From: AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY, Center of Military History, 
United States Army, Washington, D.C., 1989

Chapter 28, THE U.S. ARMY IN VIETNAM, by Vincent H. Demma

The Vietnam War was the legacy of France's failure to suppress 
nationalist forces in Indochina as it struggled to restore its 
colonial dominion after World War II. Led by Ho Chi Minh, a 
Communist-dominated revolutionary movement-the Viet Minh-waged a 
political and military struggle for Vietnamese independence that 
frustrated the efforts of the French and resulted ultimately in 
their ouster from the region.

The U.S. Army's first encounters with Ho Chi Minh were brief and 
sympathetic. During World War II, Ho's anti-Japanese resistance 
fighters helped to rescue downed American pilots and furnished 
information on Japanese forces in Indochina. U.S. Army officers 
stood at Ho's side in August 1945 as he basked in the short-
lived satisfaction of declaring Vietnam's independence. Five 
years later, however, in an international climate tense with 
ideological and military confrontation between Communist and 
non-Communist powers, Army advisers of the newly formed U.S. 
Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG), Indochina, were 
aiding France against the Viet Minh. With combat raging in Korea 
and mainland China recently fallen to the Communists, the war in 
Indochina now appeared to Americans as one more pressure point 
to be contained on a wide arc of Communist expansion in Asia. By 
underwriting French military efforts in Southeast Asia, the 
United States enabled France to sustain its economic recovery 
and to contribute, through the North Atlantic Treaty 
Organization (NATO), to the collective defense of western 
Europe.

Provided with aircraft, artillery, tanks, vehicles, weapons, and 
other equipment and supplies-a small portion of which they 
distributed to an anti-Communist Vietnamese army they had 
organized-the French did not fail for want of equipment. 
Instead, they put American aid at the service of a flawed 
strategy that sought to defeat the elusive Viet Minh in set-
piece battles, but neglected to cultivate the loyalty and 
support of the Vietnamese people. Too few in number to provide 
more than a veneer of security in most rural areas, the French 
were unable to suppress the guerrillas or to prevent the 
underground Communist shadow government from reappearing 
whenever French forces left one area to fight elsewhere.

The battle of Dien Bien Phu epitomized the shortcomings of 
French strategy. Located near the Laotian border in a rugged 
valley of remote northwestern Vietnam, Dien Bien Phu was not a 
congenial place to fight. Far inland from coastal supply bases 
and with roads vulnerable to the Viet Minh, the base depended 
almost entirely on air support. The French, expecting the Viet 
Minh to invade Laos, occupied Dien Bien Phu in November 1953 in 
order to force a battle. Yet they had little to gain from an 
engagement. Victory at Dien Bien Phu would not have ended the 
war; even if defeated, the Viet Minh would have retired to their 
mountain redoubts. And no French victory at Dien Bien Phu would 
have reduced Communist control over large segments of the 
population. On the other hand, the French had much to lose, in 
manpower, equipment, and prestige.

Their position was in a valley, surrounded by high ground that 
the Viet Minh quickly fortified. While bombarding the besieged 
garrison with artillery and mortars, the attackers tunneled 
closer to the French positions. Supply aircraft that 
successfully ran the gauntlet of intense antiaircraft fire 
risked destruction on the ground from Viet Minh artillery. 
Eventually supplies and  ammunition could be delivered to the 
defenders only by parachute drop As the situation became 
critical, France asked the United States to intervene. Believing 
that the French position was untenable and that even massive 
American air attacks using small nuclear bombs would be futile, 
General Matthew B. Ridgway, the Army Chief of Staff, helped to 
convince President Dwight D. Eisenhower not to aid them. Ridgway 
also opposed the use of U.S. ground forces, arguing that such an 
effort would severely strain the Army and possibly lead to a 
wider war in Asia. 

The fall of Dien Bien Phu on 7 May 1954, as peace negotiations 
were about to start in Geneva, hastened France's disengagement 
from Indochina. On 20 July, France and the Viet Minh agreed to 
end hostilities and to divide Vietnam temporarily into two zones 
at the 17th parallel. In the North, the Viet Minh established a 
Communist government, with its capital at Hanoi. French forces 
withdrew to the South, and hundreds of thousands of civilians, 
most of whom were Roman Catholics, accompanied them. The 
question of unification was left to be decided by an election 
scheduled for 1956.

