.) Infantry Division and the Mobile Riverine Forces, followed by a short, hair-raising ride to the advisory team headquarters, Team 75, where some additional briefings would take place. Then the new advisor met with the 6th Cavalry Squadron senior advisor for an update on squadrodtroop opentions. Finally, a short helicopter ride took him to wherever the troop was located.

It was at this point that the real meaning of culture shock set in. The debxkation from the helicopter at that troop location was, like passing through the looking glass, the entrance into another world. It should be noted at this time that advisors arrived at their posts with a variety of training experiences. The time was the late 1960s. and the buildup in Vietnam was still continuing. For the most part, the officer advisors detailed to the 6th Cavalry during 1967-1968 had no prior combat experience. Some had been fortunate enough to attend the Ft. Bragg advisory training session called MATN Sectorwnit Training, and then received some mdimentary language training. Others were pulled directly from other U. S. units and arrived with little or no experience.

This lack of experience created immediate problems. As the stated mission was to provide advice to our Vietnamese counterpart, I was chagrined to find that my counterpart needed little of what I could provide. ARMOR - My counterpart had been schooled at various Vietnamese schools, to include the Vietnamese Cavalry, and I found it was I who was placed in the position of leaming.

Another stated goal of the advisory mission was to gain rapport with your Vietnamese counterpart, as this was essential for any type of successful bbadvisory” effort.

Rapport implies friendship. Friendship implies some shared goals, ambitions, interest, and commonality of language. The basic lack of experience on the part of the incoming advisors, the complete lack of knowledge of a difficult language, and the feeling by the Vietnamese that the advisor was, in fact, a snoop for MACV, created an environment of immediate distrust which took many months to overcome.

For the most part, the advisors became fire support coordinators and MEDEVAC facilitators for their Vietnamese counterparts. This, in itself, was Vital not only to build that ‘’rapport’’ necessary to function at all, but vital to ensm battlefield survivability for both the advisors and the Vietnamese.

Culture shock and acclimatization were ongoing processes. No amount of training and no amount of briefings could compensate for that feeling of absolute aloneness.

For individuals familiar with the normal support umbilical cord mch-ing from the forwarddeployed elements to the COW, to include showers, porta-potties, ice, rations, sundries, mini-exchanges, and the pack that follows the organized military units into battle, the total lack of this support hil became immediately obvious to the new advisor. The Republic of Vietnam (RVN) cavalry units were organized as mechanized infantry: however, this was where the similarity ended. Generally, the MTOE reflected the absence of the infantry portion of the equation, and the entire organization began to take on the appearance of reconnaissance cavalry. There were three armored personnel carriers per platoon and three platoons per troop, a command track, maintenance track, and a support section consisting of the road-bound combat trains.

The troop had S O caliber cupola-mounted machine guns on each M113, two.30 caliber side-mounted machine guns per M113, an 81-mm mom, and occasionally a 57-mm recoilless rifle. During the course of the year, some additions were scrounged, to include a 90-mm recoilless rifle, some light antitank weapons (LAW), and a Rube Goldberg coffee grinder contraption that spewed 40-mm grenades. The primary problem was to find ammunition and repair parts to non-MTOE equipment such as the items scrounged.

There was no mess section. Each MI13 had an appointed cook. The requirement for culinary ability was not standard, therefore it fell to the newest, or most hapless, track member to do the cooking.

Formal rations apparently were non-existent. There were a few instances where a freeze-dried type of rice was made available, but the Vietnamese shunned this unless nothing else was available. Meat was carried in the MI13 in the form of live chickens. This created some problems in combat situations while grabbing for ammo boxes and for sleeping at night. But the chicken was fresh, and in some instances, befriended prior to the butch-ering process. This occurred along the side of the road using whatever water source was available. Most commonly used were the cisterns of water located at each Vietnamese house. Fresh vegetables were obtained locally. Proper sanitation was nonexistent. The meal itself was generally chopped, soy-stirred chicken bits, rice, soy and nouc m m sauce, fresh cucumbers, a vegetable stew and hot stew, and hot tea. This meal seldom Varied.

Breakfast was hot French coffee and soup. Breakfast came from local soup shops set up in the various villages along the side of Highway Four, the main north-south route from Saigon to the Ca Mau Peninsula.

Lunch depended on operational considerations. If an operation was pending, there was an immediate rush after breakfast to the ban my (bread) shop. There, a loaf of hard crust French bread would be cut down the middle. Inside would be placed a mixture of roast pork, pepper sauce, and some unidentified items. The bread would be wrapped in a sheet of newspaper. By placing this on the top of the ANNRC-46 radio, the bread would be warm by lunch.

During one road march, the men cooked prawns over the exhaust p t e of the M113, and served them wrapped in thin rice paper and dipped in brown bean sauce. This put anew spin on fast food.

