Vietnam war books and reading

[Huyen]

HANOI'S MORALE PROBLEMS

Disillusionment in action
Poor morale among troops in the South adds to the
problem. One defector, Nguyen Quoc Tuan, reported that
many North Vietnamese are sharply disillusioned on arriving
in the battle zone. Having been led to expect large areas of
"liberated" territory in Communist hands, with their task
simply being to establish a strong administration, they are
unprepared for the heavy losses and hard fighting-much of it
unproductive. Food is short, the troops sometimes receive no
pay for months at a time, mail does not arrive and their own
letters home are censored. The refusal of all but 13 of 660
North Vietnamese disabled prisoners of war to accept Saigon's
offer of repatriation at the beginning of June pointed to the
widespread discontent with the Hanoi r�gime (although it has
been suggested that Hanoi encouraged prisoners to refuse
repatriation for reasons of its own).

Friction between soldiers from the North and local
Vietcong recruits is another cause of low morale in the battle
areas. The northerners find their co-fighters politically ignorant
and militarily inept, while those from the South have different
social customs and often resent the northerners' superior
attitudes, particularly their open criticism of Vietcong combat
methods. One defector reported that the North Vietnamese
ridiculed Vietcong marksmanship and criticised the wastage of
ammunition, brought from the North at risk of their lives.
Ammunition is in any case in short supply following the loss
of Communist facilities in Kompong Som (formerly
Sihanouk-ville) and the disruption of the Ho Chi Minh trail, and the use
of all types of weapon is strictly controlled.

Saigon's measures to restore stability to the countryside,
including the Chieu Hoi ("open arms") programme, also appear
to have had some effect and Ho Chi Minh's anniversary on
May 19 passed without the expected Vietcong offensive. The
Communist leadership's concern at the deteriorating situation
was reflected in a new campaign of political education, and at
the end of April Liberation Radio carried a series of five
broadcasts setting out the Communist aims. The author was named
as "Cuu Long", but is believed to be the North Vietnamese
General Tran Do, at one time Deputy Chief Political Officer of
the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN). The series
was given unusually wide publicity (in the past, similar
directives have been, circulated on a restricted basis through
secret channels) and political officers were called on to use
every available propaganda medium to disseminate it further.

The broadcasts indicated that the "liberation armed
forces" are undermined by ideological weakness and suffering
from a shortage of high-quality recruits. A reference to
wide-spread sympathy for the old values ("rightist phenomena")
suggested that the Communist message is losing its appeal-an
impression that is underlined by the comment that the Vietcong
are no longer self-reliant and depend too much on outside
support. The series urged political instructors to make clear the
difference between the "people's proletarian r�gime" (the
Communists' "Provisional, Revolutionary Government") and

X/5 ASIA (2) -- HANOI'S MORALE PROBLEMS

the "neo-colonialist r�gime" in Saigon-a message which, with
the timing of the campaign, shows that the Communists are
trying to strengthen their followers' resolve to disrupt or at least
boycott the forthcoming Presidential election. Failure to do so
would further expose the falsity of Vietcong claims to control
most of the rural population.

Pattern, repeated

Disaffection among local Communist guerrillas is
increasingly evident in Laos and Cambodia too. Pathet Lao
fighters continued to rally to the government throughout May
in reaction to intimidation and exploitation by North
Vietnamese. One Pathet Lao officer, Boua Lien, said that Hanoi
was trying to turn Laos into a colony; other defectors have
cited cases of North Vietnamese maltreatment of Lao civilians,
notably the use of children and old men as porters. Many
defectors subsequently return to their former battlegrounds to
help their fellow soldiers to escape in the face of strong North
Vietnamese counter-efforts.

Nationalism is similarly thwarting Hanoi's aims in
Cambodia, where a mistrust of all Vietnamese appears to be
preventing any substantial growth in the number of Khmer
guerrillas fighting under the North Vietnamese Army. Even
the more autonomous Khmers Rouges appear to regard the
Communist Vietnamese presence as an obstacle to their cause.
While Hanoi may have recruited as many as 10,000 Khmers,
the National Army has attracted 150,000 volunteers.

Khmer guerrillas have rallied to the Phnom Penh
government in hundreds this year, giving as the main reason
North Vietnamese arrogance, which meant they were treated
as inferiors and supplied with second-class weapons. They were
also discouraged to find themselves fighting in support of Prince
Sihanouk, whom they had been trying to overthrow for
many years before his downfall.

[Huyen]

"Inside our hootch, I sat on my footlocker for a few minutes to rest before changing out of my wet and greasy fatigues.  A few bunks away, someone's transistor radio played softly.  The Chris Noel Show was just beginning.  Chris was a gorgeous, leggy blonde who did a radio show on Armed Forces Radio.  She might have been part angel.  When not doing her radio work, she choppered out to isolated firebases or distant outposts to cheer up the troops.  She wore tantalizing outfits such as a short miniskirt and knee-high leather boots.

