by Tom Clancy
Thirteen years later, the Fort Bragg game warden discovered a seven-foot alligator in the swamp at the western end of St. Mere Eglise Drop Zone, the only gator ever at Fort Bragg—and it remains a mystery to this day how he got there.
Soldiers, and especially Special Forces soldiers, are always looking for imaginative ways to entertain themselves, and there is nothing wrong with it, so long as it is legal, ethical, and no one is hurt.
IN July 1965, following the training exercise in Florida, I became the Company S-3 (Operations Officer), responsible for the training and readiness of the company. 1 remained in that position until the spring of 1966, when I left Special Forces to attend the Command and Ceneral Staff College at Leavenworth, Kansas.
During this period, when all the services were undergoing the buildup for Vietnam, large numbers of draftees were being brought into the Army, and the training centers were filled to capacity.
In August, the entire company, which consisted of the headquarters and two B-Detachments (the third B-Detachment was on mission to Ethiopia), had deployed to the Pisgah National Forest in western North Carolina for training in the higher and more rugged parts of the mountains. This had been ongoing for about a week, when I received a call on my FM radio from Lieutenant Colonel Hoyt, who, I could tell, was in a helicopter, asking me to meet him at a road intersection about ten miles away from our base camp.
I jumped into my leased pickup truck and headed for the intersection, thinking as I went that it was unusual for him to fly this far (more than a hundred miles). Whatever the reason, it must be important.
I arrived at the intersection before he did, and marked a landing zone in a small clearing beside the intersection with the orange panels that we always carried.
When he landed ten minutes later, he came running up to me (the helicopter did not shut down). “How long will it take you to get the company back to Fort Bragg?” he asked—the first words out of his mouth.
“It’ll take a while,” I answered, “because they are spread out all over these mountains in various operating areas, and we don’t have enough transportation to move the entire company in one lift. I guess with the vehicles that we have, and with what they can come up with through their local civilian contacts, we could all close Fort Bragg sometime during the night.”
“Good,” he said. “Go back and get them organized and moving.”
Then he explained: “The training centers have overflowed, and just this morning we received the mission to conduct basic entry-level training for approximately five hundred new infantry draftees that will arrive at Bragg within three to four days.
“Group is working on where to house them,” he went on, “and what parts of the training might be done more efficiently by committee”—weapons training and the like—“and this should be pretty well finalized by the time I get back.
“You have more training experience of this nature than anyone else in the Group,” he continued, “and the Group Commander”—by then Colonel Leroy Stanley—“and I want you to lead a group of selected cadre to Fort Jackson, departing at six in the morning, to observe how they conduct Basic Combat Training”—in this case he meant the first eight weeks—“and bring back all the lesson plans you can gather up.”
“No problem, sir,” I answered. “I’ll get the company moving right away. As for the basic training part, I’ve got this cold, from beginning to end, and can teach all the subjects blindfolded. But we’ll have to give our cadre some preliminary training to get started, and I can do that in a couple of days, and continuing as we progress through the training cycle.
“What you can do, sir, to facilitate organizing for training,” I told him, “is to go back and begin to pick and structure the cadre for a training battalion that will consist of three companies.” And then I laid out how the structure ought to work: “These should be commanded by captains, with a sergeant major or master sergeant as first sergcant; four platoons per company should be commanded by a lieutenant, with a master sergeant or sergeant first class as platoon sergeant; and each platoon should consist of four squads, each led by a staff sergeant or sergeant.” I also told him that it would be very beneficial if I could take to Fort Jackson with me our three company commanders and one representative (officer or NCO) from each platoon (a total of fifteen), to observe firsthand how it is done.
“Okay,” Hoyt said. “You’ll be commanding one of the companies. And while you’re putting your guys together out here, I’ll go back and ensure that the right people are ready for the trip to Fort Jackson.”
On my way back to our base camp, I was thinking, “Man, what an opportunity to turn out the best-trained and -motivated battalion ever. With all of these outstanding NCOs, there’s no limit to what we can do for these new men.”
At the same time, I couldn’t help but contrast the performance of our Special Forces guys in a training situation with what I’d had to handle in my last training company at Fort Jackson: It was me and an outstanding first sergeant (Ned Lyle, to my knowledge the only man in the Army authorized to wear the bayonet as a decoration), a Specialist 4 company clerk (who was pending charges for hoarding mail and possessing pornographic materials), four NCOs (all possessing medical profiles that precluded their making the morning twenty-minute run; instead I kept them posted at strategic locations where they could police up the stragglers while I ran the company), a mess sergeant who was addicted to paregorie, and a supply scrgcant I didn’t trust. This was all that I had to work with, and I thought we did a good job—considering.
During one period at Jackson, I had two companies of more than two hundred trainees each in cycle at the same time: One company was in its seventh week of training, and the other was just beginning its first week. We managed the training so that one NCO stayed with cach company at all times. The two other NCOs and I would train one company from 4:00 A.M. to noon, and the other from 1:00 to 9:00 P.M.
