The American Military - A Narrative History

by Brad D. Lookingbill

  Fearing a “second Cuba” on the doorstep of the U.S., the Johnson administration deployed the armed forces to the Dominican Republic on April 28, 1965. A few days earlier, a coup in the capital, Santo Domingo, raised the specter of a communist takeover. More than 20,000 Marines and soldiers arrived at the Caribbean island, which further strained the force structure of the American military. As the violence abated, the intervention rallied public support in the U.S. for the Cold War. Shrewdly, Johnson recognized an opportunity to obtain funding for military operations in Vietnam without debating the merits. While conflating Santo Domingo with Saigon, the president won congressional approval for an additional $700 million “to halt communist aggression.”

  During the summer of 1965, the government in Saigon changed hands for the seventh time since Diem's fall. On June 9, the last in a series of coups produced a military junta of 10 senior officers. Thereafter, they installed General Nguyen Van Thieu as the chief of state and Air Vice Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky as the prime minister. The veneer of legitimacy disappeared, but the White House expressed relief that the new leaders vowed to fight the Viet Cong and the NLF.

  Regardless of the regime change, the theater of operations in South Vietnam became thoroughly Americanized. By the end of 1965, American military strength south of the 17th parallel had reached 184,000. While the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps contributed personnel, the Army accounted for nearly two-thirds of the total forces under Westmoreland's command. Owing to the draft, the U.S. scheduled another 200,000 soldiers for deployment to Vietnam.

  Meanwhile, the enemies of the South Vietnamese government increased in number as well. By the end of 1965, more than 35,000 North Vietnamese regulars operated in the countryside along with several hundred thousand insurgents. Even as the air strikes intensified, the Soviet Union provided Hanoi with anti-aircraft guns, surface-to-air missiles, MiG fighters, and radar equipment. Eager to wage a proxy war against the U.S., China sent guns, ammunition, and artillery by ship and by rail. Rather than intimidating the communists, the policy of gradual escalation stiffened their resolve.

  President Johnson hoped to fight a limited war against the communists without mobilizing the American people. His policy of gradual escalation affected the manner in which the military implemented the bombing campaigns and the troop deployments. While understating the resilience of the enemy, the flawed strategy implied that the U.S. lacked the resolution to achieve its military objectives in Vietnam.

  Search and Destroy

  As additional American troops arrived in Vietnam, Westmoreland launched “search and destroy” missions outside of Saigon. With ARVN relegated to a secondary role, U.S. battalions swept the countryside to entrap and to eliminate the enemy. In the absence of front lines, the “big units” scoured the dense jungles, flooded marshes, and rice paddies. The Pentagon demanded that MACV measure the progress of the war, which made the “body count” an index of success.

  MACV developed into a killing machine. The fixed-wing aircraft of the Air Force gave the boots on the ground dominance over the battlefields. Aided by the Navy river-support squadrons and river-assault squadrons, Marines maneuvered rapidly through the combat zones. The Army massed the firepower of the artillery and the cavalry to support the infantry, who preferred to expend shells – not men. Among the rich assets of MACV, a complex of computer networks enhanced the command and control of the elaborate logistics.

  Thanks to the new concept of air mobility, helicopters became the workhorses of MACV. For years, the versatility of rotary-wing aircraft made them ideal for multiple support missions. In fact, the Pentagon weighed arming air transports with weaponry for tactical assaults. Nicknamed “the Huey,” the UH-1 was outfitted with rocket launchers, grenade launchers, and machine guns. The Army assigned the 11th Air Assault Division to the 1st Cavalry, which was dispatched to Vietnam in 1965.

  The most significant early test of the “Air Cav” occurred on November 14, 1965, inside the Ia Drang Valley. North Vietnamese commanders attempted to cut South Vietnam in half by establishing a front line south of the DMZ and driving from Pleiku to the coast. However, Westmoreland countered by sending the 1st Cavalry into the Central Highlands to stop them. In three weeks of fighting, over 50,000 helicopter sorties were flown. Commander of the 1st Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Harold “Hal” Moore, earned recognition for his “leadership by example” at landing zone X-Ray. In the valley, the Americans established a defensive perimeter. Aerial and artillery fire support devastated the enemy. Nearly 1,800 North Vietnamese died in the sharp engagement, yet the Americans lost only 240. Proclaiming a tactical victory, Westmoreland trumpeted the role of air mobility in combat.