The Emergence of South Vietnam

As the Viet Minh consolidated control in the North, Ngo Dinh 
Diem, a Roman Catholic of mandarin background, sought to assert 
his authority over the chaotic conditions in the South in hopes 
of establishing an anti-Communist state. A onetime minister in 
the French colonial administration Diem enjoyed a reputation for 
honesty. He had resigned his office in 1933 and had taken no 
part in the tumultuous events that swept over Vietnam after the 
war. Diem returned to Saigon in the summer of 1954 as premier 
with no political following except his family and a few 
Americans. His authority was challenged, first by the 
independent Hoa Hao and Cao Dai religious sects and, then by the 
Binh Xuyen, an organization of gangsters that controlled 
Saigon's gambling dens and brothels and had strong influence 
with the police. Rallying an army, Diem defeated the sects and 
gained their grudging allegiance. Remnants of their forces, 
however, fled to the jungle to continue their resistance, and 
some, at a later date, became the nucleus of Communist guerrilla 
units.

Diem was also challenged by members of his own army, where 
French influence persisted among the highest ranking officers. 
But he weathered the threat of an army coup, dispelling American 
doubts about his ability to survive in the jungle of Vietnamese 
politics. For the next few years, the United States commitment 
to defend South Vietnam's independence was synonymous with 
support for Diem. Americans now provided advice and support to 
the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN); at Diem's request, 
they replaced French advisers throughout his nation's military 
establishment.

As the American role in South Vietnam was growing, U.S. defense 
policy was undergoing review. Officials in the Eisenhower 
administration believed that wars like those in Korea and 
Vietnam were too costly and ought to be avoided in the future. 
"Never again" was the rallying cry of those who opposed sending 
U.S. ground forces to fight a conventional war in Asia. Instead, 
the Eisenhower administration relied on the threat or use of 
massive nuclear retaliation to deter or, if necessary, to defeat 
the armies of the Soviet Union or Communist China. The New Look, 
as this policy was called, emphasized nuclear air power at the 
expense of conventional ground forces. If deterrence failed, 
planners envisioned the next war as a short, violent nuclear 
conflict of a few days' duration, conducted with forces in 
being. Ground forces were relegated to a minor role, and 
mobilization was regarded as an unnecessary luxury. In 
consequence, the Army's share of the defense budget decreased, 
the modernization of its forces was delayed, and its strength 
was reduced by 40 percent-from 1,404,598 in 1954 to 861,964 in 
1956.

A strategy dependent on one form of military power, the New Look 
was sharply criticized by soldiers and academics alike. Unless 
the United States was willing to risk destruction, critics 
argued, the threat of massive nuclear retaliation had little 
credibility. General Ridgway and his successor, General Maxwell 
D. Taylor, were vocal opponents. Both advocated balanced forces 
to enable the United States to cope realistically with a variety 
of military contingencies. The events of the late 1950's 
appeared to support their demand for flexibility. The United 
States intervened in Lebanon in 1956 to restore political 
stability there. Two years later an American military show of 
force in the Straits of Taiwan helped to dampen tensions between 
Communist China and the Nationalist Chinese Government on 
Formosa. Both contingencies underlined the importance of 
avoiding any fixed concept of war.

Advocates of the flexible response doctrine foresaw a meaningful 
role for the Army as part of a more credible deterrent and as a 
means of intervening, when necessary, in limited and small wars. 
They wished to strengthen both conventional and unconventional 
forces; to improve strategic and tactical mobility and to 
maintain troops and equipment at forward bases, close to likely 
areas of conflict. They placed a premium on highly responsive 
command and control, to allow a close meshing of military 
actions with political goals. The same reformers were deeply 
interested in the conduct of brushfire wars, especially among 
the underdeveloped nations. In the so-called third world, 
competing cold war ideologies and festering nationalistic, 
religious, and social conflicts interacted with the disruptive 
forces of modernization to create the preconditions for open 
hostilities. Southeast Asia was one of several such areas 
identified by the Army. Here the United States' central concern 
was the threat of North Vietnamese and perhaps Chinese 
aggression against South Vietnam and other non-Communist states.