Everyone was in love with her.  She started her shows by saying, "This is The Chris Noel Show and you've got a date with Chris."  Every day thousands of servicemen listened to her opening words and then considered the possibility that maybe she was speaking specifically to them.  I did likewise and wished that it were true."

From "Blood Trails" by Christopher Ronnau

[RadioResearcher]

The Chris Noel Show was just beginning.  Chris was a gorgeous, leggy blonde who did a radio show on Armed Forces Radio.  She might have been part angel.  When not doing her radio work, she choppered out to isolated firebases or distant outposts to cheer up the troops.

I am about two sound clips away from sending Nix a batch of Chris Noel recording - hopefully for integration into our station's sound scene (if we all make it past July 15, that is . . . ).

-- Radio Researcher

[Huyen]

I have been reading "War of the Running Dogs" by Noel Barber.  This book is about the communist insurgency in Malaya from 1948 until 1960.  Malaya?  You may ask why I am reading a book about the war in Malaya since my area of interest has been the Vietnam war.  Well, the answer is simple.  The British successfully defeated a communist insurgency in Malaya before the Americans set foot in Vietnam in force.  For this reason many people hold the Malaya "Emergency" (It was not called a war so as to keep the insurance rates down on British plantations there) out as an example of how to defeat an insurgency and also say that the same techniques should have been used in Vietnam.  In fact, the book periodically mentions Vietnam or alludes to it in order to contrast the British success in Malaya with the American failure in Vietnam.  Well, Vietnam is my war, so I wanted to read about Malaya to see what people were referring to. 

First let me say that there is not much out there written about the "Malaya Emergency", so it was either read this or nothing at all.  So in this way I suppose this book is an important book.  However I did not enjoy the writing style of this book.  It was as if the Author was trying to write more of an novel than a history.  Now this technique has been done beautifully by other authors, but I believe Barber failed in this attempt. 

I remember many years back I was in the library reading some very old books written about slavery.  The way the topic was presented was pathetic.  In a time of simpler writing the author was describing plantation life as if Slaves and owners all lived and peace and harmony with one another and enjoyed mutual respect.  Clearly it was a rose colored depiction of Slavery.  Well, I got the same impression from this book.  The British were good natured colonialist that everyone so loved.  The British soldiers were infinitely patient and good natured about the war and the civilians, unlike the Americans in Vietnam.  That sort of thing.  The peaceful description of colonial life in Malaya stretched the limits of imagination.  In fact, the book was about a war, but at times it seemed like the author was trying to avoid talking about it as if it was a war.  It was more a story of pleasant little vignettes interrupted by acts of brutality.  The style was very much like those old books about slavery.  "Lucy spent her days preparing the new nursery and knitting baby booties, but after dark could be quite handy on the Bren gun".  It gave me a "Mr. Rogers goes to war" feeling.  I didn't like the style at all. 

Now for the substance of the book.  As I said, the book draws subtle comparisons to the Vietnam war, with the implication always being that the British did it right and the Americans wrong.  However, nothing the book described led me to that conclusion at all, even though that is what the author wanted to do.  Clearly the British were successful in Malaya, but the lessons learned from Malaya could hardly have been applied to Vietnam.  There were striking differences between the two wars.  Compared to the size of the Vietnam war, the conflict in Malaya was loose change.  The number of communist Terrorists, as they called them in Malaya, was pitifully small in comparison to those in Vietnam.  The CTs in Malaya were highly dependent on the local population for support, food, and supplies.  They did not have significant outside support for these things like the Vietcong had in Vietnam.  They also did not have the vast number of soldiers brought in from another country to join the fight, like what happened in Vietnam.  The book talks about how the Americans used massive displays of firepower in Vietnam, and this caused a lot of collateral damage, but the British refrained from this type of use of fire power in Malaya.  The implication being that the British had a better approach.  But again, the British didn't face regiments of communists launching assaults from out of the jungle.  The numbers the CTs could muster for an assault in Malaya at anyone time were paltry compared to what the Vietnamese communists could throw into the fight.  The fact is they didn't need massive fire power in Malaya because the enemy was never really that strong. 

They also were not well led.  The communists in Malaya are almost portrayed as Keystone cop revolutionaries.  Oh sure, they were brutal and ruthless, but the author also describes an insurgency that never had the organization and leadership that the communists had in Vietnam.  The PAVN were far from a disorganized rabble playing at revolution. 