  The tactical victory at Ia Drang reflected a long-term effort by the Army to improve its aviation capabilities. The Army faced resistance from the Air Force, which considered airborne fire support its own unique function. Soon, the former ceded its larger transport aircraft to the latter but kept control of a helicopter fleet to support ground combat. The number of Army helicopters soared to 2,700 in 1966, and the figure tripled within five years.

  As the helicopters permitted “dust-off” evacuations of wounded soldiers, more than 11,000 female nurses worked with doctors at field hospitals, evacuation centers, and medical ships. Enduring long and grueling shifts, they encountered a steady flow of casualties and saved countless lives. Many witnessed grisly wounds that required them to perform emergency procedures commonly known as “meatball surgery.” Captain Carolyn H. Tanaka, a nurse at the 24th Evacuation Hospital in Long Binh, described an extreme case in a letter home: “His buttocks and genitals were about shot off, his right hand and a few fingers were blown off, and had fragments in his orbital rim and nasal bone and mouth, fracture of left tibia, fracture of right calcaneous and talus.”

  While occupying large amounts of territory in South Vietnam, MACV rapidly expanded its infrastructure. The medical facilities, base camps, landing strips, deep-water ports, and supply depots added more than 16 million square feet of construction. While electrical generators brought power to cities and hamlets, paved roads and communication centers transformed the built landscape. American troops resided in wooden barracks with hot showers, and many officers enjoyed air-conditioned quarters. The PXs included movie theaters, bowling alleys, and service clubs as well as amenities like beer, hot dogs, hamburgers, french fries, and ice cream. However, pungent odors from the burning of excrement in the rear echelons created a distinct smell that few soldiers ever forgot. Given the scale and the scope of operations, the “tooth to tail” ratio in Vietnam reached 1 to 10. The ratio indicated the number of Americans engaged in combat versus the number deployed for support.

  Because of the emphasis on firepower, Americans seldom enjoyed the advantages of surprise. Upon hearing the noise from vehicles, guerrillas melted away into the jungle or retreated across the border into Laos and Cambodia. Before disappearing, they devised ingenious mines and booby traps that took a deadly toll on the infantry patrols. Armed with M-16 rifles, American “grunts” attempted to draw fire while “humping the boonies” outside of firebases. Distinguishing friend from foe proved difficult. In fact, enemy combatants fired the first shot in 85 percent of all firefights. Upon making contact, platoons often fell back to firebases and waited for aircraft or artillery to bombard the contact point. An enemy countermeasure was “clinging to the belt,” that is, engaging at close range in order to prevent platoon leaders from calling for fire support. The Viet Cong sought to maintain the initiative in battle with hit-and-run tactics, while U.S. forces relied upon sheer weight and mass in a war of attrition.

  U.S. operations repeatedly targeted the Iron Triangle, a Viet Cong stronghold northwest of Saigon. Near the Cambodian border, the 60-square-mile area included rice paddies, rubber plantations, and secret tunnels. On September 14, 1966, Westmoreland began Operation Attleboro to “attrit” the enemy in the area. MACV counted more than 1,106 Vietnamese casualties and made one of the largest hauls of enem
y supplies to date.

  Beginning on January 8, 1967, Westmoreland launched Operation Cedar Falls. Several air assaults sealed off the Iron Triangle, while nearly 35,000 American troops began a series of sweeps that laid waste to the area. The village of Ben Suc was surrounded, evacuated, and leveled. American “tunnel rats” infiltrated an elaborate underground complex and uncovered vast quantities of supplies and documents. They destroyed a network of sanctuaries, which previously provided refuge to insurgents. Although 720 Viet Cong were killed in action, many of the high-level cadre escaped once again.

  More than 45,000 American and ARVN troops returned to the Iron Triangle during Operation Junction City on February 22. Inside Tay Ninh Province, communist forces battled the “big units” for weeks while screening the retreat of their comrades into Cambodia. Massive firepower forced the Viet Cong to disengage. While defending firebase Gold, artillerymen lowered the tubes of their howitzers and fired beehive rounds containing hundreds of dart-like projectiles directly at assailants. Operation Junction City ended after nearly three months of fighting, which resulted in at least 2,700 casualties among the Viet Cong.

  Later that year, a series of border battles raged near the DMZ. At Con Thien, the 3rd Marine Division held a defensive position shelled by the North Vietnamese Army, or NVA. Anticipating a conventional fight, Westmoreland authorized Operation Neutralize to strike targets outside of Con Thien. It included 4,000 B-52 and fighter-bomber sorties along with naval bombardments, which forced the NVA to break off its attack. In late October, communist forces attacked Song Be and Loc Ninh. Nevertheless, the 1st Infantry Division held firm while inflicting heavy casualties upon the enemy.

  Without a doubt, the Battle of Dak To indicated American superiority in the battlefield. When the NVA struck a Special Forces camp in Kontum Province, Westmoreland responded by sending elements of the 4th Infantry Division and the 173rd Airborne Brigade. They encountered ridge lines fortified with tunnels and bunkers. On November 20, the fight centered on Hill 875, where 300 B-52 and 2,000 fighter-bomber sorties softened the defensive positions before American troops successfully climbed to the top. Afterward, the U.S. commander treated his soldiers to a Thanksgiving feast – hot turkey, mashed potatoes, candied yams, cranberry sauce, buttered rolls, and lots of beer. North Vietnamese losses in the battle numbered in the thousands, while American fatalities reached 289.

  Private Bill Stone, a Yale drop-out who joined the Army, went to Vietnam that year. With his literary ambitions dashed by a publisher's rejection of a manuscript, he contemplated suicide. Instead, he intended to die as an anonymous “grunt” in a foreign land. A member of the 25th Infantry Division, he was assigned to 2nd Platoon of Bravo Company in the 3rd Battalion. During his 15 months of service, he earned a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart with an Oak Leaf Cluster. Using the first name Oliver, he eventually wrote a screenplay that became the basis for the Hollywood film, Platoon (1986).

  From the outset, General Victor “Brute” Krulak, commander of the Fleet Marine Force in the Pacific, opined that the war in Vietnam required a different approach. Instead of campaigning in destructive ways that did “more harm than good,” he advocated small-unit actions on behalf of pacification. He envisioned military and political operations akin to a “spreading inkblot.” He suggested assigning a Marine rifle squad to work with a local militia company in a Combined Action Platoon. Whereas Secretary McNamara preferred a war of attrition, the Marine warned that it would amount to “little more than blows in the air.”

  An Army study completed in 1966 called “A Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of South Vietnam,” or PROVN, also discounted attrition. Commissioned by General Harold K. Johnson, the Army Chief of Staff, it found that the U.S. lacked a unified program for eliminating the insurgency. Military personnel needed to refocus on the village, district, and provincial levels, where “the war and the object which lies beyond it must be won.” The “search and destroy” missions contributed little to population security in the hamlets, or so the Army staff concluded. Although talk of pacification bored him, Westmoreland established the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support, or CORDS, in 1967.

  Westmoreland planned to begin a phased withdrawal from South Vietnam in two years or less. While gratified by the election of General Thieu to the presidency of South Vietnam, he knew that the regime in Saigon remained a sideshow. In the waning days of 1967, he appeared before Congress to testify about American progress. With more than 485,000 troops in Vietnam, he boasted that approximately two-thirds of the hamlets appeared secure. He posited that the war was entering a new phase “when the end begins to come into view.”

  Tet

  As 1968 dawned, the North Vietnamese planned to force the U.S. to abandon the war. NVA troops created diversions in the border areas, drawing Army battalions out of the cities and into the countryside. At the same time, the Viet Cong infiltrated the urban areas for a major offensive designed to inspire uprisings throughout South Vietnam.

  Before the offensive began, communist forces conducted assaults against scattered U.S. outposts. American intelligence discovered that almost 40,000 NVA were massed near a Marine base in Khe Sanh. Predictably, Westmoreland authorized Operation Niagara to pulverize them with air strikes. Pleased with the results, he shifted half of all combat forces into forward positions near the DMZ.