While on combat operations, lunch would mean a complete cessation of movement while the “cooks” scurried to nearby homes to either scrounge, or in the case of known VC areas, liberate, food. Fires were immediately lit, rice cooked, and the meal consumed. Due to the climate of Vietnam, one spent six months soaking wet and hot and the next six months hot and soaking wet. The first six months, assuming one arrived in June, was the monsoon season. This meant being rained on four to five times a day. The second part of the year was the dry season -one stayed just as moist from perspiration.

Accommodations were always spartan. If one was small enough, the back seat of the advisor’s jeep could be a passable residence.

Sleeping inside the MI13 was not advisable due to the presence of the menagerie -Vietnamese crew members hung up in hammocks and the ever present mosquitoes. Some sought relief in jungle hammocks slung between M113s or on the back deck of the M113. Cots were available, as were Vietnamese hammocks, albeit too small to be comfortable. During some evenings, Vietnamese residences were used, as were school buildings, sheds, or warehouses -ARMOR - January-February 7993 wherever shelter could be found, it was used.

Acclimatization also required the d-visor to learn to live with no more than three hours sleep. As most advisory teams only had two advisors, an officer and an NCO, and both were generally separated by either hundreds of feet or several kilometers at any one time, sleep at night became a luxury.

The 6th Cavalry also had, under operational control of the troop advisors, a searchlight section from afield artillery unit located at Can Tho. The searchlight section provided two xenon searchlights and were used at night, using infrared observation of possible VC/NVA movement to interdict Highway Four. The searchlight sections also were used on several occasions during rapid night movement to relieve elements in contact, leading the troop with their white light capability. The light could also bounce off clouds to illuminate areas under attack and to identify pick up points for incoming MEDEVAC birds.

This required the troop advisor or NCO to remain up to provide the interface with the searchlight section and the Vietnamese. Additionally, the poor security posture of the Vietnamese generally caused angst among advisors. Sleep, when it did come, was during the hottest part of the day when all operations ceased for the traditional siesta.

Mail depended upon passing U. S. convoys both for delivery and pick up. Laundry was the same. Sick call meant attempting to explain one’s symptoms to the Vietnamese medic. This always reSulted in.the receipt of one large red pill. This pill always seemed to work.

Maintenance was superb. If the Vietnamese cavalry trooper excelled at anything, it was maintenance of his equipment, There was always some cleaning going on, either of weapons, tracks, or individual equipment. During Tet 1968, tracks evacuated for combat loss generally were returned to action within 24 hours or less. There still may have been an RPG hole in the hull, but the internal workings had been repaired, and the hack was operational.

The problem with maintenance was above organizational. It took almost a year, but the concept of direct exchange @X) was fmally put into place. This began to resolve a lot of the problems, especially with machine gun barrels. Prior to DX, the barrels were removed, the guns made inoperable, and not placed back into action until the barrel was reworked or determined to be completely unusable. Wheel vehicle maintenance was not as good, and was reflected in the poor appemnce of the rolling stock. It was simply not a priority.

The most serious problem facing the advisor was the operational radio. Generally, the troop advisor had the ANmC-46 while the NCO had the PRC-25. For normal operations this was adequate. It became critical, especially after Tet 1968, when multi-unit operations were initiated. The radios were not sufficient for all of the coordination necessary.

During movement to contact, it was necessary to communicate with not only your own NCO but with adjacent cav troops, the cav squadron, most probably the regiment to which you were OFCON, the battalion advisor(s), and sometimes the divisional and province senior advisors, Air Force forward air controllers, the artillery at Dong Tam, MEDEVAC birds, and helicopter gunships. This meant jumping from the top of the track to the inside to continuously change radio frequencies. Some of the problems were resolved by scrounging additional PRC-25 radios.

Communications generally failed at the moment they were needed the most. The command track, upon which the troop advisor was riding, looked like a porcupine, with a minimum of four to a maximum of eight antennae. During some close encounters of the most intense kind, these antennae were some of the first casualties.

Combat operations were frequent. Combat operational planning was not. For the troop advisor, the most common Vietnamese warning order was, “We go.“ This generally meant the advisor spent the next harrowing minutes racing down the highway, spreading out a map sheet and hying to copy the graphic of an overlay received by the RVN troop commander perhaps only minutes before. The next portion of the operation was spent trying to raise the squadron senior advisor for clarification of mission or trying to contact the unit to which the troop was to work OPCON.