The United States took the lead in forming a regional defense 
pact, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), signaling 
its commitment to contain Communist encroachment in the region. 
Meanwhile the 342 American advisers of MAAG, Vietnam (which 
replaced MAAG, Indochina, in 1955), trained and organized Diem's 
fledgling army to resist an invasion from the North. Three MAAG 
chiefs-Lt. Gens. John W. O'Daniel, Samuel T Williams, and Lionel 
C. McGarr-reorganized South Vietnam's light mobile infantry 
groups into infantry divisions, compatible in design and mission 
with U.S. defense plans. The South Vietnamese Army, with a 
strength of about 150,000, was equipped with standard Army 
equipment and given the mission of delaying the advance of any 
invasion force until the arrival of American reinforcements. The 
residual influence of the army's earlier French training, 
however, lingered in both leadership and tactics. The South 
Vietnamese had little or no practical experience in 
administration and the higher staff functions, from which the 
French had excluded them.

The MAAG's training and reorganization work was often 
interrupted by Diem's use of his army to conduct "pacification" 
campaigns to root out stay-behind Viet Minh cadre. Hence 
responsibility for most internal security was transferred to 
poorly trained and ill-equipped paramilitary forces, the Civil 
Guard and Self-Defense Corps, which numbered about 75,000. For 
the most part, the Viet Minh in the South avoided armed action 
and subscribed to a political action program in anticipation of 
Vietnam-wide elections in 1956, as stipulated by the Geneva 
Accords. But Diem, supported by the United States, refused to 
hold elections, claiming that undemocratic conditions in the 
North precluded a fair contest. (Some observers thought Ho Chi 
Minh sufficiently popular in the South to defeat Diem.) Buoyed 
by his own election as President in 1955 and by the adulation of 
his American supporters, Diem's political strength rose to its 
apex. While making some political and economic reforms, he 
pressed hard his attacks on political opponents and former Viet 
Minh, many of whom were not Communists at all but patriots who 
had joined the movement to fight for Vietnamese independence.

By 1957 Diem's harsh measures had so weakened the Viet Minh that 
Communist leaders in the South feared for the movement's 
survival there. The southerners urged their colleagues in the 
North to sanction a new armed struggle in South Vietnam. For 
self-protection, some Viet Minh had fled to secret bases to hide 
and form small units. Others joined renegade elements of the 
former sect armies. From bases in the mangrove swamps of the 
Mekong Delta, in the Plain of Reeds near the Cambodian border, 
and in the jungle of War Zones C and D northwest of Saigon, the 
Communists began to rebuild their armed forces, to re-establish 
an underground political network, and to carry out propaganda, 
harassment, and terrorist activities. As reforms faltered and 
Diem became more dictatorial, the ranks of the rebels swelled 
with the politically disaffected. 

The Rise of the Viet Cong

The insurgents, now called the Viet Cong, had organized several 
companies and a few battalions by 1959, the majority in the 
Delta and the provinces around Saigon. As Viet Cong military 
strength increased, attacks against the paramilitary forces, and 
occasionally against the South Vietnamese Army, became more 
frequent. Many were conducted to obtain equipment, arms, and 
ammunition, but all were hailed by the guerrillas as evidence of 
the government's inability to protect its citizens. Political 
agitation and military activity also quickened in the Central 
Highlands, where Viet Cong agents recruited among the Montagnard 
tribes. In 1959, after assessing conditions in the South, the 
leaders in Hanoi agreed to resume the armed struggle, giving it 
equal weight with political efforts to undermine Diem and 
reunify Vietnam. To attract the growing number of anti-
Communists opposed to Diem, as well as to provide a democratic 
facade for administering the party's policies in areas 
controlled by the Viet Cong, Hanoi in December 1960 created the 
National Liberation Front of South Vietnam. The revival of 
guerrilla warfare in the South found the advisory group, the 
South Vietnamese Army, and Diem's government ill prepared to 
wage an effective campaign. In their efforts to train and 
strengthen Diem's army, U.S. advisers had concentrated on 
meeting the threat of a conventional North Vietnamese invasion. 
The ARVN's earlier antiguerrilla campaigns, while seemingly 
successful, had been carried out against a weak and dormant 
insurgency. The Civil Guard and Self-Defense Corps, which bore 
the brunt of the Viet Cong's attacks, were not under the MAAG's 
purview and proved unable to cope with the audacious Viet Cong. 
Diem's regime, while stressing military activities, neglected 
political, social, and economic reforms. American officials 
disagreed over the seriousness of the guerrilla threat, the 
priority to be accorded political or military measures, and the 
need for special counterguerrilla training for the South 
Vietnamese Army. Only a handful of the MAAG's advisers had 
personal experience in counterinsurgency warfare.