In other words, considering the talent and caring leadership we were about to bring to bear on this mission, it would be a piece of cake and a very rewarding experience for us and the new recruits.
After Lieutenant Colonel I Ioyt left, I called base camp and instructed my radio operator to have all detachment commanders standing by for a conference call when I arrived.
During the conference call, I advised the commanders of the new mission, then instructed them to move their units by “infiltration,” so as to close on Fort Bragg by midnight. “Infiltration” means authority to move by individual vehicle over multiple routes, rather than by convoy over a single route. I didn’t tell them how to do it, because I knew they would figure out the “how.”
This was about 3:00 P.M.; they had nine hours to get back.
The next morning at 5:00, I met Lieutenant Colonel Hoyt at the company headquarters. He had followed through on his part. Not only had the names of personnel been slated against the battalion structure I had recommended, but the group selected for the visit to Fort Jackson was standing by and ready to go.
Before we left, I asked him for one other thing: “In order to bring these new troops on right, we need to have the barracks ready in advance, including having the beds made. The sooner we can get this done, the more time we’ll have available for training the trainers before the new troops arrive.” I knew that some of the older NCOs would probably bitch about making the beds, but I also knew that before the training cycle was over, they would see it was a wise move. This would be reflected in the attitude and motivation of the new troops, who’d have realised they were fortunate to be in the hands of caring professionals.
The day at Fort Jackson proved very worthwhile. We observed the training in action, talked with the cadre, and gathered up all the lesson plans to bring back with us.
After our return to Bragg, we spent the next three days getting organized and putting our common training areas in order. Then we went through a two-day train-the-trainer program, which took us through the first couple of weeks of the training cycle.
And then at 4:00 P.M. on the fourth day after notification, we received about five hundred new inductees straight from civilian life.
The next eight weeks proved a memorable and rewarding experience both for our cadre and the trainees. The cadre demonstrated incredible professionalism and caring, and the training battalion responded with incredible receptivity, motivation, and esprit.
Even though the trainees eventually ended up in Vietnam as individual replacements, many chose to make the Army a career, and some found their way back to Special Forces as outstanding NCOs. Others—the better-educated ones—ended up as commissioned officers.
VIETNAM was also demanding ever more from Special Forces. Especially important at that time were trained B-Detachments, and this became our priority mission. For my final seven months in the 3rd Croup, we organized, trained, and deployed three B-Detachments to Southeast Asia (to Thailand and Vietnam).
Since increased emphasis was now being focused on counterinsurgency and advisory activities in Vietnam—organizing, training, equipping, and employing Montagnard tribesmen for thwarting the infiltration of North Vietnamese Army (NVA) units; MIKE force reaction units; and advisory activities for South Vietnamese Army units—the main thrust of the tactical training was focused on tactical operations at battalion and lower levels, including the employment and integration of fire support, aerial as well as artillery.
I was in fact scheduled to deploy with each of the three units we sent over. But then, about a month prior to their deployment, I was told that I had not been cleared to go by the office of Officer Personnel Operations (OPO). The reason, I finally learned from OPO, was that I had been selected to attend the Command and General Staff College, and then I’d go to Vietnam (though this was not specifically stated, 1 understood that I most likely would not be assigned to a Special Forces unit there).
I left A Company, 3rd SFG, in late May 1966.
VI
VIETNAM
Special Forces had a long history in Vietnam.
In 1954, the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu by Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh ended French colonial rule in Indochina. Vietnam was separated into independent northern and southern halves, and Laos and Cambodia also gained independence. In 1959, North Vietnam adopted a new constitution, based on Communist principles and calling for the reunification of Vietnam. From the end of French rule until that year, the North had supported the Viet Cong insurgency in the South, though not as wholeheartedly as in the decade to come. The insurgency had nevertheless grown ever stronger in the countryside during that time, owing in part to Viet Cong success in persuading the country’s people that their cause was better than the government’s, and in part to the South Vietnam government’s seeming indifference—or blindness—to security outside the cities.
In May 1959, however, the North’s support of the Viet Cong took a big leap forward: The North Vietnamese Central Committee deemed the moment ripe to increase military efforts against the South. Corollary with that decision was a plan to construct a logistics network through southern Laos and parts of Cambodia (and bypassing the demilitarized zone then separating North from South Vietnam). This network came to be called the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Its construction proved to be the decisive act of the war in Southeast Asia.
Meanwhile, in July 1959, twelve U.S. Special Forces teams (from the then 77th Special Group—later the 7th), together with a control team, arrived in Laos to help the French8 organize and train the lackluster Laotian Army. This was a clandestine operation—primarily because the French were not eager to lose face yet again in Southeast Asia. The Green Berets arrived as “civilians,” wearing civilian clothes and carrying “civilian” identification cards; and they were paid out of “civilian” (that is to say, CIA) accounts.