Another thing this book did was emphasize legalistic aspects of the Malaya war.  The colonial government passed this new law and that regulation, the police chief was given these special powers, that bureaucratic red tape was eliminated, etc.  As if it was just a question of the proper legal framework and the war would take care of itself.  This all sounded very unrealistic to me.  As if you could pass a law that just prohibited the Communists from making war and that would do it.  This focus on legalities is particularly strange in that Malaya was run by a colonial government.  Almost like a dictatorship.  Passing new laws and rules would be no big deal.  While in Vietnam the host country had a government of its own, that for cultural reasons, didn't always agree with the legal approach of their American patrons.  This naturally led to political considerations that were absent from the law makers in Malaya.  But again, passing laws doesn't stop people who believe Mao's dictum that all political power flows from the barrel of a gun. 

Malaya was comprised of two ethnic groups.  The Malays, and ethnic Chinese living in Malaya.  The Communists were almost entirely made up of ethnic Chinese.  This made them much easier to identify and separate from the rest of the population.  It was easier to know who to trust and who you needed to be suspicious of.  The British took advantage of this by segregating the Chinese from the rest of the population and then isolating them.  This left the communists without their base of support, and since they didn't have the resources of another country to help from the outside, this technique helped to starve the communist enemy in Malaya into defeat.   In Vietnam the Communists were ethnically indistinguishable from the rest of the population.  They could not easily be identified and separated from the population, even though this was tried.  The majority of the communists were also invaders from North Vietnam and had the full support of North Vietnam, China, and the Soviet Union.  They were well supplied and supported from outside of South Vietnam, from Areas outside of the reach of decisive military strike, and did not require the support of the South Vietnamese population to continue the fight.  There were also a lot of them.  North Vietnam was more populous than South Vietnam and had plenty of people to throw into the fight.  In Malaya losses could not be readily replaced. 

Anyway, these are some of the major concepts I came away from the book with.  I am glad I read the book because it clarified the Malaya situation for me and any relationships with the Vietnam war.  Interestingly the conclusions I drew from the book were quite the opposite of what the author intended, and opposite from what those who think Malaya was the strategy to be used for all wars of insurgency.  I believe they didn't learn the lessons of Malaya in the Vietnam war because there were little or no lessons to be learned.  Perhaps Vietnam was handled incorrectly, but whatever the correct approach was it was not that used in Malaya. 

 

[Huyen]

I just started reading "Bury us Upside Down: The Misty Pilots and the Secret Battle for the Ho Chi Minh Trail".

The following excerpt is from the book:

"Schneider's biggest gripe was what the Misty did to his planes.  They came back from missions in terrible shape, with holes in the wings from North Vietnamese Antiaircraft Artillery, and occasionally with entire chunks torn out of the fuselage.  That damage counted against Schneider's safety record.  But Day's shootdown caused another problem, since all commanders were held responsible for the losses in their unites, even during wartime.  Getting your pilots killed was no way for a colonel to earn his first star"

Whenever I read stuff like this I find it amazing on several levels.  As my favorite economist would say, the incentives here are all wrong.  To prosecute a war effectively you must take risks.  Obviously you don't want to take unnecessary risks and you want to minimize those you do take, but you still must take risks.  And there is going to be a trade off between the risks you take and your effectiveness.  I find it hard to believe that a military while fighting a war would put in place such disastrous incentives.  The commander's career is influenced more by his safety record than his combat record.  It seems likely that the more effective his pilots are in combat the more damage their planes are going to receive, and unfortunately the more combat losses he will incur.  So here you have an incentive for the commander to "Play it safe" for the sake of his future in the military at the expense of his unit's effectiveness in their role in Vietnam.

This seems so short sighted to me, and also very dangerous.  The role of this unit in was reconnaissance and interdiction of enemy materials and personnel coming down the Ho Chi Minh trail.  So when his unit is less effective, then others pay the price.  The bombing missions over North Vietnam are at greater risk from SAM and AAA attack, and the ground forces in South Vietnam face a stronger, less fatigued, and more battle ready enemy.  So, to protect his own future, the incentive is for the commander to shift the burden and losses to someone else.  That was a poorly designed incentive structure put in place by the air force in time of war. 

One would think that in time of war a military commander would be evaluated based on his overall performance of his mission, not peace time criteria.  In time of war the peace time criteria doesn't make sense and causes others to have to pay for a commander worried about his career. 

[RadioResearcher]

"Schneider's biggest gripe was what the Misty did to his planes.  They came back from missions in terrible shape, with holes in the wings from North Vietnamese Antiaircraft Artillery, and occasionally with entire chunks torn out of the fuselage.  That damage counted against Schneider's safety record.  But Day's shootdown caused another problem, since all commanders were held responsible for the losses in their unites, even during wartime.  Getting your pilots killed was no way for a colonel to earn his first star"

Whenever I read stuff like this I find it amazing on several levels.  As my favorite economist would say, the incentives here are all wrong.  To prosecute a war effectively you must take risks.

