Our Year of War

by Daniel P. Bolger

  52. Stephen E. Atkins, Writing the War: My Ten Months in the Jungles, Streets and Paddies of Vietnam, 1968 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010), 163–64. Atkins served with Company C, 6-31st Infantry; Bolger interview with Charles T. Hagel; Bolger interview with Thomas L. Hagel.

  53. Nolan, House to House, 301.

  54. Perry, “Interview with Senator Charles Hagel.”

  55. Penner, “Interview with Charles Timothy Hagel and Thomas Leo Hagel, Part 6 of 21.” In this segment, both Chuck and Tom Hagel actually walked the Route 320 areas of the May 9 and May 11, 1968, firefights.

  56. Nolan, House to House, 304–5.

  57. Ibid., 316–19.

  58. Penner, “Interview with Charles Timothy Hagel and Thomas Leo Hagel, Part 6 of 21.”

  59. 31st Infantry Association, “Chapter 18: 6th Battalion, Fort Lewis and Vietnam, 1967–1970,” 28–32. See also Nolan, House to House, 320–21.

  60. 9th Infantry Division, Operational Report of 9th Infantry Division for Period Ending 30 April 1968, 18–22; Nolan, House to House, 339; Gittinger, Interview with Lieutenant General Julian J. Ewell, 13.

  61. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, 439. For MACV’s claim of 40,000 enemy dead, see Sorley, A Better War, 97.

  62. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, 422–24, 437. For the 101st Airborne Division’s operations in the A Shau Valley, see Tolson, Airmobility, 182–92. The A Shau Valley operation recorded 869 NVA dead for the cost of 142 Americans killed.

  63. 9th Infantry Division, Operational Report of 9th Infantry Division for Period Ending 30 April 1968, 10–11, 22. In assessing the enemy losses, the 9th Infantry Division’s intelligence section judged the Phu Loi II Battalion (strength 300) as “combat effective,” 5th Nha Be Battalion (strength 60) as “not combat effective,” and 506th Battalion (strength 270) as “marginally combat effective.” All three battalions escaped from the south Saigon neighborhoods.

  64. 9th Infantry Division, Operational Report of 9th Infantry Division for Period Ending 30 April 1968, Inclosure 6 “Summary of Rounds Fired.”

  65. Ibid., 31; Nolan, House to House, 312–14, describes U.S. embassy efforts to estimate civilian casualties in Saigon during Mini-Tet. See also Sorley, A Better War, 77.

  66. Nolan, House to House, 349–51, lists the six journalists killed. See also Herr, Dispatches, 231.

  67. Sorley, A Better War, 29. Sorley transcribed the quote from a 1968 tape recording. He added the italics to depict words emphasized by General Abrams in his comments. The first two defenses Abrams mentioned were Tet (January–February) and Mini-Tet (May).

  68. The United States lost 616 troops in the week of May 5 through 11, 1968. This is noted in Herr, Dispatches, 230, and explained in Ronald Spector, After Tet: The Bloodiest Year of the Vietnam War (New York: Vintage, 1993), 319.

  CHAPTER 8. THE RIVER BLINDNESS

  1. Herr, Dispatches, 13. Among his many other accomplishments. Michael Herr wrote much of the narration for the 1979 film Apocalypse Now.

  2. Berens, Chuck Hagel, 36. Senator Robert F. Kennedy won the California presidential primary just before his assassination by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian Christian from Jordan. Sirhan was not a U.S. citizen and said he shot Kennedy due to the senator’s support of Israel.

  3. Starry, Mounted Combat in Vietnam, 11–13.

  4. 9th Infantry Division, Operational Report of 9th Infantry Division for Period Ending 30 April 1968, 8, 11.