Troop advisors were never, at least combat operational planning at the squadron/troop level. There were two occasions where the 7th RVN Division staff briefed all of the advisors on a large operation; however, this was the exception, not the rule. Intelligence of enemy activities was as poorly orchestrated. It was not until the spring of 1968, when the 7th RVN Division commander began using special funds and purchased intelligence, that combat operations actually began to bag large VCiNVA units. Prior to this, it would appear we would arrive too late, or if‘we found the enemy, it was simply by accident. during 1967-1968, brought into the ARMOR - However, once the enemy was found and the battle joined, the cavalry troopers fought with tenacity and bravery. On several instances, frontal assaults, both with regular RVN troops or RF units, were made on entrenched VC/NVA forces. Maximum use was made of artillery, combat air support, and helicopter gunship support. During one particular engagement east of My Tho, in Go Cong Province, a battle initiated by an RF company resulted in the insertion of two battalions of 1 lth RVN Regiment soldiers and the entire 6th Cavalry. This culminated in a cavalry charge with the entire squadron on line, resulting in a resounding lass for an entire V C N A battalion.

It most probably also resulted in the ensuing attack on the 6th Cavalry advisor’s residence in My Tho approximately a month later. This attack, in apparent retribution for the success of the cavalry over the previous year, resulted in the deaths of the squadron senior advisor and one noncommissioned officer. But it did not stop the continuing success of the 6th Cavalry.

The year 1967-1968 was a hard year for advisors with the 6th Cav. During that year, three advisors were killed, almost every advisor wounded one or more times, and one searchlight member wounded. Casualties to the Vietnamese troopers were not insignificant. During Tet, virtually two platoons of 3/6 Troop were wiped out after being ambushed while attempting to reach the bus station in downtown My Tho. Ambushes were frequent, and it was not unusual to lose two to four troopers per ambush. Life with the Vietnamese was always unusual. We couldn’t help but see that the people with whom we were living needed the basics of medical help. We saw many children with suppurating sores from working in the constant watery environment of the rice paddies. One child was suffering from a raging fever.

Impromptu medical treatment was provided by the troop advisors and included treatment of the sores, bandaging cuts, and passing out soap. Treatment of the child with the fever resulted in attempting to provide dosage instructions to the mother in Vietnamese. The child, by the way, did get well. The joy on the face of the mother was all the payment anyone could expect or want.

What was not acceptable was the lack of concern of the Vietnamese h-ooper for the suffering of his own Counterparts Association In 1989, spurred by similar associations, I decided to see if I could re-contact both advisors and counterparts and form an association of armor and cavalry advisors and counterparts. For the past three years, this effort has continued at various operational tempo.

There are currently 32 former advisors and counterparts who have been identified and who have shown an interest in an association. In the interim, anew association called Counterparts was formed. This association is made up of advisors and their counterparts from all organizations which were active in Vietnam. Recently, with the interest expressed by the then commanding general of Fort Knox. Major General Foley, in an association of armor/cavalry advisors and counterparts, new efforts are underway to identify officers and noncommissioned officers who served in that capacity. It is anticipated, using Counterparts as the base organization, that a subgroup, made up of former black berets, both U. S. and Vietnamese, could be formed. One of the major goals is to document for history the role of the armorlcavalry advisor in the Vietnam War. It is also to rekindle the camaraderie of a unique group of individuals and to foster the spirit of armor and cavalry. Counterparts membership is available by writing to Counterparts, Post Office Box 40, Circleville. WV 26804. Additional information related to an armor/cav association should be directed to the author at 1504 Wheatstone Cove, Germantown. TN 38138. kind. Finally, by the work the advisors were doing, the Vietnamese cavalry did relinquish some of their own medical supplies to assist, albeit grudgingly.

The year came to an end in much the same way it began. A helicopter ride to My Tho: a turn-in of equipment; a mind boggling drive to Saigon in a jeep: and more equipment turn-in, orders processing, and then waiting. This time the wait was in tin sheds at Ton Son Nhut. Even to the end, the VC/NVA made life miserable. Rocket attacks occurred nightly between 2300 and 0300. One landed next to the officer’s club: however, there was virtually no break in the routine. Everyone ducked, then ordered another round.

A day or two later, I took another bus ride to the plane. As I waited to board, the passengers who had just arrived began to deplane - wrinkled khakis, wrinkled noses, and looks of bewilderment. To “old soldiers” like myself, this was “new meaL” A few steps later, we were enclosed in an air conditioned cylinder and shortly whisked away. There was gladness to have “made it” There was sadness that the job had not been done, and that the long awaited “rapport” had actually grown to friendship. A glance back through the plane’s window showed ememld green below, tracked by long brown fingers of brown water and the puffy white of clouds full of rain. A cheer went up from the passengers, a collective sigh of relief. We were on our way home.

By mid-1975. it was all over. Politics and failed policies had lost what blood, sweat, and tears had won. Walking the long, hot streets of Fort Indiantown Gap, I searched for familiar faces among the uprooted Vietnamese refugees. None were found. During a passage of the waters off Vietnam in 1982, while assigned to the USS Midway (CV-41) as a Special Agent Afloat with the Naval In-