Since this is taken out of context (in the literal sense) and since I have never read the book, I have to assume this was not intended to be tongue-in-cheek.  Are you sure that is the case?  Being Army, this kind of thinking doesn't compute for me either - but some strange thinking went on in that war (like the body count metric for success) - so, I guess I wouldn't be surprised by dumb standards in this case.

-- RR

[Huyen]

Since this is taken out of context (in the literal sense) and since I have never read the book, I have to assume this was not intended to be tongue-in-cheek.  Are you sure that is the case?  Being Army, this kind of thinking doesn't compute for me either - but some strange thinking went on in that war (like the body count metric for success) - so, I guess I wouldn't be surprised by dumb standards in this case.
-- RR
[/quote]

The above quote came from page 36.  This is early in the book.  The intention of this section was to set the scene.  The situation as it existed when the first of the central characters to the story are arriving in Phu Cat for their tour with "Misty"  There is a lot of emphasis on the dangerous nature of the mission, and the anxiety this created with the immediate leadership.  The book does say that a higher command (A General Momyer) protected the unit from criticism because of the results it was achieving.  In another place it says that Misty gave Schneider "heartburn".  Again, a reference to the danger and losses. 

The emphasis the author appears to be making is that the Mission was very dangerous.  I believe that to be the primary point.  The agitation of the commander and his urging his pilots to be more careful and issuing regulations designed to try and force them to be, I believe are supporting details.   I am sure the author talked about the accountability regulations as an explanation of the commander's frame of mind for his actions.    The book isn't about stupid rules, thus far anywa., It is about the mission.  It was me who found it incredulous when I read the part about the damage and losses going against the commander.

Obviously I only know what I read, but I do read now and then about stupid rules being in place in Vietnam.  There were probably many reasons for this.  One explanation would be that this kind of thing is probably endemic to any large bureaucracy.  Rules get put into place and then take on a life of their own.  Bureaucracies don't adapt and change that easily, especially in the absence of a sense of urgency.  As to the sense of urgency, I do not believe there was one in Vietnam on the Macro level.  Especially in the Air Force.  At the time the Air Force was dominated by strategic thinking and SAC.  They viewed Vietnam as a nuisance war that detracted from their main mission.  I have read that Nixon had to threaten to fire several high ranking Air Force generals in order to change this attitude for the Linebacker raids.  Along the same lines LBJ set out to fight the war with as little inconvenience at home as possible.  The war was presented as an ancillary thing among other things on his political agenda and he wanted to keep it that way.  Despite how people view the war today, by previous standards it was a small war.  I think there was a general attitude that the VN war was more of a passing thing then a very serious military effort at the upper levels.  So why get serious about reviewing policies that may not be appropriate when the emergency will end any time now?  Finally I think that among most of the mid level soldiers there was never any serious belief that the US would lose the war.  I have read about these attitudes quite a bit.   Given all of these attitudes I think, at least early in the war, there was still a peace time mentality in the military with almost everyone except the men on the point of the spear.  I believe this naturally led to complacency and peace time like thinking about ticket punching, careerism and politicking within the military, rather than a coordinated and critical focus on the war at hand.  Of course, this attitude didn't lose the war, but it didn't help either.  Just my thoughts. 

[RadioResearcher]

The book isn't about stupid rules, thus far anywa., It is about the mission.  It was me who found it incredulous when I read the part about the damage and losses going against the commander.

Obviously I only know what I read, but I do read now and then about stupid rules being in place in Vietnam.  There were probably many reasons for this.  One explanation would be that this kind of thing is probably endemic to any large bureaucracy.

Good analysis, H, as always.  You are more the student of the motivational components of this war than I. Still, my experience with bureaucracies, including military bureaucracies, leads me to believe that policies built on nothing more than momentum ("we've always done it that way") and the crass pursuit of career interest are prevalent in all circumstances, including war.  We see that today.  I also agree that the US military establishment in general did not conceive of the prospect of defeat in Vietnam and make timely adjustments accordingly.  The US did not lose wars.

-- RR

[jim416]

I'd like to introduce you to my book, THE ANGEL FROM VIETNAM. Formerly released as THE GHOSTS OF VIETNAM, winner of the Military Writers Society of America Distinguished Honor Award for 2005.

I spent four years in Vietnam, two as an MP and two as a civilian worker. This is a memoir of growing up, The Vietnam War, a daughter, and healing. More details can be seen on my website.

www.geocities.com/militarypoliceofvietnam

Hope some of you can give it a read/look.

[RadioResearcher]

I'd like to introduce you to my book, THE ANGEL FROM VIETNAM. Formerly released as THE GHOSTS OF VIETNAM, winner of the Military Writers Society of America Distinguished Honor Award for 2005.

