Basic Training During the Vietnam War Era. I was drafted in June, 1966 and was sent to Ft Dix ,New Jersey for Basic Combat Training. Training was tough then as we were all guys and got Basic Combat Training because in those days all soldiers were considered Infantrymen first regardless of what MOS they were given after Basic.
On 21 January 1968, the Viet Cong (VC) shelled the US Marine garrison at Khe San, and continued doing so till July 9. The VC surrounded the base and used anti-aircraft missiles to prevent planes and helicopters from providing reinforcements.
Loyd, who served a 14-month tour in Vietnam, recalled many positive outcomes of his time in the Army and extended his respect and admiration for those ... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL
Operation Rolling Thunder was the sustained bombing campaign launched by American and South Vietnamese Air Forces against the North Vietnamese. It began on March 2, 1965, and from the first day, American military and civilian leaders were stunned at the losses of aircraft.
Biên HòaBearcat Base (also known as Bearcat, Camp Martin, Camp Cox or Long Thanh North) is a former U.S. Army base near the city of Biên Hòa in Đồng Nai Province in southern Vietnam.
Quần Lợi Base Camp (also known as LZ Andy or Rocket City) is a former U.S. Army and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) base east of An Lộc, Binh Phuoc Province, in southern Vietnam....Quần Lợi Base CampTypeArmy BaseSite historyBuilt1967In use1967-724 more rows
History. Long Binh Post was located on the east of Đồng Nai river, 20 km northeast from Saigon (now called Hồ Chí Minh City). The base functioned as a U.S. Army base, logistics center, and major command headquarters for United States Army Vietnam (USARV). Long Binh Post was 7 km southeast from Biên Hòa Air Base.
It served as the headquarters for U.S. Army Vietnam, 1st Logistical Command, and several other related activities. The handing-over of the base effectively marked the end–after seven years–of direct U.S. participation in the war.
Over 3.5 million liters of Agent Orange were located on the Phu Cat base during the American war in Vietnam. Several areas of the Phu Cat base were found to have elevated levels of dioxin requiring remediation (above 1000 ppt in soil or 150 ppt in sediment).
In fact Lai Khe was nicknamed Rocket City because of all the incoming rockets and mortar rounds, usually at night. We called the tall communications tower by HQ with its glowing red aviation warning lights “Charlie's Goalposts.”
Long Binh PostLong Binh Post was a sprawling logistics facility and the largest U.S. Army base in Vietnam, with a peak of 60,000 personnel in 1969.
Cam Ranh Air Force Base is located on Cam Ranh Bay in Khánh Hòa Province, Vietnam. It was one of several air bases built and used by the United States Air Force (USAF) during the Vietnam War....Cam Ranh Base.Cam Ranh Air Force BaseConditionJoint Civil/Military AirportSite historyBuilt1965In use1965–present6 more rows
Service Records The National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis maintains Vietnam War Official Military Personnel Files (OMPF). Access to Non-Archival Military Service Records is limited. Non-Archival records are those of service members who separated from the military less than 62 years ago.
24. Project Delta, Detachment B-52, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), the most decorated single unit in the Vietnam War, had a memorial stone dedicated in their honor and placed in the Memorial Plaza at the USASOC headquarters.
MACV-SOG—Military Assistance Command, Vietnam—Special Operations Group (later renamed Studies and Observations Group)—was the elite military unit of the Vietnam War, so secret that its existence was denied by the U.S. government.
He earned 38 military decorations during his career, and has been called the most decorated U.S. soldier of the Vietnam War....Jorge Otero BarretoYears of service1959–1970RankSergeant First ClassUnit101st Airborne 25th Infantry 82nd Airborne 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat TeamBattles/warsVietnam War ( WIA )6 more rows
In Phase Three, Westmoreland plans to destroy the Viet Cong’s infrastructure and turn over to a completely retrained South Vietnamese Army a major portion of the defense of the Demilitarized Zone and other areas.
One recent batch of captured documents, for example, turned up a directive issued by the Viet Cong’s Political Staff Department warning against “confusion of mind, fear of hardships and protracted war, lack of heroism and loss of revolutionary pride.”
Others believe that strategists in Hanoi have made a conscious decision to accept vastly increased losses in order to raise the number of American casualties to a point where it may become politically indigestible in the U.S.
There are nearly 200,000 South Vietnamese regulars, militia and irregulars operating in the delta, along with 9,000 U.S. troops, and they have inflicted serious wounds on the enemy.
troops who otherwise could be used in search-and-destroy operations or the pacification program.
VIETNAM WAR MAP: IV CORPS (from Newsweek – January 1, 1968) The sixteen southern provinces in and around the Mekong River delta comprise the richest part of all Vietnam, its rice bowl. The government claims to control more than 50 percent of the 6.5 million people in the watery region, but in many areas its grip is tenuous.
I Corps. Also known as “Eye Corps,” this encompasses the five northernmost provinces in South Vietnam, along with two major cities — Hue and Da Nang.
The Army's base development activities in South Vietnam during 1965-68 have been reviewed in a series of assessments: "Observations on the Construction Program Vietnam" by Brigadier General Daniel A. Raymond (June 1967); the Chief of Engineers sponsored Seeman Board (February 1968); the joint Chiefs of Staff sponsored Special Military Construction Study Group (October 1968); and the Office, Secretary of Defense's Joint Logistic Review Board (September 1970). Several major problem areas and corrective actions were revealed and suggested in these assessments.
Perhaps the major difference is that bases are planned to serve specific ends, while towns are usually unplanned and grow on the basis of expediency rather than purpose.
Loyd served two years in the military then used his veteran's benefits to get a seco... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL.
Also greeting us was the exotic, pungent smell of the Vietnamese fish sauce called nuoc mam.
Especially in a war zone, Soldiers are on call 24 hours a day.
Yes, there were hardships and danger, but also good times shared with other young Army troopers. Compared to the dangers and hardships faced in the military, to returning war veterans, civilian complaints about most things seem petty. Returning stateside from Third World countries, veterans also realize that most Americans have little concept of how well off they are.
During the Vietnam era this was not always the case. Suffice to say it was a different era and mindset than today.
The 2 largest bases in number of personnel were the support bases at Long Binh (35,000+) and SaigonTan San Nhut (25,000+) . It took an estimated 10 support personnel to support each infantry Soldier or Marine in the field. Land area wise one would suspect that airfields with the long runways would be the largest but again the support and headquarters areas at Long Binh and SaigonTan Son Nhut were by far the largest. Phu Loi with it's helicopters and huge maintenance facility (440,000 square feet) was by far the busiest airfield in Vietnam. Danang and Saigon were thought to be the largest ports b
The North was very attuned to this, they were smart enough to see Tet as a strategic victory because of its effect on US public perceptions even though it failed in most of its tactical goals.
Then there was Danang AFB, in the south of center Vietnam, as large and as important as Bien Hoà.
It was a war where the enemy could be anywhere, particularly any area the the American army nominally held. It was a war in which the United States could not strike a knockout blow that would automatically caus
During this period, which marked the second phase of the US training mission in Vietnam, the Americans and French worked togeth- er to bolster the South Vietnamese armed forces. President Dwight D. Eisenhower decided that with the departure of French forces looming, the United States would undertake the daunting task of building South Vietnamese forces capable of withstanding the Communist insurgency. Army Chief of Staff Matthew Ridgway warned that such an undertak- ing would be “hopeless” unless “a reasonably strong, stable, civil gov- ernment” existed first.5Secretary of State John Foster Dulles disagreed, arguing that “one of the most efficient means of enabling the Vietnamese government to become strong is to assist it in reorganizing the National Army and in training that Army.”6
On 7 March, South Vietnamese troops entered Tchepone. The ARVN had reached their objective, but by this time, the NVA forces had increased to 12 infantry regiments, two tank battalions, an artillery regiment, and at least 19 antiaircraft battalions.49The South Vietnamese forces in Laos were in a precarious situation.
However, in the end, the ARVN was structured and trained to meet a possible external attack by the PAVN , not the actual struggle against the National Liberation Front.13
ARVN would be formed from the remnants of the Vietnamese Nation- al Army (VNA), which had been created by the French in 1950 out of units that had been native auxiliaries to the French Union Forces in their fight against the Vietminh. The US training advisors were faced with a daunt- ing challenge—how to transform the VNA into a viable force that could defend the fledgling Republic of Vietnam against the growing insurgency. The VNA suffered from a number of serious maladies. First of all, it was tainted in the eyes of many South Vietnamese people because of its previ- ous role as part of the French colonial forces. Additionally, the VNA was organized primarily in small units which were concentrated in non-combat arms. It lacked senior command experience and the senior officer ranks that existed were highly politicized.8Making matters worse, the VNA was rife with corruption. By 1954, the VNA, numbering some 150,000 men, suffered from de- sertion and defection and according to one US report, had experienced “a complete breakdown of combat capabilities.”9It was on this unsteady foundation that the Army of the Republic of Vietnam would be built. The first item of business was to assist in the recovery of American equipment that had been provided to the French and Vietnamese forces and to assist in the establishment of a viable logistics capability to support the new South Vietnamese Army. Accordingly, the Temporary Equipment Recovery Mission, known as TERM, was created in February 1956. This organization would be subordinate to MAAG-V and, besides focusing on logistics, would also provide a manpower pool of personnel who could be utilized as trainers and advisors. In the beginning, the key question in the creation of the new Army of the Republic of Vietnam was: “What kind of army was this to be?” In the early years of the US training mission in Vietnam, there was some ef- fort to train the South Vietnamese forces for civic action and pacification. However, over time as the insurgency gained momentum, less and less emphasis was given to the special aspects of counter-guerrilla warfare; the focus shifted to preparing the force for the worst threat scenario—guer- rilla main force units and an external invasion from North Vietnam.10In so doing, the Military Assistance Advisory Group in Vietnam was greatly influenced by the recent US experience in South Korea, which had seen a conventional invasion by North Korean forces almost result in the demise of the Republic of Korea. Accordingly, the American training mission in South Vietnam focused its efforts on creating a South Vietnamese military force built around field divisions that mirrored US Army light infantry divisions that was expected to handle both internal security and resist a
By the end of 1962, the NLF, including both political and armed elements, had grown to an estimated 300,000 members. Meanwhile, the ARVN continued to experience severe internal prob- lems, to include rampant corruption and poor leadership, and remained largely ineffective in combating the rapidly growing insurgency. This was demonstrated only too clearly at the Battle of Ap Bac on 2 January 1963. Although the battle was reported as a great victory for the ARVN because the Viet Cong quit the battlefield after the fighting, the outcome had been just the opposite—in reality, a small VC force had soundly defeated a much larger force from the 7th ARVN Division before withdrawing from the area in good order. While his military forces struggled to combat the insurgents in the field, Diem, a Catholic, and his regime became less and less popular as he turned to more repressive measures in an attempt to curtail dissident ele- ments within South Vietnamese society. Diem’s brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, head of the secret police, identified militant Buddhists as a source of trou- ble for the regime. Charging them with harboring Communists and sup- porting anti-Diem forces, Nhu launched a campaign against the Buddhists to bring them under control. The situation came to a head in May 1963 when ARVN troops fired into a crowd of Buddhist demonstrators in Hue who had taken to the streets to protest Diem’s discriminatory policies. This was followed in June by the self-immolation of a Buddhist monk who set himself on fire in protest at a Saigon intersection, an act that made bold headlines around the world and caused maximum consternation in Wash- ington. When Nhu sent his special forces into a number of Buddhist mon- asteries, resulting in the killing of several monks and the arrest of many others, this set off a wave of student protests in Hue and Saigon in which 4,000 students were rounded up and arrested by government troops. The Communists seized the opportunity to fuel anti-Diem sentiment to create further political instability. Ultimately the Kennedy administration lost faith in Diem and gave tacit approval for a coup led by a group of South Vietnamese generals. During the course of the coup that occurred in early November 1963, Diem and his brother were assassinated. Barely three weeks later, President Kennedy was assassinated and Lyndon Baines Johnson became president, inheriting the worsening sit- uation in Vietnam where the war was going badly for the South Viet-
The war challenged the US military in unexpected ways while also testing the nation’s social cohesion. The conflict evolved over time, from an advisory effort to a campaign largely characterized by conven- tional combat operations, often against a near peer adversary—the North Vietnamese Army. In its last years, the US Army once again took up an ad- visory role as it gradually returned responsibility for the war to the South Vietnamese government. The US military’s withdrawal in 1973 and North Vietnamese victory in 1975 ensured that the war’s legacy would remain fraught, for both American society and its Army. This collection traces the evolution of America’s involvement in Vietnam. The author of these chapters, James H. Willbanks, has devoted much of his professional life to service in and study of the conflict. As a young US Army Infantry officer, Jim served as an advisor to the South Vietnamese Army during the North Vietnamese Easter Offensive in 1972. He served 23 years in uniform, received a Doctorate in History, and af- ter retiring from active duty, continued his service as the Director of the Department of Military History at the US Army Command and General Staff College. In 2016, he was appointed the George C. Marshall Chair of Military History at the college, the position from which he retired in 2018. Jim published 12 books on Vietnam during his career. He also published multiple article-length works on Vietnam, 11 of which appear in this vol- ume. These chapters cover, albeit loosely, the course of the conflict, from the initial advisory effort and the buildup of conventional forces through the Tet Offensive and the ultimate decision to “Vietnamize” the war. Because of its broad treatment, this volume is relevant to the challeng - es faced by current military professionals. Its chapters offer insights on se- curity assistance, conventional combat operations, irregular warfare, and other related subjects. While the Vietnam War is now five decades in the past, the experiences of the Soldiers who fought it can and should be used to illuminate the path ahead for today’s Army. CSI – The Past is Prologue!
By this time, after having gone through more than 200 changes to the tables of organization and equipment, the objective force for the Army of the Republic of Vietnam became seven standard divisions of 10,450 men each organized into three army corps.15