Yet the U.S. Army was not a stranger to such conflict. Americans 
had fought insurgents in the Philippines at the turn of the 
century, conducted a guerrilla campaign in Burma during World 
War II, helped the Greek and Philippine Governments to subdue 
Communist insurgencies after the war, and studied the French 
failure in Indochina and the British success in Malaya. The Army 
did not, however, have a comprehensive doctrine for dealing with 
insurgency. For the most part, insurgent warfare was equated 
with the type of guerrilla or partisan struggles carried out 
during World War II behind enemy lines in support of 
conventional operations. This viewpoint reduced antiguerrilla 
warfare to providing security against enemy partisans operating 
behind friendly lines.

Almost totally lacking was an appreciation of the political and 
social dimensions of insurgency and its role in the larger 
framework of revolutionary war. Insurgency meant above all a 
contest for political legitimacy and power-a struggle between 
contending political cultures over the organization of society. 
Most of the Army advisers and Special Forces who were sent to 
South Vietnam in the early 1960's were poorly prepared to wage 
such a struggle A victory for counterinsurgency in South Vietnam 
would require Diem's government not only to outfight the 
guerrillas, but to compete successfully with their efforts to 
organize the population in support of the government's cause.

The Viet Cong thrived on their access to and control of the 
people, who formed the most important part of their support 
base. The population provided both economic and manpower 
resources to sustain and expand the insurgency; the people of 
the villages served the guerrillas as their first line of 
resistance against government intrusion into their "liberated 
zones" and bases. By comparison with their political effort, the 
strictly military aims of the Viet Cong were secondary. The 
insurgents hoped not to destroy government forces-although they 
did so when weaker elements could be isolated and defeated-but 
by limited actions to extend their influence over the 
population. By mobilizing the population, the Viet Cong 
compensated for their numerical and material disadvantages. The 
rule of thumb that ten soldiers were needed to defeat one 
guerrilla reflected the insurgents' political support rather 
than their military superiority. For the Saigon government, the 
task of isolating the Viet Cong from the population was 
difficult under any circumstances and impossible to achieve by 
force alone.

Viet Cong military forces varied from hamlet and village 
guerrillas, who were farmers by day and fighters by night, to 
full-time professional soldiers. Organized into squads and 
platoons, part-time guerrillas had several military functions. 
They gathered intelligence, passing it on to district or 
provincial authorities; they proselytized, propagandized, 
recruited, and provided security for local cadres. They 
reconnoitered the battlefield, served as porters and guides, 
created diversions, evacuated wounded, and retrieved weapons. 
Their very presence and watchfulness in a hamlet or village 
inhibited the population from aiding the government.

By contrast, the local and main force units consisted of full-
time soldiers, most often recruited from the area where the unit 
operated. Forming companies and battalions, local forces were 
attached to a village, district, or provincial headquarters. 
Often they formed the protective shield behind which a Communist 
Party cadre established its political infrastructure and 
organized new guerrilla elements at the hamlet and village 
levels. As the link between guerrilla and main force units, 
local forces served as a reaction force for the former and as a 
pool of replacements and reinforcements for the latter. Having 
limited offensive capability, local forces usually attacked 
poorly defended, isolated outposts or weaker paramilitary 
forces, often at night and by ambush. Main force units were 
organized as battalions, regiments, and-as the insurgency 
matured-divisions. Subordinate to provincial, regional, and 
higher commands, such units were the strongest, most mobile, and 
most offensive-minded of the Viet Cong forces; their mission 
often was to attack and defeat a specific South Vietnamese unit.

Missions were assigned and approved by a political officer who, 
in most cases, was superior to the unit's military commander. 
Party policy, military discipline, and unit cohesion were 
inculcated and reinforced by three-man party cells in every 
unit. Among the insurgents, war was always the servant of 
policy.