I spent four years in Vietnam, two as an MP and two as a civilian worker. This is a memoir of growing up, The Vietnam War, a daughter, and healing. More details can be seen on my website.

Hope some of you can give it a read/look.

Welcome to Radio Vietnam, Jim!  We hope you can become a part of our sound!  Please check out the following "want ad" we put out a while back - and let me know if you might be interested!  --RR

WANTED: Vietnam vets to do brief radio station ID spots on the "numbah one" tribute radio station on the internet for music and spoken word from the Vietnam era - Radio Vietnam!  All you need is the ability to record a 10 - 20 second WAV or MP3 file on your computer, giving your name (or alias of your choice), unit that you served with, and a mention of Radio Vietnam (like, “you’re listening to Radio Vietnam”).  You email it to us and we take care of the rest - including editing and musical background!  No professional experience necessary - and, of course, just like the station, this is all voluntary and non-profit. It's easy and fun! Tune in to www.RadioVietnam.net to hear examples currently playing (including myself), register at the station (it's free), and send me (RadioResearcher) a personal message. I will get in touch and we will take it from there!
 
-- Radio Researcher
Americal Radio Research Co
Chu Lai, 67-68

[jim416]

Sounds good to me. Let me know what I have to do.

[RadioResearcher]

Sounds good to me. Let me know what I have to do.

Jim --
I sent you a personal message on this - check out through the right side of the Home page screen, under User Information.
-- RR

[Huyen]

Sometimes I think I should have studied law because I like the discipline of
the legal mind.  In a court room they do not let people speak with authority
on something unless they are actually an authority.  They go through great
pains to establish the credibility of expert witnesses before they let them
give authoritative testimony on something, and people who are not experts on
a subject are not allowed to "express opinions" outside of their expertise.
They also do not allow hearsay in a court of law.  What you heard from
others is not meaningful in establishing fact.  Only what you know
personally.   Breaches of logic are also directly challenged in the legal
process.  People cannot make statements that do not logically follow one
another without this being scutinized.  The legal process for establishing
truth is very exacting.

That is not to say that I believe that all social discourse should be
conducted as if it were in the courtroom, I don't, but I do believe too many
people make authoritative statements on things they actually know very
little about.  Or they make statements based on personal experience, where
that experience really doesn't have anything to do with their statement.
Having your appendix taken out in a hospital may shed some light on the
medical process and give you a little understanding of it, but it doesn't
make you a doctor.

The reason I say these things is that sometimes in my reading I find authors
who use their book to venture statements and opinions outside of their area
of Expertise.  The primary example I have of this is Colonel David
Hackworth.   Colonel Hackworth wrote some excellent books about his military
career and experiences.  In my opinion he was a brilliant tactical commander
and served well in Vietnam.  The problem I have with Col. Hackworth, and I
have read many others who share the same opinion of him, is that he uses
his books to stray beyond hisrea of expertise and start making commentary
on psychosocial, sociological, and economic concepts.  He was not trained in
these things nor had experience that amounted to training in these areas,
yet he attempts to speak authoritatively on issues for which he is not
credible. To me this diminished otherwise brilliant work that he did.

The reason I am writing about all this now is because the book I just
completed reading, in my opinion, is guilty of an excessive amount of this
kind of straying from expertise and logic.  This made it very hard for me to
get into
this book.

"Mekong Fist Light" by Joseph W. Callaway Jr.

This book is supposed to be about Capt.. Callaway's 18 month tour in
Vietnam.  However the book is short on details of his experiences, and long
on his observations and philosophizing about his experiences.  Capt.
Callaway spends a lot of time in his book making judgments about himself and
about others, particularly in the Army.  He blows his own horn a bit too
much.  He talks of how great a leader he was, and contrasts himself with
others who were poor leaders.  Basically you get the idea that he thinks
good leaders are the ones who think and act like him, and all others are
bad.  I might have been able to buy into some of this had he just not gone
so overboard on it.  The book really is about him, and his view of the world
more than anything else.

Like many a soldier in Vietnam he had very little exposure with the
Vietnamese people, other than the scared villagers he would run into on
patrol.  He didn't speak the language nor learn anything about the people,
the history, or culture of Vietnam.   The reason that this is important to
me is because, although he didn't have any real understand of Vietnam and
the Vietnamese people, he was more than willing to make judgments about the
country and people.  Among the many things in the book he was willing to set
himself up as judge for.  But unlike the legal mind I refer to above, many
of Capt. Callaway's judgments do not follow logically, even from his own
described experiences.

