The Ether Zone: U.S. Army Special Forces Detachment B-52, Project Delta

by Morris Ray

  * * * * * *

  Due to the clandestine nature of Special Forces operations, units traditionally have fallen outside the perimeters of normal Army supply channels. They’ve always had to scrounge materials and supplies, which led to a tongue-in-cheek rumor that a Special Forces required skill was “scrounging.” Adept soldiers on SF teams excel at “acquiring” items the unit needs to operate in relative comfort, anywhere in the world. The majority of the stuff for the Delta Club renovations was “borrowed” from the logistical center at Cam Ranh Bay, or from sister units that had “much more than they needed.” While conventional leaders might prefer to refer to it as pilfering or thievery, some SF NCOs contend it’s been essential to their existence in a combat theater of operations. Two unnamed NCOs assigned to B-52, who excelled in these skills, would make twice monthly trips to the logistics center. With a can of white paint they would stencil a Special Forces number onto the bumper of a new truck or jeep, get in, drive past the gate guard and head home. But not without a detour first to the supply depot, where they’d load up with air conditioners, cement, tin roofing, food, beer or other essentials. Their authorization was a simple rationale; since goods were readily available to other U.S. units, and Project Delta was part of the U.S. Army, they figured it was just meant for their use, too.

  This philosophy had not been limited solely to the scrounging of supplies; it extended to food and drinks. Without mess sergeants, field cooks and mess halls, like other U.S. Army units, SF teams received extra pay to purchase food outside the Army’s supply channels. The funds were never enough to cover the cost of rations, particularly after conventional forces began to arrive and drove up prices. Again, by taking the initiative and using their natural entrepreneurial talents, SF supplemented rations through trading highly coveted captured weapons, crossbows, Viet Cong flags, etc. Detachment B-52 also had issued each Recon member a .25 caliber pistol as an emergency hideout gun. The Recon guys referred to these little gems as “cathouse pistols.” As highly classified as Project Delta was, the serial numbers of these weapons were never recorded, and any information about their issue was purged from the Army’s supply records. The reason: if that weapon had ever been captured in some god-forsaken place that it shouldn’t have been in the first place, it couldn’t be traced to U.S. involvement. Occasionally, after an operation, someone would turn in his little pistol and be issued another. The returned weapon, usually listed as “lost during combat operations,” ended up in trade to the Air Force supply guys for steaks or choice cuts of meat.

  Running short on pistols and captured weapons, they’d trade almost anything else of value, figuring “a fighting man’s gotta eat!” Even when SF felt they had nothing of value to trade, they could create it. One story about this creativity lingers: a clever SF camp hired a Vietnamese tailor to mass produce “genuine” VC and NVA flags, replete with bullet holes and dried chicken blood. Crumpled, they’d be dragged through the dirt, and often had burn-holes singed into them for good measure. These had been traded in Da Nang to the Air Force and Marines, who simply loved them. Like they said, “A man’s gotta eat.”

  * * * * * *

  Hollywood, TV scripts and many books have often described Special Forces soldiers and their operations, mostly concentrating on their high training standards and combat skills. While it’s true that SF soldiers are intelligent, take initiative and have superb leadership abilities, little has been written about their keen sense of humor. Special Forces humor should be considered inspirational, creative and awe-inspiring— it is deserving of military history recognition! The black humor was a great wartime stress reliever; wild, edgy and a bit crazy, it often crossed the line between good taste and outright cruelty.

  Men who see a lot of combat are naturally close, and perhaps Delta Recon was closer than most. They would sometimes go to great extremes to play harmless pranks on each other, or show affection and trust, most of which seemed lurid or uncouth by other’s standards. While such things were considered normal behavior by most Project Delta guys, to others they might seem unnatural, shocking or even perverted. In part, it was an act of defiance—daring someone to criticize their actions, while delighting in shocking them. It was great sport to make bystanders sick enough to vomit by consuming some loathsome object—bugs, frogs, leeches, etc.–or by biting the head off a snake. Did every Delta member commit these harmless yet gross acts? Absolutely not; such behavior was restricted to a few brave and gallant individuals. But it was always accepted.