As the Viet Cong's control over the population increased, their 
military forces grew in number and size. Squads and platoons 
became companies, companies formed battalions, and battalions 
were organized into regiments This process of creating and 
enlarging units continued as long as the Viet Cong had a base of 
support among the population. After 1959, however, infiltrators 
from the North also became important. Hanoi activated a special 
military transportation unit to control overland infiltration 
along the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos and Cambodia. Then a 
special naval unit was set up to conduct sea infiltration. At 
first, the infiltrators were southern-born Viet Minh soldiers 
who had regrouped north after the French Indochina War. Each 
year until 1964, thousands returned south to join or to form 
Viet Cong units, usually in the areas where they had originated. 
Such men served as experienced military or political cadres, as 
technicians, or as rank-and-file combatants wherever local 
recruitment was difficult.

When the pool of about 80,000 so-called regroupees ran dry, 
Hanoi began sending native North Vietnamese soldiers as 
individual replacements and reinforcements. In 1964 the 
Communists started to introduce entire North Vietnamese Army 
(NVA) units into the South. Among the infiltrators were senior 
cadres, who manned the expanding Viet Cong command system-
regional headquarters, interprovincial commands, and the Central 
Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), the supreme military and 
political headquarters. As the southern branch of the Vietnamese 
Communist party COSVN was directly subordinate to the Central 
Committee in Hanoi; It's senior commanders were high-ranking 
officers of North Vietnam's Army. To equip the growing number of 
Viet Cong forces in the South, the insurgents continued to rely 
heavily on arms and supplies captured from South Vietnamese 
forces. But increasingly, large numbers of weapons, ammunition 
and other equipment arrived from the North, nearly all supplied 
by the Sino-Soviet bloc.

From a strength of approximately 5,000 at the start of 1959 the 
Viet Cong's ranks grew to about 100,000 at the end of 1964. The 
number of infiltrators alone during that period was estimated at 
41,000. The growth of the insurgency reflected not only North 
Vietnam's skill in infiltrating men and weapons but South 
Vietnam's inability to control its porous borders, Diem's 
failure to develop a credible pacification program to reduce 
Viet Cong influence in the countryside, and the South Vietnamese 
Army's difficulties in reducing long-standing Viet Cong bases 
and secret zones. Such areas not only facilitated infiltration 
but were staging areas for operations; they contained training 
camps, hospitals, depots, workshops, and command centers. Many 
bases were in remote areas seldom visited by the army, such as 
the U Minh Forest or the Plain of Reeds. But others existed in 
the heart of populated areas, in the "liberated zones." There 
Viet Cong forces, dispersed among hamlets and villages, drew 
support from the local economy. From such centers the Viet Cong 
expanded their influence into adjacent areas that were nominally 
under Saigon's control.

A New President Takes Charge

Soon after John F. Kennedy became President in 1961, he sharply 
increased military and economic aid to South Vietnam to help 
Diem defeat the growing insurgency. For Kennedy, insurgencies 
(or "wars of national liberation" in the parlance of Communist 
leaders) were a challenge to international security every bit as 
serious as nuclear war. The administration's approach to both 
extremes of conflict rested on the precepts of the flexible 
response. Regarded as a form of "sub-limited" or small war, 
insurgency was treated largely as a military problem-
conventional war writ small-and hence susceptible to resolution 
by timely and appropriate military action. Kennedy's success in 
applying calculated military pressures to compel the Soviet 
Union to remove its offensive missiles from Cuba in 1962 
reinforced the administration's disposition to deal with other 
international crises, including the conflict in Vietnam, in a 
similar manner.

Though an advance over the New Look, his policy also had 
limitations. Long-term strategic planning tended to be 
sacrificed to short-term crisis management. Planners were all 
too apt to assume that all belligerents were rational and that 
the foe subscribed as they did to the seductive logic of the 
flexible response. Hoping to give the South Vietnamese a margin 
for success, Kennedy periodically authorized additional military 
aid and support between 1961 and November 1963, when he was 
assassinated. But potential benefits were nullified by the 
absence of a clear doctrine and a coherent operational strategy 
for the conduct of counterinsurgency, and by chronic military 
and political shortcomings on the part of the South Vietnamese.