No obvious connection exists between the decision to build the Trail and the arrival of Special Forces troops in Laos, yet the two are intertwined. The continuing association between U.S. Special Forces and the Ho Chi Minh Trail turned out to be a major factor in the part Special Forces played in the war in Southeast Asia. The link took many forms—direct and indirect—and a few of them will be mentioned here.
The Trail itself was not a trail, of course, but a communications-and-transportation network, a command-and-control structure, and a system of troop-staging areas. Its facilities and capabilities—especially in its early days—were primitive, yet also astonishingly robust. One of its strengths was its very primitiveness. A freeway not only represented a vast expenditure of capital and labor, it was an easy target. A dirt road could support a much smaller volume of traffic, but most damage could be easily repaired by men or women with shovels. The traffic volume problem was easily solved by constructing a network of many roads—and by patience. And since these roads were virtually invisible under the cover of the tropical rain forest, it was hard to discern a definite target.
That was the real strategic significance of the Ho Chi Minh Trail—its security. Throughout the war, the North Vietnamese were able to use Laos and Cambodia as sanctuaries. Though such sanctuaries were never total or absolute, U.S. and allied forces were severely limited in their ability to attack them.
In fact, the best opportunity for putting a cork in the Trail was probably early in its existence. Its presence was beginning to be recognized by 1961 and 1962, but it hardly seemed a factor in the war. Perhaps 1,500 North Vietnamese troops a month filtered down into the South, an insignificant number compared to the tens of thousands per month (including tanks and other heavy weapons) that later used the Trail. As a result, few in authority took it seriously, and that generally remained the case until it was too late to do anything about the Trail without committing massive forces—and by then political considerations had ended any chance for such a commitment. It was a big mistake. Another one was the belief held by most American military commanders that the war would be decided by slugging it out with heavy firepower and conventional forces. The Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese never bought this concept. To them the war was at times a conventional war, at times a “people’s” war, and at times a guerrilla war; they chose the mode of combat that best suited their advantage—and our disadvantage.
It is credible to argue that if the United States or South Vietnam had found some way to permanently block the Ho Chi Minh Trail in 1962 or 1963, then the massive American intervention three or four years later might not have had to happen—and perhaps the war in Vietnam would have turned out more happily.
WHITE STAR
In 1961, early in his brief presidency, John Kennedy was faced with a mess in Laos—part Communist-backcd insurgency, part dynastic struggles between competing princes, and part power grabs by military leaders. All of which was made more complicated by virtue of the complex ethnic makeup of the country. In addition to ethnic Laotians, the backcountry was inhabited by semiprimitive Kha and Meo tribes, who were both disliked and distrusted by the Laotians. Though the tribesmen were often superb soldiers, the Laotians were not eager to arm or train them.
The initial power struggle in Laos followed close on the heels of the Geneva Conference of 1954, which gave Laos independence. On one side was the Royal Laotian government, officially headed by a titular king but in reality led by neutralist Prince Souvanna Phouma. On the other side were the Communist insurgents, the Pathet Lao, led by Souvanna Phouma’s half brother, Prince Souphanovong, and supported by the North Vietnamese (though they were always more interested in South Vietnam). Until 1959, the Pathet Lao occupied the two northern provinces, but worked to expand on that base. From 1959 until 1961, amid coups and countercoups, the situation grew even more complex, with the emergence of a right-wing power base under General Phoumi Nosavan, who seized power in December of that year. Meanwhile, the neutralists had lost U.S. backing (which went to General Nosavan) and threw in with the Pathet Lao, while at the same time begging the Soviets for help. The Soviets were ready to give it—though predictably most of their assistance went to the Communists.
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br /> According to the classic “Domino Theory,” “We had to do something about Laos.” If Laos fell to the Communists, could South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand be far behind? Though history has proved the Domino Theory wrong, it made a lot of sense then.
Earlier in 1961, following the withdrawal in 1960 of the French Military Mission to Laos, U.S. Special Forces were officially admitted into Laos—their presence was no longer clandestine; they could wear U.S. uniforms, including their green berets—and were designated by the newly established U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group Laos (MAAG Laos) as White Star Mobile Training Teams.
These teams performed many tasks: Some became instructors in recently opened Laotian military schools. Others went into the field with the Laotian Army as conventional operational advisers. Others provided medical assistance or coordination and communications services; gathered intelligence for MAAG Laos; or worked closely with the minority hill peoples, where among other things they formed, equipped, and trained Meo and Kha military companies.
It was in this last mission that the White Star teams made their lasting mark. In the hills of Laos, Bill Yarborough’s vision of Special Forces was tested and proved. Here also the Special Forces organization and leadership learned the lessons they brought with them not long afterward, when they were assigned to take on the mess in Vietnam.
The White Star teams were fortunate in their leadership.
One commander, for example, Lieutenant Colonel John T. Little, had learned the Bill Yarborough lesson well: that only part of the Special Forces mission in Laos was to show indigenous soldiers how to march, shoot, and communicate. In a message to the troops in Laos, dated September 22, 1961, and titled “Civil Assistance,” Little laid down the parameters that were to guide the White Star teams. These are extracts: