The Green Berets: The Amazing Story of the U. S. Army's Elite Special Forces Unit

by Robin Moore

  Targar grabbed a little boy by the arm. One eye was almost closed and full of pus. “My God. What is this? I got to get sick call going. Ossidian, she wants to see you—got big things to tell you. Now I got to take care of my kids.” Targar looked up at me. “If you like to help . . . ?”

  “Just tell me what to do.”

  For almost two hours Targar examined and treated the children’s ills. He muttered in various of the languages he spoke as he worked. In English he asked aloud several times, “What are all you kids going to do when you lose Co Binh?”

  Finally he was finished, and I helped him gather up his medical equipment and store it away in the olive-drab case. Ossidian appeared just as we were ready to leave. We all said good-bye to Co Binh, Targar had a few sotto voce last words of advice for her, and again we took to the jeep.

  “Let’s go to MAAG headquarters,” Ossidian said to Targar who was driving. “Captain Martell wants us to meet him there.”

  We drove into the tree-shaded grounds of a large stucco house. There were several Army vehicles in the driveway. Targar found a patch of shade and parked.

  Several pleasant American officers and sergeants in the main lounge of MAAG headquarters offered us cans of cold beer, and we took them to a garden table out under a tree to wait for Martell. “What did you find out?” Targar asked.

  Ossidian stared at the blue sky thoughtfully. Finally he said, “I got the most frustrating job on the team. What good does it do to recruit agents and get them killed when you can’t get action at the top on the intelligence you collect?”

  Before Targar could answer, Captain Martell drove up in his jeep and waved at us to follow him inside. We hastily swallowed our beers.

  Brandy herded us into the MAAG intelligence office where I was introduced to Captain Percy. “OK, Ossidian, let’s give Captain Percy and MAAG the benefit of any intelligence you may have acquired today.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Ossidian. Captain Percy, intense and young-looking, swung his swivel chair toward the map to which Ossidian had addressed himself.

  The intelligence sergeant indicated a point about two miles from the Cambodian border. “You know this place, sir?” he asked Percy.

  “Certainly. There are five model hamlets there. We trained the Civil Defense people there. USOM has spent over $150,000 on those hamlets to improve the economy. They have a large pig program going and agricultural experts have spent a couple of months helping those people learn new ways of fertilizing their fields.”

  “In other words, sir,” Ossidian said, “those five hamlets, with a combined population of about 3,000 people, are a loyal government hold on a lot of real estate along the Cambodian border.”

  “We’re all proud of our work out there, Sergeant. I suppose you are going to tell me that the Viet Cong plan to attack one or more of those hamlets?”

  “Tonight, sir. They have the largest of the five already infiltrated. The doors will be open and the VC will walk in bloodlessly. They’ll kill the hamlet chief, the security chief, and the information chief. Then they will occupy the other four hamlets with no sweat because they already have the strongest one.”

  “There is an ARVN battalion stationed only ten miles from those hamlets,” Captain Percy said. “We’ll get word to the commander and our adviser with that battalion, Captain Canham. He’s a good, conscientious man. If that battalion will move right now, they should be able to save those hamlets.”

  “They won’t move,” Ossidian said resignedly. “You, I, and the VC know it. Even Captain Canham knows it.”

  “We can try,” Percy argued. “We’re beginning to establish good working relations now between advisers and Vietnamese commanders.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, sir”—Ossidian’s tone was heavy with irony—“because there’s a lot more to this than another hamlet attack. The Communists are going to challenge ARVN and Saigon to get them out in less than forty-eight hours. Then very solicitously they are going to tell all the people to get down into the holes they’ve dug in the floors of their houses. And then they’re going to wait for a typical Vietnamese Army attack. They know there isn’t a battalion commander in the ARVN that would take a chance on getting himself or his officers shot. They know the Viets will call in artillery, American 105’s with American advisers. They know the Viets will call in air strikes, flown by American pilots because the Viet pilots prefer not to fly low enough to do any good. When the artillery and air strikes really get going good and clobber the place, the Viets will slip out of these hamlets and run across to Cambodia.” Ossidian’s black eyes burned.

