Our job was to understudy the CIA, which would eventually relinquish to us its control of the Army’s Special Forces in Vietnam. The code name for this transfer of responsibility was Operation Switchback, an operation that would take six months to complete.
Assigned to the command’s operations section, I quickly discovered that our CIA counterparts were very good at what they did. In supporting our field teams, the Central Intelligence Agency’s underlying philosophy was to ask the man on the ground what he needed to do the job and then see that he got it—without subjecting him to a lot of “first sign this in triplicate” hassle.
Most of these supplies were airlifted to outlying teams from our logistical support base in Nha Trang, and, within days of our arrival, that was where many of the “trombones” found themselves. The rest of us remained in Saigon.
Saigon was a beautiful city in the fall of ‘62, one of the most alluring in all of Asia—a pleasant mix of East and West, old and new, traditional and contemporary. I saw quite a bit of Saigon in those next couple of months. With the CIA still running the show, duties were not that taxing in our joint downtown TOC (tactical operations center), and since I didn’t go on shift until four in the afternoon, I had most of the day to wander about exploring the city. And getting off shift at midnight, I had another two hours’ play time before Saigon’s 2:00 A.M. curfew closed the bars.
Meanwhile, the “little war” in the high country continued as our widely scattered twelve-man Special Forces A teams went about enlisting Vietnam’s principal minority, the Montagnard, in the republic’s struggle against the Viet Cong. Many a Montagnard and many a Green Beret were dying in the process. But they were also succeeding in the central highlands at a time when there were few successes to boast about throughout the rest of the country.
With the passage of time the CIA surrendered its control of these teams, and we found ourselves with fewer leisure hours to roam the haunts of Saigon.
9. Nha Trang, Vietnam: February to November 1963
In February, with Switchback nearing its completion, we moved to Nha Trang, consolidating the seventy-six trombones at one location.
As was the case with Saigon, Nha Trang was a far different place in 1963 than would it be in the post-‘65 period, after our ground forces entered the fracas. When we arrived it was little more than a picturesque fishing village astride a sparkling white beach on the South China Sea.
We lived in tents at Long Van Air Base, a couple of miles south of Nha Trang. However, our TOC, in fact, the entire headquarters with the exception of the logistical support center, was located downtown in a former legionnaire’s barracks only a block or so from Marie Kim’s bar, a colorful establishment that in years to come would serve as a gathering place for many a Green Beret migrating to and from his little piece of the war.
But we had little time to frolic in the waters of the South China Sea or lounge about Marie Kim’s bar. Instead, we worked feverishly on OPLAN 1-63, a plan designed to put many of our Special Forces teams in a border surveillance role. Finally, having completed and staffed the plan, we briefed it to everyone and his brother until it received a stamp of approval.
There were some, however, who privately harbored doubts concerning the plan’s feasibility in certain parts of Vietnam.
“You ain’t never seen terrain like that,” Sergeant Scuggs, one of the area specialist team leaders, commented, returning from an aerial reconnaissance of surveillance sites in I Corps. “I mean, it’s impossible to move through that shit! Pity the poor bastards who get stuck in that godforsaken place.”
“Where’s that, Sarge?” Pfc. Chester, one of his assistants, asked.
“Right here,” he said, pointing to a large map depicting prospective sites in I Corps. “On the map it’s called ARO, although Lord only knows why, ‘cause there’s nothing there. I mean, there ain’t nothing there. Just a hilltop in the middle of the jungle with nothing ‘round it far as you can see ‘cept more jungle. Ain’t no sign of life anywhere, no people, no water buffalo, no hutches, roads, trails, crops, nothing exept that godawful jungle. Like I say, pity the poor bastards who draw ARO as a duty site.”
Chester and I just shrugged our shoulders. Duty at ARO was of no interest to either of us. Little did I know that within two years I would be one of those “poor bastards” who, along with eleven other valiant souls, would spend long hours atop that hill and in the “godawful” jungle surrounding it, wondering what in the hell the Army could possibly have been thinking of in 1963 when it selected ARO as a border surveillance site.
But this was a challenge yet to be faced. In our downtown TOC on that bright and sunny day in 1963, looking at a “one over the world” planning map, ARO really didn’t look bad at all. Besides, a desolate hilltop 250 miles away was someone else’s problem.
Seasons change little in Vietnam. It’s always hot, sticky, and dry or hot, sticky, and wet, so the transition from spring, and then to summer, went unnoticed. By this time our daily duties in the TOC were more than merely routine; they were just plain boring. Plot, type, monitor, brief, file, and then… plot, type, monitor, brief, and file some more. We existed in a perpetual cycle of trivial administrative minute. Thankfully, our year in the Nam was rapidly drawing to a close.
In the evenings, there was little talk of anything other than that magic fall date when we would go “wheels up” out of Tan Son Nhut, winging our way back to the “land of the big PX.” One day, while we were busy plotting, typing, monitoring, briefing, and filing, my boss, Sergeant Fallow, casually asked if I’d like to see some action.
Tongue in cheek, I retorted, “What you got in mind, Al? One of them new electric typewriters?”
“Hey, Jimbo, I’m serious. Team in Cheo Reo, up in Phu Bon Province, is opening a new camp at Plei Do Lim.”
I nodded.
“Well, they’ve lost a couple folk to hepatitis and, what with being stretched between two locations, find themselves in need of a lightweapons man. Want to go up there and give ’em a hand for a couple of weeks?”
“Hell, yes!” I enthusiastically responded. I was on my way to Cheo Reo that afternoon.
In addition to its twelve-man Special Forces A detachment, the camp at Cheo Reo was populated by a Montagnard strike force of Jarai, Drung, and Bahnar tribesmen. These tribesmen impressed me. As one of my adopted team members pointed out, other than providing them with a rudimentary knowledge of modern firearms and explosives, there was really little we could teach them. They were more adept at this type of warfare than we were.
Wearing only a loincloth and armed with a medieval crossbow, these primitive warriors could live and fight indefinitely in the country’s most impenetrable jungles. Moreover, they were unfailingly loyal to their Green Beret comrades, as they had been to our French counterparts during the first Indochina war. In both instances, the enemy, probably because he was Vietnamese, albeit Communist Vietnamese, had little success recruiting these tribesmen to his cause. Quite simply, the Montagnards, or ‘Yards, disliked all Vietnamese. Many of them found it incredibly fortunate that with the coming of the second Indochina war it was not only permissible to kill these descendants of the SinoMongol race that had pushed their ancestors into the highlands centuries before, but that their Green Beret “round-eyed” compatriots would pay them a monthly salary to do so.
During my brief stay with these hardened warriors and the professionals who led them, I helped out where and when I could, shuttling myself between Cheo Reo and the new camp at Plei Do Lim.