WHAT THE
POST-VIETNAM
GENERATION SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE VIETNAM WAR
By: LtCol Dennis L. Dauphin, Ret
Webmaster,
The Mighty Ninth
www.themightyninth.org
Background: Col Dauphin served in Vietnam from Nov, 1966 to Oct, 1967.
His first assignment was Forward Observer, assigned to Company
"A", 2nd Battalion, 35th Infantry Regiment,
going on every combat mission as their artillery counterpart.
He then served as the Fire Direction Officer for "A" Battery of
the 2/9th Field Artillery, supervising the calculations of the firing
data sent to the battery howitzers. He
completed his tour as the Executive Officer of "A" Battery,
responsible for all personnel and firing decisions, reporting to the Battery
Commander. His combat experiences are based on assignments in the Central
Highlands, primarily the Kontum Province areas of Ia Drang, Pleiku, An Khe, Qui
Nhon, Duc Pho and later Tam Ky, close to the DMZ.
Individual
Replacements vs. Unit replacements
The 25th Infantry Division's 3rd Brigade was the first
combat-ready Army unit to be deployed to Vietnam in January, 1966. After the
initial entry of this unit and other combat units into Vietnam, the men in those
units were allowed to return home after one year.
New soldiers arrived from the US as replacements, with no knowledge of
the units they would be assigned to, did not know the officers or the NCOs, or
what their individual assignments would be. The
history of warfare is that the men were trained as units, not individuals. This
method of individual rotations was extremely detrimental to unit cohesiveness
and never used again.
The Viet Cong were well-trained guerillas who effectively use hit and
run warfare tactics. One of the most
common was to launch 5 to 10 mortar rounds from a location where they had cover
and concealment yet could see American troops.
This was usually done at dusk to provide cover.
All they would need was the mortar rounds and the mortar tube.
They didn't even bother with a base plate; it was way too heavy and
stability of the tube was not a major concern.
They used knotted string to estimate the elevation needed to reach their
target. After firing, they would run
into the protection of the jungle, rarely, if ever, being caught.
This was so common that almost every man who ever served in the field
could tell you the sound of an incoming mortar.
Those who slept outside the protection of sandbagged bunkers (for the
cool air) became casualties.
Compromised
communications
Throughout my combat exposure in Vietnam, the Vietnam Provincial leaders
were told when and where we would strike and insert combat troops.
Time and again, a well-prepared combat operation yielded no results
despite the intel reports on enemy troop movements and occupation.
We also cleared our night-harassing artillery fires with the local
officials. However, since the actual
locations were still randomly assigned, this tactic proved very effective
against the enemy.
Military
communications
- Equipment
The
various branches of the Armed Forces were allowed to purchase order their
"own" radio systems which operated on different frequencies; this did
not allow the use of the same frequencies by other services. For example,
the radios in the AF fighter jets could not communicate directly to the troops
on the ground. A Forward Air Controller (FAC) was needed not only
for spotting targets, but to act as a "go-between" with the aircraft
and the fighting troops. This came home to roost when a unit engaged in
combat against a much larger force was in desperate need of air support.
This resulting in the loss of life-saving time to establish communication as
well as the loss of life from "miscommunication" and "friendly
fire".
Booby-Traps
Today's "IEDs" were known by a much older name –
"booby-traps". The VC
& NVA were bomb experts. Most of
their traps were designed to injure and maim a soldier and take him out of the
field. Many holes were dug on routes
that US troops would use that contained vertical bamboo sticks with sharpened
points and smeared with dung. These
were known as "punji stakes". The
trap injuries were not always life-threatening, but caused an Infantry company
to stop their operation, care for the wounded soldier, get a Medevac chopper
out, and send him to the rear. The
enemy would always examine the trash sump left behind our units, often find
explosive materials that could be attached to empty C-ration cans or trip-wires.
Again, not always life-threatening, but taking soldiers out of the field
and seriously hurting the morale of the troops.
Key point again is that the US forces were not "moving forward"
as warfare principles dictate, but allowing the enemy access within our assigned
operating areas.
The
power of media bias:
The photo taken of Kim Phuc in the village of Trang Bang by
AP photographer Nick Ut shows
her at nine years of age running naked on a road after being severely burned on
her back by a napalm bomb from a South Vietnamese plane.
June 8, 1972, South Vietnamese planes dropped
a napalm bomb
on Trang Bang, which had been attacked and occupied by North Vietnamese forces.
A South Vietnamese Air Force pilot mistook the group fleeing the village
for enemy soldiers and diverted to attack. The media implied that US
forces dropped the napalm bomb. The
truth wasn't known until later. Many
people still believe today that US forces dropped this bomb and do not know it
was done by the South Vietnamese. The
photo won a Pulitzer Prize and forever shamed the US forces in Vietnam.
· Major General
Nguyễn Ngọc Loan of the South Vietnamese Army and the National Chief
of Police in Saigon, fires a gun into the head of a suspected murderer. The man
was a local Viet Cong officer who had been operating a gang of murderers bent on
killing all the local police officers in that area of Saigon. He was responsible
for arranging the drive-by shootings or hit-and-runs of dozens of
policemen—and if they themselves could not be attacked, he targeted and
murdered their families instead. So when he was finally caught and brought
before Loan, the Chief of Police calmly unholstered his revolver and shot Lém
in the temple, killing him instantly. The photographer had no idea what he was
about to capture on film. The photo
won a Pulitzer Prize and greatly damaged American pro-war sentiment due to its
naked violence. But, the unpublished
truth was that it had nothing at all to do with US forces in Vietnam.
· This
is NOT to say that war atrocities didn't occur in Vietnam.
It happened on both sides. This
is the reality of any war. The
difference is the "spin" or bias that totally takes the action out of
context. During WWII, the Allies
firebombed the city of Dresden into non-existence near the end of the war.
It was not a military target, but rather showed the anger unleashed
on Germany for initiating the war and killing millions.
US
Firepower
Many commanders felt that the modern superiority of US weapons would
bring a quick end to the Vietnam war. The
truth was the enemy was well prepared for this.
Consequently, the NVA and the Viet Cong moved mostly at night, knowing we
were not trained as night fighters. It
was extremely rare that any large enemy force was seen moving in daylight; they
knew this was suicidal. The effect
of all the US bombs and artillery was offset by enemy tunnels and shallow spider
holes. It was only the US Infantry
engaging the enemy in individual firefights with air and artillery support that
kept the enemy at bay, but not defeated. Navy
ships stationed offshore were given missions only to allow them credit for
serving in a combat zone. Their
weapons had no effect on the land fighting.
However, the US Navy river patrols (River Rats) served heroically in
intercepting the enemy trying to move men, weapons and supplies in the Mekong
Delta. We were constantly amazed at
the amount of artillery fired prior to combat troops being inserted into a
suspected enemy location had little effect.
The answer was usually that the enemy knew we were coming or used
underground holes and tunnels to negate the bombing.
To truly understand the war in Vietnam, one must look at the
demographics. Saigon, the capital of
South Vietnam at the time, was basically like any other Asian city.
Located in the southernmost sector, it had thriving businesses, office
buildings and hotels. However, the
majority of SVN was farmland, above Saigon and running to the DMZ (visit a map
in Google). It covered literally
hundreds of farmland villages; mostly families who worked their rice paddies
daily. Their villages had Chiefs,
much like our native Indian tribes. What
the public has never been told is that the Viet Cong used these villages to hide
among innocent civilian rice farmers and their families.
The VC stored large caches of rice and weapons in spider holes in the
villages. They would enter a
village, execute the village Chief, his wife and children to completely
terrorize the village into submission. They
would leave and return again as they pleased. Over and over again, our Infantry
forces would enter a village and the villagers would have blank stares, saying
nothing. They were completely in
fear of both US forces and the Viet Cong. Older
boys and healthy men were abducted into service and taken from the villages by
the VC. Contrasted to WWII, the
Germans occupied homes and farmhouses in occupied territories until driven out
by the Allies. The Allies then moved
forward and recaptured more territory from the Germans. In Vietnam, our forces
continued a routine of going from village to village, thus allowing the Viet
Cong to return at will. It was not
practical for our troops to stay in a farm village, but it allowed the Viet Cong
to operate at will.
Using
women and children
Much like the middle east terrorism today, mothers, grandmothers and
children were given grenades to throw at US forces at their campsites.
Our soldiers would frequently take the candy from the C-ration packages
and throw it to the kids on the side of the road or at the edge of a campsite.
They never knew when their reward would be a grenade thrown at them.
L-shaped
ambushes
Another important demographic to understand is the lack of usable roads
in SVN. There were
two major highways in the Kontum Province, Highway 1 and Highway 19.
Consequently, these highways were heavily traveled by both the farmers and the
US forces. Again, using expert
guerilla tactics, the Viet Cong would set up "L-shaped" ambushes.
A large tree would be felled across the highway, while they hid in the
jungle growth on the side of the road. Once
a convoy was forced to stop, the VC opened fire parallel to their convoy.
It was a deadly ambush to our troops and it prevented the farmers from
reaching their markets to buy, sell and trade.
Extensive
use of tunnels
The ability of the enemy to "disappear" and reappear, in
addition to not suffering the effects of heavy bombings by USAF, was answered by
the amazing discovery of phenomenal underground complexes.
These complexes consisted of miles of connected tunnels.
They contained not only food and weapons, but also enough space for
underground hospitals. This
explained how the enemy offset the superior firepower of the US forces.
It also proved just how many years that armed conflict persisted in VN
before US intervention. We didn't
realize what we were getting into. The
enemy was well prepared for any military force.
Homecoming
The unrest at home over a never-ending war was unfairly turned into
violence at the very men who served and endured the vicious jungle combat.
Men returning from VN had to be diverted from the Oakland Army Air
Terminal to McChord AFB in Washington State for their protection.
Protesters had taken positions outside the chain-link fence at Oakland
and were firing .22 rifles at the men. This
led to the modern-day greeting of "Welcome Home, Brother" exchanged
between Vietnam Veterans because they had no welcoming ceremony upon returning
home.
Damage
of "Limited War" constraints
With the 'limited war' constraints and the vast disparity of the
coherent and capable leadership as well as military and industrial capabilities
between the north and the south, it was not a war that could be won under our
self-imposed constraints. Consequently, the far more industrialized north, under
far better leadership, only had to insure the conflict arena stayed in the
south, keep the supply routes functioning and then wait for the foreign support
to yield. Had the battlefield been extended into the north, the incursions into
the south would have been quickly truncated. But the only extension of the war
into the north was via air power and had little effect
in the overall results since we largely left infrastructure untouched.
I am
always left with a question about why the
South could never develop the
capability to field a government or a military that was capable of sustaining
itself or of extending power elsewhere. It's pretty much still that way.
Perhaps it's agrarian versus industrialized societies.
Perhaps a study of the political regimes of South Vietnam may shed some
light.