  “So what’s the net result? All the work USOM and MAAG have done to build up those villages will be destroyed because the Viet battalion commanders won’t fight like men and push the VC out of the village in man-to-man fighting. What do we do? We turn five hamlets of loyal peasants into VC sympathizers overnight. The VC won’t be killing them and their cattle and destroying their houses—it will be the Americans.”

  Ossidian rapped the map with his knuckles and stepped away. “And that’s straight from a reliable agent.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant. As usual your information is timely.”

  Martell had been listening soberly to Ossidian’s briefing. ‘What are you going to do about it, Captain Percy?”

  “I am on my way to discuss it right now with our senior sector adviser and the Vietnamese division commander.”

  Martell stood up. “If we can help we’ll be standing by. If nothing else, we can send in our medical team when the attack is over.”

  That night at Nam Luong the Americans showed an epic western for the Vietnamese strike force, projecting it against the side of a whitewashed building. It was a Cinemascope production, but the camp’s 16-mm. movie projector was not equipped with a Cinemascope lens so the cowboys, Indians and horses all were long and thin. However, the strikers loved the action and identified themselves with it. When the Indians appeared the strikers screamed “VC,” and when the soldiers or cowboys came to the rescue the Nam Luong irregulars vied with each other in shouting out the number of their own strike-force companies.

  We were sitting around the operations room after the movie when the radio started to sputter dots and dashes. The communications sergeant wrote furiously on his pad and then turned to Martell. “Sir, the VC have occupied those hamlets already. They say they will stay for forty-eight hours.”

  Two mornings later I went into the hamlets with Targar and his assistant medic Ritchie. Everything Ossidian had predicted had come true. Piteously wounded and burned children were dying everywhere, men, women and cattle lay dead, the stench abominable. The ARVN battalion, which occupied the hamlets after the VC had fled the Vietnamese-ordered American bombings and American-advised artillery barrages, suffered not a single casualty. Captain Canham had vainly tried to persuade the Vietnamese battalion commander to attack the VC on the hamlet walls in hand-to-hand combat; he was devastated with frustration.

  Just before dark a chopper evacuated the Nam Luong medical team from the hamlet. Back at camp we learned that the next day Major Fanshaw would be in to inspect the camp.

  Promptly at 10:00 Saturday morning an HU21b, the executive-type chopper, settled down on its runners just outside Nam Luong. Twenty of the Saigon delinquents made up the honor guard dressed in starched tiger pattern fatigues, yellow scarfs around necks and red bands around their cloth fatigue caps. They held their big M1 Garand rifles at attention as the major walked between the facing ranks. Fanshaw, his Vietnamese counterpart, Major Xuan, Captain Martell and his counterpart, Captain Cam, walked together. The American major eyed the honor guard with approval and complimented Martell on the military discipline in his strike force.

  As Fanshaw proceeded with the inspection, I tagged along at a discreet distance. He looked into every one of the rooms in the cement barracks building occupied by the Americans. Recently an order had come down from higher headquarters that Special Forces men would not post any pinup girls—sinc
e such displays might be offensive to our allies, the gibbon-taunting Vietnamese strikers!

  Various aspects of the camp did distress Fanshaw—its smell of undrained sewage, for one thing. After the inspection he took the A team into their operations room and was closeted with them for an hour. Then he called in Major Xuan and Captain Cam for another half-hour conference.

  Shortly after noon, declining to stay for lunch, Fanshaw walked out of the camp to reboard his chopper. He brightened at the double row of honor guard waiting to see him off. Walking between the immaculate, crisply uniformed Saigon delinquents, Fanshaw was so pleased that he paused before each and shook his hand. Then he and Major Xuan boarded their helicopter and were soon on their way back to the B team.

  Captain Martell immediately ordered another meeting of his A team in the operations room. I was invited to sit in on this one. The atmosphere of disgruntlement was apparent.

  Major Fanshaw had found much to criticize, Brandy said. The fact that the Americans could only advise and cajole their counterparts into keeping Nam Luong clean and keeping up sanitary maintenance had made small impression on their commander. He was particularly irked at a long list of complaints the Vietnamese camp commander, Captain Cam, had sent up to Major Xuan at the B team. Foremost on the list was rudeness on the part of the Americans toward their LLDB counterparts.