  Practical jokes were considered a sacred mission. Cooperation and assistance was expected—and almost always provided. Pranks could be targeted at officers and enlisted men, and simply being the Commander was no protection. No one ever felt completely safe. If a fellow SF soldier could pull off a really good prank, it was a sign the recipient was well-liked; after all, pulling off a really good prank takes a lot of time and effort. Secrecy was a must, especially when payback was involved.

  Jim Jarrett confirms this story about an operation in 1967 with Gary Stedman:

  They’d been on recon, west of An Hoa for several days, when discovered by the enemy and forced to run for their lives. After a day and a half of playing the ambush/counter-ambush game with the Viet Cong, by mid-afternoon they managed to position themselves on a small knoll, listening for the enemy’s movement. A FAC appeared overhead briefly, confirming they’d been essentially surrounded. The circling FAC pilot called in airpower, while the small recon team prepared for a serious fight.

  The sunshine and small trees appeared surreal; they could’ve just as easily been in a Colorado state park, but they knew if they let down their guard for an instant, they could be dead before that beautiful sun set. The six desperate men established their final defensive position, lying head-to-foot, thighs touching. With magazines stacked and hand grenade pins straightened—they waited. The enemy began to fire 60mm mortar rounds, but luckily, nearly all failed to explode. Whether these duds had been caused from the VC’s inexperience or unfamiliarity with American mortars was never clear. The team counted their blessings—and continued to wait.

  Everyone has an irrational fear. For some it’s snakes; for others, it’s rats, spiders or bats. Some become claustrophobic in close spaces. A few Recon men were annoyed by those ugly, slimy, clinging creatures that would suck blood until bloated, then fall off only to be replaced by more. Leeches were a part of life for the Recon men, an inconvenience, a minor nuisance. But Gary Stedman hated them.

  As the team lay still in the damp grass, listening to subtle sounds of enemy movement all around them, praying for the whooping of chopper blades overhead, Stedman rolled onto his side suddenly and whispered frantically to Jarrett.

  “Get it off! Oh shit, get it off me!”

  Startled, Jarrett shifted his eyes. He stared directly at his friend’s bare derrière, no more than a foot from his face. Affixed to Stedman’s hairy bottom was a large, black elephant leech. Stedman, one of the most steadfast, courageous Recon men in Project Delta history, was about to lose it—over a leech.

  “My thoughts of our impending doom were instantly forgotten in the excitement caused by that damned leech,” Jarrett recalls. “I calmly took out my Army-issue mosquito repellant, squeezed a single drop of the fluid on it and fried the little bastard.”

  The dead critter dropped free, but Stedman wasn’t yet satisfied. He immediately inspected his backside for others, muttering sentences that tended to start with “mother” and “son of a....” From Jarrett’s vantage point, it was a very unwelcome sight to see Stedman’s hairy private parts swinging in the jungle breeze. Army-issue repellant is largely alcohol-based, and most men understand alcohol and scrotums don’t fare well together. Jarrett must have considered the consequences of his impending actions, under the circumstances. Yet, a chance like this might only come along once in...what...a lifetime? There they were, Stedman’s crown jewels, hanging in the still air like ripe fruit, and Jarrett with this tube of repellant in his hand. It
was a no-brainer.

  “Besides,” Jarrett said. “Things really didn’t look all that bright for us, anyway, so I just thought, ‘why not?’”

  Jarrett leveled a stream of Army-issue insect repellant straight at SSG Gary Stedman’s pride and joy. Stedman shot straight into the air, howling and scrambling, his partially discarded pants around his knees, desperately struggling to get his canteen out of its pouch to put out the fire. “After that,” Jarrett says with a small smile, “if the subject ever came up, Gary would give me a look of pure dejection, wounded betrayal. Like...’How could you have done that to me?’”

  Jarrett said he laughed so hard, tears ran down his face as his friend tenderly inspected the mistreated area for signs of permanent damage, completely oblivious to the creeping enemy around them. Even in the face of doom they were enjoying a friend’s predicament. “It was, without doubt, the funniest incident I ever witnessed during my entire tour in Vietnam,” Jarrett contends. Their Vietnam team members also found it hilarious.

  There are stories around Delta that Jay Graves had done something similar to the legendary Moose Monroe one day in the FOB after an operation. Whether Jarrett got his idea from Graves, or the other way around is unclear. Maybe great minds just think alike. But the fact remains, even friends weren’t safe from a good prank if these guys got a wild idea into their heads.

  Other pranks are also etched into Project Delta’s history. Before the Delta Club was built, soldiers made do with a large concrete pad and only picnic tables for partying. On one, hot Sunday afternoon, Delta members erected a silk parachute as protection from the sun, stoked up the barbeque grill and iced beer in garbage cans to celebrate “stand-down,” the pause after one operation ends and the next begins. Nearly all the NCOs were present and a few officers, primarily lieutenants and captains who had paid their dues and been accepted by the group. Because the B-52 compound was adjacent to the 5th Special Forces Group Headquarters, NCOs and lower ranking officers from the Group’s staff had been invited. When most of the senior staff officers hadn’t shown, an energetic participant accepted the task of sending an invitation to the Officer’s Club, inviting them to join in the celebration. Still, not one of the Group staff officers arrived. Becoming irritated after the second invitation had been rendered, and a respectable amount of time had elapsed and still no one came, an adventurous Recon NCO took it upon himself to motivate the Group staff to action.

  A CS grenade is often called “tear gas.” In reality, it is much more. Ask anyone who has ever breathed it, and I’m certain you will believe the stamped “CS” means “concentrated shit.” It not only makes one tear-up and gasp for breath, it incapacitates and makes them physically ill for a substantial amount of time. That enterprising Recon NCO dropped CS into the air-conditioning vent of the Officer’s Club that bright Sunday afternoon. Complete pandemonium ensued, resulting in a hasty exodus of the “O” Club. Gasping, heaving, cursing and sometimes laughing majors, lieutenant colonels and one full colonel, the Commander of 5th Special Forces Group, spilled onto the lawn. Helplessly prone, suffering and trying to recuperate from their “CS” ordeal, they lobbed verbal threats toward the raucous party under full swing at the nearby concrete pad that was Project Delta’s improvised club.

  The 5th Group Commander ordered a full investigation. He admonished MAJ Charles “Bruiser” Allen, the Delta CO, to discover the culprit so he could be brought to justice. Whether he put forth any real effort, Allen was unsuccessful—no one talked, so apparently the threats did no good. Eventually, tempers cooled and the tempo returned to normal.

  For years, this secret was kept confidential, only to be revealed to Allen just before his death in 2003. It was at the 50th Special Forces Reunion; the last time Bruiser would attend a gathering of the Delta men. He’d lost a leg to diabetes and had been suffering, but he wanted to attend a last reunion and see his old Recon guys. Jay Graves brought him a drink and sat beside him; they silently stared at each other. Jay said, “Bruiser, you remember the CS grenade in the “O” Club?”

  “I sure as hell do and if I ever find out...”

  “It was me, Bruiser.”

  “You...asshole.”

  They laughed until tears ran down their cheeks. Graves still didn’t disclose that it had been Joe Singh who’d handed him the grenade, cocked his eyebrow and said, “You know what to do with this, right?”

  Sometimes, pranks were perpetuated solely as an act of revenge, the target generally a non-Special Forces type, an enlisted goof-off or a greatly disliked officer. Good grace was never allowed. When an SF guy screwed up, his buddies delighted in pestering the hell out of him for days. This punishment was often harder to bear than what the Commander had in store. The only sympathy one might expect was, “Just hang in there until the next guy f _ _ _s up.” It usually didn’t take very long, and then the next foul-up would become the prime source of entertainment until another poor guy dropped the ball.

  * * * * *

  There is an old military mantra that states, “A unit will always reflect the personality of its leader.” If a commander is a hard-charging, no-holds-bared type, his unit will be the same. On the other hand, if he’s laidback, timid or egotistical, that will also be reflected in their training or combat operations. Project Delta commanders had a hard job and were key components in the development of the organization, especially early on. One aspect making the commander’s job so difficult was Project Delta’s high visibility. Suddenly, a major or lieutenant colonel, or even senior NCOs were dealing one-on-one with major generals and receiving personal communication from the President of the United States. Under those conditions, egos tend to inflate. It is to their credit that most commanders were able to push that aside and put the welfare of their men first and foremost. In one or two cases that did not happen, and as a result, the unit’s overall mission suffered—but only for short periods. Fortunately, those incidents were very rare, and due to the quick turn-over of commanders and the stability of senior NCOs, Delta rebounded quickly. As an added benefit, many of the NCOs were not bashful about telling their commanders when they were screwing up. As one old SOG Recon guy, Major Harry E. Jones, Sr. once told some inflated ego, “Yes, there is a God—and no, it’s not you.”

  The majority of Project Delta’s commanders believed field soldiers had braved so much while deployed, that in garrison, other than normal training, nobody asked them to give more. They were to relax, train when told to do so, yet be ready to travel at a moment’s notice. Most lived like it was their last day on earth—and for some it ultimately was. Revered as gladiators, they partied hard, ate high quality food and enjoyed the best entertainment and morale of any unit in Vietnam. That arrangement seemed only fair. On any day, these men could be in their air-conditioned bar, sipping a drink, listening to country or soft rock on the antiquated jukebox, watching Andre St. Laurent gyrate to the “pre-insertion boogie,” or listening to Jim Tolbert as he strummed a slow, sad country ballad. The next day they might be hugging the moldy jungle floor, trying to will themselves invisible, watching while a dozen NVA soldiers only a few feet away searched the brush, their demise clearly in mind. Most Delta commanders figured it really wasn’t too much to ask for their men while they were in garrison. Not for these men.

  15 A small transponder, approximately 3” wide x 6” long x 1.5” thick, that fits into a fatigue shirt pocket and acts as a wireless communication, monitoring or control device that picks up and automatically responds to an incoming signal. The term is a contraction of the words “transmitter” and “responder.”

  16 It is a commonly accepted fact that a Special Forces radioman can communicate great distances with the ANG-109 radio, using only a wire coat hanger, a clothes line, barbed wire,or a vehicle as an antenna.

  17 This unique weapon was often issued to Special Forces teams for classified CIA projects. The teams found them to be extremely accurate for “close-in work.”

  FOUR

  “Watch Out for Guys in Bl
ack Pajamas”

  THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN NORTH VIETNAMESE ARMY (NVA) units and the Viet Cong (VC) were substantial. During the early years of the war, VC units often carried older, outdated weapons of Indo-China War vintage, and had been successful in organizing only small unit tactics such as ambushes, raids and sniper attacks. In late 1965, that changed dramatically as they began to be supplied with newer, more deadly AK-47 Chi Com assault rifles, machineguns, mortars, and received professional military training and leadership from their NVA counterparts. The NVA, an entirely different adversary than the VC, had been well-trained in both small- and large-unit tactics, and was well equipped. While the NVA wore dusty-brown-khaki uniforms, web gear and green pith helmets with red stars, the VC fashion was black pajamas, straw hats or headbands. Yet, there was little reason to see any clothing before determining the foe, for it was often their abilities that foretold the type of unit encountered. Most likely, the VC would ambush a small patrol, then pull back and snipe for hours, while the NVA would try to over-run a position, or encircle it. It soon became clear that the NVA units were formidable foes, their fighting ability superior to the Viet Cong, a lesson the Recon teams learned quickly.