For example, Capt. Callaway served a time as an advisor in Thailand with the
Thai military.  Based on his experience with the Thais he concluded that
they were not good soldiers.  He based this judgment on their lack of
experience in combat, a more laid back way of training, and the fact that
the American government provided most of the funds to train the Thai units.
When he went to Vietnam with his Thai unit he said that the American
military did not let them take on any difficult combat tasks, so this
further influenced him into believing the Thais could not and would not
fight.  He believed it was just a political ploy just for show and stated
his judgments about the Thais conclusively.  He did not have any actual
combat experience with the Thais.  Surprisingly he would go on to inform us
that the SF operators he would later meet who actually fought with the Thais
thought of them as excellent, and courageous soldiers.  This did not change
his opinion.  Of course this may have had to do with his opinion of the
Green Berets.

His experience in Thailand also made him conclude that the domino theory was
not valid, even though the Thais themselves were worried about their own
small Communist insurgency getting bigger if the war was lost in Vietnam.
He did not give any credit at all to the attitudes of the Thai people.  The
Green Berets that he worked with at the time thought differently, and they
had far more experience than he did with the Thai people.  However, the
author never shied away from making judgments of his own that were contrary
to the judgments of more experienced people.

Capt. Callaway was not clear about when and where he actually became a Green
Beret, but by the end of the book he is calling himself a Green Beret
Captain.  He did not start out as a Green Beret, but was only attached to
them.  He did jump training, but that alone does not make an SF operator.
He did not say exactly when he became one,but by the end he was calling
himself one. What I find amazing is that he would actually want to be a
Green Beret in the first place.  He seems to have nothing but contempt for
the 5th special forces group in Vietnam.  He was very comfortable judging
them to be almost all corrupt.  He talks about the wheeling and dealing that
the SF did to improve their living conditions at the HQ in Nha Trang as if
most of this activity was illegal.  He also talked of the suffering of the
line units while the SF lived so well.  Again, Capt. Callaway was quick to
make judgments with only his limited experience.  I have read plenty of
books about the lives of soldiers in Vietnam.  The trading of VC weapons,
flags, and souvenirs to REMFs go get supplies to make their lives more
comfortable or get the materials they need for the war, was not uncommon to
all line units.  If anything the SF just did a better job of it because they
were out among the people more.  And certainly many a fake VC flag was
traded for supplies.  This is hardly the most shameful form of activity that
occurred in Vietnam.  He also makes a big deal about the HQ living
conditions based on his prior experience as a line doggie.  While there is
no doubt that SF HQ was better living than line doggies, all HQ's usually
are.  Capt. Callaway never served at any A team camps out in the Boonies,
where life was far from luxurious by even line doggie standards.  If
anything, the SF out in the sticks were far more isolated than normal line
doggie operations.

Capt. Calloway seemed to believe that all SF operators were criminals.  He
used one example of embezzlement to judge the entire operation in of 5th
Special Forces.  He stated that he believed he would see SF personnel show
up back in the world all driving Cadillacs.  Capt. Callaway painted with a
wide brush when he judged things, and his treatment of the SF was no
different, which makes it surprising that he would choose to become a Green
Beret.  I wonder what his Green Beret colleagues thought of him after
reading his book?

Interestingly, Capt. Callaway also has nothing but contempt for REMFs, yet
does everything he can to put his friends in REMF jobs when he is able.

The biggest impact of the book is the first part, where Lt. Callaway was
serving as a Platoon leader in a line company in Vietnam.  This is what
molded Callaway's attitudes about Vietnam, and my attitudes about him.  As I
said above, he makes statements that do not follow logically.  He says that
the problem with the Vietnam war was that it was a war being fought in
Villages, and people's back yards, where the destruction impacted the lives
of those people.  This is a true statement, but irrelevant.  What war is
not?  Many a French home was destroyed in Normandy when the allies landed.
Many a civilian was killed by Allied firepower.  Does this mean that it
shouldn't have been done?  It may be a tragic consequence of war, but it is
not an argument against it.  Logically this argument doesn't follow.
Another of his arguments that doesn't follow is when he says there was no
reason to fight in Vietnam.  No oil or natural resources.  I wonder what his
colleagues at Boston College would say to his idea about Vietnam being wrong
because there were no natural resources to fight for.  They clearly loved
him because he was an anti war veteran, but I wonder if they knew all his
logic.  He also argued that the war would have been OK if there had been a
"humanistic" reason to fight it.  Again, this shows his total lack of
knowledge of the Vietnam situation.  Perhaps what he needed to convince him
was a welcoming parade of liberation every time he entered a village with
his platoon.  Maybe what he needs to convince him are streets lined with
flag waving French and Dutch civilians?  That was never going to happen in
Vietnam.  The soldiers would enter a village, secure it, then leave and the
Communists would return.  Even if the people were thankful that the
Americans were there, this gratitude would not last because they never
stayed and secured what they searched.  What reception did he expect from a
population that was caught in the seesaw battles of war, and where they were
under constant threat of terrorism by the enemy for any positive feelings
they might show the itinerate Americans?  And as far as his humanistic
reasons go, he clearly knew nothing about the Terror inflicted upon the
population by the enemy.  That is a powerful humanistic reason, but one he
seems to know nothing about, and could not know because he endeavored to
learn nothing about Vietnam!  The flight of almost 3 million people AFTER
the communists took over he apparently missed too.  This does not include
those who fled in the closing days of the war.  No other communist country
in the world saw population flight on the level of Vietnam.  Even in Eastern
Europe where it is taken for granted that the Communists were not wanted,
they did not have this level of flight.  Vietnam has the largest refugee
Diaspora in the world.  As one author put it, there should need to be no
greater indictment of the regime in Vietnam than that one.  Yet somehow all
of these humanistic elements are lost on Capt. Callaway.