  Hanoi called for a ceasefire during Tet – the first day of the Vietnamese New Year on January 31. Consequently, many ARVN troops went home for the holiday. In spite of the holy truce, MACV detected signs of enemy activity near Saigon. Even though Westmoreland pulled some battalions closer to the capital, he deemed it a possible diversion from another NVA thrust along the northern border. With Americans poised for a decisive victory near Khe Sahn, more than 84,000 Viet Cong prepared to launch an offensive on multiple fronts.

  Around midnight on January 30, the Viet Cong launched the Tet Offensive across South Vietnam. They assailed 36 of the 44 provincial capitals and hit five of the six major cities, including Hue and Saigon. In the darkness, a battle raged at the U.S. embassy in Saigon between guerrillas and the 101st Airborne Division. By 9:00 a.m., Americans had secured the compound.

  In Saigon, the offensive ended within days. After a massive bombardment left the Cholon section of Saigon in rubble, the 199th Light Infantry Brigade cleared the Viet Cong from the neighborhood. American and South Vietnamese units held the capital while securing the nearby bases of Long Binh and Bien Hoa. However, cameramen filmed incredible scenes of violence. One clip showed General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, head of the National Police, approaching a captured guerrilla on the street. He put a revolver to the prisoner's head and executed him.

  The fiercest fighting occurred in Hue, the ancient capital of Vietnam, which fell to communist forces. Upon seizing the city, they murdered at least 3,000 civilians and buried the “enemies of the people” in mass graves. Within hours, a U.S. artillery barrage began to destroy the buildings occupied during Tet. Elements of the 1st Cavalry and 101st Airborne joined with Marine and ARVN units to battle their foes street to street and house to house. Following intense combat, Americans retook Hue by February 24.

  Throughout February, MACV directed a major counteroffensive and retook every position lost during Tet. Within the first three weeks, approximately 40,000 NVA and Viet Cong were killed in action. By comparison, the American dead numbered 1,100. Furthermore, communist forces lost many of their seasoned cadres. The mauling in the countryside left the insurgency depleted. To the dismay of Hanoi, no local uprising in and around Saigon occurred. Thus, the Tet Offensive constituted a tactical failure for North Vietnam.

  Thanks to the media coverage of Tet, the American people saw a different picture. The imagery of guerrillas storming the embassy in Saigon or raising the flag over Hue powerfully shaped perceptions of the war. With no more silver linings in the dark clouds, the claims of victory by Westmoreland lacked credibility. A wag parodied the news with the headline: “
We Have the Enemy on the Run, Says General Custer.” During the CBS evening news broadcast of February 27, anchorman Walter Cronkite concluded that “Vietnam is to end in a stalemate.” Public opinion in the U.S. dramatically turned against the war.

  On the morning of March 16, U.S. forces operating in the Quang Ngai Province committed war crimes. Assigned to the 20th Infantry, Lieutenant William Calley led Charlie Company's 1st Platoon of the 1st Battalion into the hamlet of My Lai. Frustrated by their inability to distinguish civilians from combatants, they massacred nearly 500 people. Some of the soldiers participated in an orgy of sexual violence that included rape and sodomy. Three years later, Calley was tried and convicted by a military tribunal for premeditated murder.

  Tet marked a turning point for the American military, because it raised unsettling questions about the war. In a telegram from Saigon to Washington D.C., Westmoreland requested reinforcements to sustain the momentum of the counteroffensive. He asked for another 206,000 soldiers to conduct Operation Complete Victory. At a time when American troop levels exceeded a half-million, the magnitude of the new request stirred debate in the Pentagon. The new Secretary of Defense, Clark Clifford, saw no prospect for military victory and urged disengagement. Confronted by a political backlash, the Joint Chiefs appeared “tongue-tied.” Privately, the Johnson administration began to talk about “Vietnamization” and “peace with honor.” Likening the war to a cancer that consumed Great Society programs, the commander-in-chief eventually denied Westmoreland's request. On March 31, he announced on television that he would not run for re-election while attempting to reduce “the present level of hostilities.” Within two months, representatives from the U.S. and Vietnam began to meet in Paris.