  The radio sergeant shifted his attention to his receiver as a call started to come in on voice. He put on his earphones so Captain Martell would not be disturbed.

  “Sir!” The commo sergeant’s voice suddenly interrupted. “The pilot of Major Fanshaw’s helicopter just called in. Major Fanshaw’s black star-sapphire ring is missing off his right hand. He thinks one of the honor guard milked it off him when he was shaking hands.”

  “Sergeant Swiggert,” Brandy’s voice cut through the silence in the room. “Every man in the honor guard will stand a shakedown inspection—with Captain Cam’s approval. Since I know we won’t find anything, they will be assigned to the point squad on tomorrow night’s operation.”

  Loud, appreciative laughter broke out. Brandy let the chortling continue until the atmosphere of depression was dispelled.

  “OK men!” Brandy held up a hand. “Let’s get this briefing finished. We’re short. Less than a month to go before we leave Vietnam. I want to see us go out of here as heroes, an A detachment that will be remembered. Lieutenant Barton and Sergeant Swiggert have volunteered to deliberately walk into a VC ambush. I want every man in this detachment to get with the program. Let’s end up big!

  “Now, I am going to let Ossidian brief you on his intelligence operations and then Sergeant Swiggert will tell you about tomorrow night’s patrol. Go ahead, Ossidian. You got the limelight.”

  A few goodnaturedly uncomplimentary noises met Ossidian as he took his place in front of the map of the surrounding terrain.

  “First, you all know about our civic action project, the school for orphans. You’ve all seen Co Binh and I guess you know she’s working for us in more ways than one. Well, on Wednesday Dr. Targar, the famous Hungarian pussy specialist”—Ossidian bowed to the medic amid raucous laughter—“made it possible for Co Binh to, shall we say, step up her relationship with Colonel Ling. Ling is a full colonel in both the Army of North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front here in South Vietnam.”

  Ossidian turned to the map and pointed to a hilly, jungle region close to the Cambodian border. “This is where Colonel Ling has his headquarters, about forty miles from the province capital. ARVN has never had the guts to conduct operations in that area; even the French never tried to hit it when it was a Viet Minh stronghold.

  “Colonel Ling is the commander of all Viet Cong operations in this corps area. In other words, he coordinates all Communist guerrilla fighting for one quarter of South Vietnam. If we could capture him it would be one of the most important victories of the war.” Ossidian let his words have an effects.

  “Let me give you a little more background,” he continued. “On Wednesday night, after Doctor Targar performed his invaluable services, our friend Mr. Hinh drove Co Binh out to visit Colonel Ling at his headquarters.”

  Ossidian flashed a lewd grin. “Talking to Co Binh this morning I found out that Ling has something in common with most of us studs in this room. He doesn’t like a short time. When he has a woman he wants her for all night. Co Binh got out to Ling’s headquarters in Mr. Hinh’s car about 10:00 at night. After a nice, intimate talk she finally gave Ling what he’d been wanting so bad. But she made Hinh wait and drive her home.”

  The intelligence sergeant chuckled sardonically. “I guess Ling was still as horny as a bag of toads when Co Binh said good-bye, but she told him the Americans would be suspicious if she wasn’t at school first thing in the morning. Then our girl told Ling that she would have some special information for him next time she saw him. This was when he told her about hitting those five hamlets.”

  “Well,” said Ossidian, “it’s toujours l’amour, tonight for sure for Colonel Ling. Co Binh is going out there. But—like last time—old Ling is only going to get a short time. Maybe let just a couple more toads out of the bag, is all. Co Binh runs a Sunday school and the Americans will be over. She can’t compromise her usefulness by not getting back.

  “Tonight she will show Ling how useful she can be to him. She’s heard us talking. The Americans are going out on an operation Sunday night and just before dawn they are going to cross some river and attack a town called Phu Nhu.”

  Ossidian went to the map, pointed out a river that ran from west to east about twelve miles north of Nam Luong, and then to a spot on the map about a mile north of the river. “We know, and the VC know we know that they are building up an arms cache here. We’ve been wanting to hit it for three months, but the camp commander refuses to cross the river—too many VC, he says. We say yes, many VC, that’s why we want to attack there.

  “The reason Co Binh knows this is our plan, she tells Ling, is because we were all bad-mouthing our counterparts for being cowards and betting with each other that they won’t cross the river this time either. She heard us say we’re only taking one platoon because that’s all we need for a surprise attack at dawn and any more would get in the way.”

  Ossidian prowled back and forth in front of us a few moments. “Before she leaves with Hinh tonight Co Binh is going to tell Ling that she hates a short time too. She is going to suggest that he come into town, stay at Mr. Hinh’s house like he did the night they met, and then they can have all night together.”

  Ossidian stopped his pacing. “Here’s where Ling may get just the tiniest bit suspicious. He’ll probably wait and see if the Phu Nhu operation comes off. If it does and his VC hit us and inflict casualties he’ll be feeling pretty good about Co Binh. Probably Tuesday or Wednesday night his Democratic Republic of Vietnam gonads will be in a mighty big uproar for more of Co Binh. Since he now knows she’s a tried and true American-hating VC he’ll come into town. And then”—Ossidian grinned at his audience—“somehow we’ll snatch him.”

  Ossidian sat down and Captain Martell stood up in front of his detachment. “Ossidian, that was a charming and explicit briefing. I find it impossible to follow the act. So I turn the briefing over to Sergeant Swiggert who will outline our plans for tomorrow night’s operation.”

  3

  Three Americans went out with the first platoon of Delta (for delinquent) Company of the Nam Luong strike force. The patrol, clad in tiger suits, slipped from the security of the camp and moved out into the moonlight.

  Lieutenant Barton’s twisted grin would have worried Lieutenant Vinh had he looked back. Sergeant Ritchie, the medic, also wore a knowing smile; it was hard for him not to laugh aloud.

  I was the third American on the patrol. Brandy had objected strenuously to letting me go on a patrol whose mission was to walk into an ambush. But finally he agreed to let me accompany the second platoon. This one, led by an LLDB sergeant and advised by Master Sergeant Swiggert, w
ould leave Nam Luong twenty minutes after the first platoon. Swiggert’s mission was to provide cover when the ambush was sprung on the first platoon. Of course none of the strikers or the LLDB team knew about the ambush. I held out for the first platoon and when we walked out of Nam Luong’s gate Brandy wrung my hand as though he would never see me again.

  One hour out of camp Lieutenant Vinh halted the platoon to rest the young hoods in his charge. Sergeant Hanh, known as Ho Chi Hanh to the Americans, walked up and down the file during the break, slapping a striker silently on the shoulder or chucking one under the chin. Hanh was a soldier in anyone’s language and army, having fought the French for four years with the Viet Minh. But he was a lover of freedom and free enterprise and turned against the Communists after the French left Vietnam. The men loved Sergeant Hanh, who took them to the local whorehouse and let them take pictures of him hacking. Hanh kept a supply of pictures of himself in action with the two overworked prostitutes in town known as “Dracula” and “Witch Hazel” to pass out to his fans.

  In ten minutes we were marching again on our course toward Phu Nhu. The strikers carrying BAR’s were dwarfed by the heavy automatic rifles they proudly bore over their shoulders. The big BAR’s were awarded to the most reliable strikers. The honor guard from Saturday’s inspection were up front of the 50-man platoon.

  The planning of our cover platoon, twenty minutes behind us had made for an interesting discussion between Captain Martell, Lieutenant Barton, Swiggert, and Ossidian. Barton, with the first platoon, had requested that the second platoon be equipped with 60-mm. mortars. He knew what it was like to get hit by an ambush and he wanted something behind him that would quickly disperse it. Swiggert was in agreement. But Ossidian had vetoed the idea.

  It would make it look as though we were expecting something to have not only a cover platoon but one equipped with mortars. Better for the overall plan for the first platoon to fight its way out as best it could. Martell, reluctantly, sided with Ossidian—so there were no mortars behind us.