The final lapse of logic on the part of Capt. Callaway that I want to talk
about is the one that really leaves me with a very negative impression of
the Captain.  Capt. Callaway gave us no shortage of his beliefs about right
and wrong in Vietnam.  He stood in moral judgment of many things.  Therefore
I feel comfortable standing in moral judgment of him.

Capt. Callaway promoted a black man to the position of squad leader over
several white men.  Two of his sergeants questioned his motives in doing
this.  wondering whether or not he was doing this for some "Do Gooder"
reason.  Capt. Callaway argued that he was doing it because the man was the
best for the job.  They warned him that this might tear the platoon apart.
He said he was willing to take this risk.  He would later pat himself on the
back for this and give examples of why it was the right thing to do and how
it had positive consequences.  I will not argue that it may or may not have
been the right thing to do.  I think race should not have a bearing on such
things,
even though for all the fuss he made over this, you do get the
impression he did it for "Do Gooder" reasons.  Yet I don't have a problem
with this.  None at all.  The only reason I mention it is because it is
directly related to what I do have a problem with.

One of Capt. Callaway's men murdered an enemy Medic.  The man was captured
unarmed.  Callaway called his commander to find out what to do with the
prisoner.  The radio operator on the other end said that he was ordered to
kill the prisoner.  Callaway thought about it, but couldn't bring himself to
do it.  Some of his men urged him to do it, but he was not sure.  He ordered
his men to not do anything to the prisoner while he confirmed his order.
While he was in the process of confirming the order one of his men disobeyed
his order and murdered the Medic. Then it turned out that Callaway had not
been ordered to murder the man after all.  It was just the radio operator on
the far end telling him to do it.  His commander never gave such an order.
Of course now it was too late and the prisoner was dead.  And now the then
Lt. Callaway had a problem.  One of his men had disobeyed and order and also
committed the crime of murder.  CALLAWAY DID NOTHING!  For all his
moralizing about right and wrong in Vietnam, and here he had a criminal act
that he was witness too under his command responsibility and he did NOTHING.
He had two excuses for doing nothing.  One was that it would tear his
platoon.  This is an especially bothersome justification given that he was
full of himself for promoting the Black solider in the face of potentially
"pulling his platoon apart", but not willing to take any chances of this
over a murder.  Not very consistent thinking there.

His second argument was the blurred distinction between right and wrong in
the Vietnam war zone.  I don't see this blur.  The man was an unarmed medic
who had surrendered.  You don't kill prisoners.  But to him this situation
was an example of the blur between right and wrong in Vietnam.  OK.  Maybe
right and wrong was blurred in this situation, but I doubt it.  However,
there is one other instance where I can hardly see him making that case.

Two of Callaway's soldiers raped a Vietnamese girl.  Again, he had knowledge
of the event and who did it.  It happened under his command and his
responsibility  AGAIN HE DID NOTHING.  Perhaps murdering an unarmed enemy
medic was somehow ambiguous, but since when is the rape of a civilian girl
ever ambiguous in any situation?  War or not?  He did nothing.  The man who
thought of himself as such a good leader and made plenty of moral and value
judgments throughout the book allowed a murderer and two rapist whom he
commanded to go unpunished.  Thank Goodness all the leaders in Vietnam were
not as "good" as Captain Callaway.

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[Huyen]

A while ago I posted a small excerpt from Tracy Kidder's book "My Detachment" that briefly told how the Viet Cong took direction in prosecuting the war from Hanoi.  Below find a more thorough, detailed description of how Hanoi ran the war to conquer South Vietnam.  This excerpt is from "Talking with Victor Charlie" by Sedgwick D. Toruison, Jr.  He was a member of the ASA.  The same organization that Radio Researcher belonged to.   Tourison served three tours in Southeast Asia, 1961-63, 1965-67, and finally from 1970-74.  He also worked in a different capacity than RR.  Tourison was a VN linguist who did translations of captured documents and also interrogation of VC prisoners. 

From talking with Victor Charlie:

The Democratic Republic of Vietnam [DRV], what most people call North Vietnam, is committed to liberating South Vietnam.  It's a commitment which goes back decades, and the Geneva Accords of 1954 haven't changed that objective.  For obvious reasons, Hanoi doesn't want to be seen as the aggressor, so it has tried to make everyone believe  this is a nice, neat civil war between southerners.  That's all crap, and I don't understand how anyone can buy it, but some people do. 

In 1960 North Vietnam created a Reunification Committee which acts as the conduit for instructions to the communists in South Vietnam, in violation of the Geneva Accords.  Diem really decimated those who stayed behind in South Vietnam as underground cadre in 1954, and if the North hadn't decided to escalate back in the late 1950's, I think this "Civil war" would have been over a long time ago. 

The organization of their forces in the south is along the same lines as in North Vietnam.  You have an overall political body known as the South Vietnam People's Revolutionary party, the PRP for short, which takes political instructions from Hanoi and issues instructions in the name of North Vietnam's Politburo.  North Vietnam cannot afford to link the Lao Dong party in the north to the fighting in the south so all instructions disseminated in South Vietnam refer to decisions of the PRP Central committee.  But the North doesn't want those in the south to get the idea their PRP Central Committee is somehow a body independent of the North, so they use the term "Cuc" [Directorate] as a prefix when referring to the PRP Central Committee.  All Vietnamese know the word Cuc automatically carries the connotation of subordination to some higher authority.  In documents you'll see PRP Central Committee decisions which refer to instructions from the Trung uong [Central] witch they often abbreviate as the TU.  Everyone knows that stands for the Lao Dong party Politburo in the North.  Whenever anyone has said prove that TU means the lao Dong party Politburo, the discussion ends up in an argument that goes nowhere.  Some people want a level of evidence which isn't necessary , and even if it were, is almost impossible to obtain.  The North's representatives come to the South completely sanitized, and Hanoi isn't so stupid as to link itself openly to something it is telling the international community it isn't doing.  Hanoi keeps telling people this is just a civil war fought by southerners who hate their government and the American imperialist invaders.  Saigon has produced North Vietnamese Army officers and civilian cadre to show it isn't just a homegrown revolution but  no one wants to listen.  It's all a bunch of crap. 

The PRP Central Committee, the Trung wong Cuc, has been technically translated as the Central Office for South Vietnam, what we call COSVN.  Don't ask me who started to translate it that way, but it has hurt us all.  now the term COSVN has been misconstrued to mean the whole headquarters, which it isn't.  The reason I mention this is to show you why it's so important to translate things accurately and carefully.  If you only translate literally, you end up confusing people.

COSVN receives political instructions from the DRV Politburo and passes them on in its own resolutions which are referred to as a Nghi quyet [resolution].  These instructions go to the senior PRP organization group of party members within the Liberation Army Headquarters called the "Quan uy Trung wong Cuc.  That's the COSVN Military Committee witch includes all of the senior commanders within the Liberation Army Headquarters.  They take the broad instructions from Hanoi and reissue them through two channels.  On the strictly military side, they issue the instructions as orders from the Liberation Army Headquarters, often referring to such and such a resolution of the COSVN as the basis for a specific order.  Within the party chain of command, COSVN issues sensitive implementing instructions through the PRP organization to both staff and the party  and youth group members at each echelon.  Remember, it's only the party members who are given the detailed instructions.  Even members of the youth group never receive the big picture.  It's all part of the party compartmentation and secrecy. 

Directly under COSVN are a number of subordinate specialized staff agencies which perform support functions for the party.  COSVN directives go to their agencies, and their staffs guide subordinate regions. 

Sitting off to the side, you have the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam, what some call the NLF.  That organization purports to be the underground civil government, but that's all garbage.  As in any communist state, the civil government receives its overall guidance and instructions from its Politburo, and there is no exception here.  Within the Front a small group of key cadre receives instructions from COSVN and implements them through directives to subordinate Front echelons while the party members at each Front echelon are the only ones who are provided the real detail. 

The major headquarters for the VC in Southern Vietnam is in Tay Ninh Province north of Ba Den Mountain.  It controls the country through a series of regional headquarters from region five in central Vietnam and starting at the DMZ, and running down through region nine in the southern tip of the Delta.  The system of control at COSVN level is duplicated at region level and there, too, people perform several jobs. 

[Huyen]

This book might be interesting to RR.  I found it while looking for information on North Vietnamese and VC returnees.  I will read it when I get a chance. 

The Role of
Military Intelligence 1965-1967

by
Major General Joseph A. McChristian

The book is available to read online here:

http://www.army.mil/cmh/books/Vietnam/mi/index.htm#contents