  5. Argabright, 9th Infantry Division “The Old Reliables” Those Who Gave Their Lives in Southeast Asia 1966–1970, 51, 53.

  6. Perry, “Interview with Senator Charles Hagel.”

  7. MacPherson, Long Time Passing, 22. The words “infantry” and “infant” share a common root. In addition, the U.S. Army infantry’s branch color is baby blue, the traditional color associated with male children. That’s an interesting but apparently unintentional coincidence. The U.S. Army’s choice of blue probably had more to do with finding a contrast between the Continental Army’s uniforms and the red coats of British infantry regiments during the Revolutionary War (1775–83).

  8. Sullivan, “A Vietnam War That Never Ends,” 1.

  9. Brad Penner, producer, writer, reporter, “Interview with Charles Timothy Hagel and Thomas Leo Hagel, Part 7 of 21,” Nebraska Educational Television, August 14, 1999, at http://memory.loc.gov/diglib/vhp/story/loc.natlib.afc2001001 .88134/, accessed July 4, 2016.

  10. Ibid.

  11. MacPherson, Long Time Passing, 19.

  12. Hagel, America: Our Next Chapter, 156; Penner, “Interview with Charles Timothy Hagel and Thomas Leo Hagel, Part 2 of 21”; Berens, Chuck Hagel, 35.

  13. MacPherson, Long Time Passing, 19. Emphasis in original.

  14. Berens, Chuck Hagel, 35–36. The Military Auxiliary Radio System allowed civilian ham radio volunteers to assist the U.S Armed Forces in tying field radio traffic into commercial phone lines. The radio-wire interface allowed soldiers in Vietnam to “phone home,” although connections could be spotty and both sides had to use radio procedures, such as “over” to end a sentence and “out” to end the transmission.

  15. 9th Infantry Division, Operational Report of 9th Infantry Division for Period Ending 30 April 1968, 21.

  16. Argabright, 9th Infantry Division “The Old Reliables” Those Who Gave Their Lives in Southeast Asia 1966–1970, 49, 57.

  17. 9th Infantry Division, Operational Report of 9th Infantry Division for Period Ending 30 April 1968, Inclosure 8, “Division Operations Data.” During the reporting period, the 2-47th Infantry lost thirty-one killed (plus two attached aviation soldiers) and claimed thirty-one VC killed and two prisoners taken.

  18. Carolyn S. Van Deusen, “Frederick F. Van Deusen, Class of 1953” at http://apps.westpointaog.org/Memorials/Article/19460/, accessed July 4, 2016.

  19. Tolson, Airmobility, 14.

  20. Ibid., 264–65, 269, 272–74; Dorland and Nanney, Dust Off, 66, 69; Ewell and Hunt, Sharpening the Combat Edge, 46, 116. The OH-23 Raven was an exception to the usual use of Indian names for U.S. Army aircraft. The model was a variant of the UH-12, already named by the U.S. Navy.

  21. Robert Mason, Chickenhawk (New York: Viking Penguin, 1983), 97, 209. As a warrant officer, Mason flew Hueys in Vietnam in 1965–66, to include duty with the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). He flew during the vicious combat in the Ia Drang Valley in November of 1965.

  22. U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Comptroller, Air War in Indochina (Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1972), 267–72, 283. For current U.S. Army numbers, see U.S. Congressional Budget Office Modernizing the Army’s Rotary-Wing Aviation Fleet (Washington, DC: Congressional Budget Office, November 2007), ix, 24.

  23. For overall accident rates of the Vietnam era, see U.S. Department of the Army, U.S. Army Board for Aviation Accident Research, Rotary Wing Sortie Study by Phase of Operation for FY 69 (Fort Rucker, AL: U.S. Army Board for Aviation Accident Research, 1970), 6, 8. Helicopter-related casualties are summarized in Stanton, Vietnam Order of Battle, 346. Two-thirds of those killed in helicopter operations were aviators, the soldiers flying the aircraft.

  24. Ewell and Hunt, Sharpening the Combat Edge, 49, 69.

  25. Emphasis in original. Winston Groom, Better Times Than These (New York: Berkley Books, 1978), 68. Groom, also the author of the novel Forrest Gump that became the basis for the movie, served in Vietnam with the 4th Infantry Division. Groom’s earlier novel Better Times Than These is a fictionalized version of the experiences of the 1st Cavalry Division in the Central Highlands in 1966–67. The sentences quoted are from a character speaking of his experiences as a helicopter aviator in the Ia Drang Valley, scene of fierce fighting in November of 1965.

  26. Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan R. Jackson, U.S. Army, interviewer, and Colonel John R. Dabrowski, U.S. Army, ed., An Oral History of Lieutenant General Henry E, Emerson (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army Military History Institute, 2004), 27. Emerson developed the jitterbug tactic during his time as the commander of the 2nd
Battalion (Airborne) 502nd Infantry, 101st Airborne Division in the Central Highlands in 1965–66. Ewell referred to Emerson as “a genuine genius” [emphasis in original] in Gittinger, Interview with Lieutenant General Julian J. Ewell, 35. A graduate of West Point (Class of 1947), Emerson completed his thirty years of service as a lieutenant general in command of XVIII Airborne Corps. As commander of the 2nd Infantry Division in the Republic of Korea in 1973–75, he had a strong positive influence on then-Lieutenant Colonel Colin Powell, who commanded the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry during that time.

  27. 9th Infantry Division, Operational Report of 9th Infantry Division for Period Ending 30 April 1968, 41. The XM-2 was also called an E63 man-pack personnel detector. It was supposed to be employed by a soldier on foot, but the 9th Aviation Battalion figured out how to emplace it on a UH-1 helicopter. The XM-3 device, introduced later, was specifically designed for use aboard a rotary wing aircraft.

  28. Hunt, The 9th Infantry Division, 58–61.

  29. Ewell and Hunt, Sharpening the Combat Edge, 107–10.

  30. Perry, “Interview with Senator Charles Hagel.”

  31. Tribune Wire Services, “Van Deusen, Westmoreland’s Brother-in-Law, Dies in Viet,” Chicago Tribune, July 6, 2016; U.S. Department of the Army, Headquarters, U.S. Army Vietnam, General Orders No. 3240: Citation for the Distinguished Service Cross: Lieutenant Colonel Frederick French Van Deusen (Long Binh Post, Republic of Vietnam: Headquarters, U.S. Army, Vietnam, July 9, 1968).

  32. Tolson, Airmobility, 35–36, 272.

  33. Perry, “Interview with Senator Charles Hagel.”

  34. Bolger interview with Thomas L. Hagel; see also Brad Penner, producer, writer, reporter, “Interview with Charles Timothy Hagel and Thomas Leo Hagel, Part 5 of 21,” Nebraska Educational Television, August 14, 1999, at http://memory .loc.gov/diglib/vhp/story/loc.natlib.afc2001001.88134/, accessed July 7, 2016.

  35. Bolger interview with Thomas L. Hagel; MacPherson, Long Time Passing, 16.

  36. Bolger interview with Thomas L. Hagel.

  37. Penner, “Interview with Charles Timothy Hagel and Thomas Leo Hagel, Part 5 of 21.”

  38. Bolger interview with Thomas L. Hagel.

  39. MacPherson, Long Time Passing, 16.

  40. Bolger interview with Thomas L. Hagel; Penner, “Interview with Charles Timothy Hagel and Thomas Leo Hagel, Part 5 of 21.”

  41. Ibid.

  42. MacPherson, Long Time Passing, 16.

  43. Penner, “Interview with Charles Timothy Hagel and Thomas Leo Hagel, Part 5 of 21.” The Vam Co River has two branches: Dong (east) and Tay (west).

  44. Ibid.; Bolger interview with Thomas L. Hagel.

  45. Headquarters, U.S. Army Vietnam, General Orders No. 3240: Citation for the Distinguished Service Cross: Lieutenant Colonel Frederick French Van Deusen.

  46. Hunt, The 9th Infantry Division, 46–48.

  47. Bolger interview with Thomas L. Hagel.

  48. For the details of the shoot-down, to include a modern perspective of the terrain, see Army Air Crews, UH-1 Crews: UH-1 Vietnam Losses 1968 at http://www.armyaircrews.com/huey_nam_68.html, accessed July 7, 1968. For Tom Hagel’s recollections, see Penner, “Interview with Charles Timothy Hagel and Thomas Leo Hagel, Part 5 of 21.”

  49. Penner, “Interview with Charles Timothy Hagel and Thomas Leo Hagel, Part 5 of 21.”

  50. Bolger interview with Thomas L. Hagel; see also MacPherson, Long Time Passing, 16–17.

  51. Tribune Wire Services, “Van Deusen, Westmoreland’s Brother-in-Law, Dies in Viet”; Headquarters, U.S. Army Vietnam, General Orders No. 3240: Citation for the Distinguished Service Cross: Lieutenant Colonel Frederick French Van Deusen.

  52. MacPherson, Long Time Passing, 17; Bolger interview with Thomas L. Hagel.

  53. 9th Infantry Division, Operational Report of 9th Infantry Division for Period Ending 30 April 1968, 8, 11; U.S. Army Vietnam, General Orders No. 3240: Citation for the Distinguished Service Cross: Lieutenant Colonel Frederick French Van Deusen. Van Deusen’s award citation noted the search for an enemy battalion command post.

  54. MacPherson, Long Time Passing, 17.

  55. Bolger interview with Thomas L. Hagel; Penner, “Interview with Charles Timothy Hagel and Thomas Leo Hagel, Part 5 of 21.”

  56. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, 321.

  57. 9th Infantry Division, Operational Report of 9th Infantry Division for Period Ending 30 April 1968, 2, 22, Inclosure 8 “Division Operations Data”; Hunt, The 9th Infantry Division, 101–2. Lieutenant Colonel William Edward Berzinec of 4-39th Infantry was killed in action by an enemy land mine on July 30, 1968.

  58. 9th Infantry Division, Operational Report of 9th Infantry Division for Period Ending 30 April 1968, 21, Inclosure 8 “Division Operations Data”; U.S. Army Vietnam, General Orders No. 3240: Citation for the Distinguished Service Cross: Lieutenant Colonel Frederick French Van Deusen.

  59. Starry, Mounted Combat in Vietnam, 235. Lieutenant Colonel William Bernard Cronin was killed in action on April 27, 1967.

  60. Perry, “Interview with Senator Charles Hagel”; MacPherson, Long Time Passing, 20; Bolger interview with Thomas L. Hagel. Tom Hagel received the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star with “V” (valor device), and the Army Commendation Medal with “V” for his various actions on July 3, 1968. Years later, when his brother was a senator, a review of Tom’s records caused some officious bureaucrat to rescind the Bronze Star under the theory that only one award could be given for each engagement, as if heroism can be quantified. Tom Hagel kept another Bronze Star and another Army Commendation Medal with “V” given for other actions.

  61. Nolan, House to House, 277. The speaker was First Lieutenant Ronald P. Garver, who served during Mini-Tet with Company C, 5-60th Infantry. See also 9th Infantry Division, Operational Report of 9th Infantry Division for Period Ending 30 April 1968, 82. From May 1 to July 31, 1968, 2-47th Infantry soldiers earned eighty-six Purple Hearts, to include thirty-one men killed in action. Soldiers received eighty-one valor awards (one Distinguished Service Cross, thirteen Silvers Stars, forty Bronze Stars with “V,” and twenty-seven Army Commendation Medals with “V”). Compared to other 9th Infantry Division battalions, 2-47th Infantry processed fewer awards.

  62. Grossman, On Killing, 97–119.

  63. Bolger interview with Thomas L. Hagel.

  64. Perry, “Interview with Senator Charles Hagel”; Penner, “Interview with Charles Timothy Hagel and Thomas Leo Hagel, Part 5 of 21.”

  65. Berens, Chuck Hagel, 37.

  66. MacPherson, Long Time Passing, 17–18. Emphasis in original.

  CHAPTER 9. CONSTANT PRESSURE

  1. Tim O’Brien, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home (New York: Laurel, 1979), 91–92. An acclaimed writer, O’Brien wrote this book about his year (1969–70) in Vietnam. The short book originally came out in 1973. The title comes from a cadence call used in basic training. The epigraph about Charlie Cong was also a cadence call and another drill sergeant favorite. The first part was sometimes rendered “Late at night when you’re sleepin’.” In addition to the nonfiction account If I Die in a Combat Zone, O’Brien also wrote the novel Going After Cacciato (1978) and a short story collection, The Things They Carried (1990). Both of these well-regarded books offer more of O’Brien’s views on the Vietnam War. He served in Company A, 5th Battalion 46th Infantry in the 23rd Infantry Division (Americal) in northern South Vietnam during 1969. Like the Hagel brothers, draftee O’Brien advanced to sergeant in country. He earned one Purple Heart.

  2. Gitlin, The Sixties, 331. Todd Gitlin was in Chicago as a participant in the unrest.

  3. For crowd estimates, see Scheips, The Role of Federal Military Forces in Civil Disorders 1945–1992, 358; and Dougan and Weiss, Nineteen Sixty-Eight, 164. For Lyndon Johnson’s, crude remark, see Perlstein, Nixonland, 267. For the nomination of Humphrey as street clashes escalated, see Tom Wicker, “Humphrey Nominated on the First Ballot After His Plank on Vietnam Is Approved; Police Battle Protes
tors in Streets,” New York Times, August 29, 1968, 1. Humphrey chose as his running mate the colorless Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine. He delivered his state’s four electoral votes and not much else.

  4. Dougan and Weiss, Nineteen Sixty-Eight, 168.

  5. Gitlin, The Sixties, 331–34. Gitlin was there.

  6. Carl D. Rostow and Robert D. Davis, A Handbook for Psychological Fitness-for-Duty Evaluations in Law Enforcement (Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press, 2004), 18.

  7. Richard M. Nixon, “What Has Happened to America?” Reader’s Digest, October 1967, 49–54. Conservative writer Patrick Buchanan assisted Nixon in drafting this article.

  8. Ibid., 302–4; Scheips, The Role of Federal Military Forces in Civil Disorders 1945–1992, 320–22.

  9. Dougan and Weiss, Nineteen Sixty-Eight, 176.

  10. Lessing, The Politics of Rage, 343, 364; Lesher, George Wallace, 399, 416. For “work” and “soap,” see Marianne Worthington, “The Campaign Rhetoric of George Wallace in the 1968 Presidential Election” at http://www.ucumberlands .edu/downloads/academics/history/vol4/MarianneWorthington92.html, accessed July 12, 2016. For the meanness quotation, see Perlstein, Nixonland, 340.

  11. Perry, “Interview with Senator Charles Hagel”; Berens, Chuck Hagel, 36–37.

  12. Perry, “Interview with Senator Charles Hagel.”

  13. Ibid.

  14. MacPherson, Long Time Passing, 419. Emphasis in original.

  15. U.S., Headquarters, 9th Infantry Division, Operational Report of 9th Infantry Division for Period Ending 31 October 1968 (Dong Tam, Republic of Vietnam: Headquarters, 9th Infantry Division, November 15, 1968), 24.

  16. Perry, “Interview with Senator Charles Hagel”; Penner, “Interview with Charles Timothy Hagel and Thomas Leo Hagel, Part 7 of 21.”

  17. Penner, “Interview with Charles Timothy Hagel and Thomas Leo Hagel, Part 7 of 21.”

  18. Sobel, The Fighting Pattons, 39; Sorley, Thunderbolt, 57. Abrams, like Westmoreland, hailed from the West Point Class of 1936.

  19. Sorley, A Better War, 17–30.

  20. Davidson, Vietnam at War, 512–13. Davidson’s intelligence analysts recognized that the NVA and VC shifted to guerrilla activities by mid-1968.