The U.S. Army played a major role in Kennedy's "beef up" of the 
American advisory and support efforts in South Vietnam. In turn, 
that role was made possible in large measure by Kennedy's 
determination to increase the strength and capabilities of Army 
forces for both conventional and unconventional operations. 
Between 1961 and 1964 the Army's strength rose from about 
850,000 to nearly a million men, and the number of combat 
divisions grew from eleven to sixteen. These increases were 
backed up by an ambitious program to modernize Army equipment 
and, by stockpiling supplies and equipment at forward bases, to 
increase the deployability and readiness of Army combat forces. 
The build-up, however, did not prevent the call-up of 120,000 
Reservists to active duty in the summer of 1961, a few months 
after Kennedy assumed office. Facing renewed Soviet threats to 
force the Western Powers out of Berlin, Kennedy mobilized the 
Army to reinforce NATO, if need be. But the mobilization 
revealed serious shortcomings in Reserve readiness and produced 
a swell of criticism and complaints from Congress and Reservists 
alike. Although Kennedy sought to remedy the deficiencies that 
were exposed and set in motion plans to reorganize the Reserves, 
the unhappy experience of the Berlin Crisis was fresh in the 
minds of national leaders when they faced the prospect of war in 
Vietnam a few years later.

Facing trouble spots in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast 
Asia, Kennedy took a keen interest in the U.S. Army's Special 
Forces, believing that their skills in unconventional warfare 
were well suited to countering insurgency. During his first year 
in office, he increased the strength of the Special Forces from 
about 1,500 to 9,000 and authorized them to wear a distinctive 
green beret. In the same year he greatly enlarged their role in 
South Vietnam. First under the auspices of the Central 
Intelligence Agency and then under a military commander, the 
Special Forces organized the highland tribes into the Civilian 
Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) and in time sought to recruit 
other ethnic groups and sects in the South as well. To this 
scheme, underwritten almost entirely by the United States, Diem 
gave only tepid support. Indeed, the civilian irregulars drew 
strength from groups traditionally hostile to Saigon. Treated 
with disdain by the lowland Vietnamese, the Montagnards 
developed close, trusting relations with their Army advisers. 
Special Forces detachment commanders frequently were the real 
leaders of CIDG units. This strong mutual bond of loyalty 
between adviser and highlander benefited operations, but some 
tribal leaders sought to exploit the special relationship to 
advance Montagnard political autonomy. On occasion, Special 
Forces advisers found themselves in the awkward position of 
mediating between militant Montagnards and South Vietnamese 
officials who were suspicious and wary of the Americans' 
sympathy for the highlanders.

Through a village self-defense and development program, the 
Special Forces aimed initially to create a military and 
political buffer to the growing Viet Cong influence in the 
Central Highlands. Within a few years, approximately 60,000 
highlanders had enlisted in the CIDG program. As their 
participation increased, so too did the range of Special Forces 
activities. In addition to village defense programs, the Green 
Berets sponsored offensive guerrilla activities and border 
surveillance and control measures. To detect and impede the Viet 
Cong, camps were established astride infiltration corridors and 
near enemy base areas, especially along the Cambodian and 
Laotian borders. But the camps themselves were vulnerable to 
enemy attack and, despite their presence, infiltration 
continued. At times, border control diverted tribal units from 
village defense, the original heart of the CIDG program.

By 1965, as the military situation in the highlands worsened, 
many CIDG units had changed their character and begun to engage 
in quasi-conventional military operations. In some instances, 
irregulars under the leadership of Army Special Forces stood up 
to crack enemy regiments, offering much of the military 
resistance to enemy efforts to dominate the highlands. Yet the 
Special Forces-despite their efforts in South Vietnam and in 
Laos, where their teams helped to train and advise anti-
Communist Laotian forces in the early 1960's-did not provide an 
antidote to the virulent insurgency in Vietnam. Long-standing 
animosities between Montagnard and Vietnamese prevented close, 
continuing co-operation between the South Vietnamese Army and 
the irregulars. Long on promises but short on action to improve 
the lot of the Montagnards, successive South Vietnamese regimes 
failed to win the loyalty of the tribesmen. And the Special 
Forces usually operated in areas that were remote from the main 
Viet Cong threat to the heavily populated and economically 
important Delta and coastal regions of the country.

Besides the Special Forces, the Army's most important 
contribution to the fight was the helicopter. Neither Kennedy 
nor the Army anticipated the rapid growth of aviation in South 
Vietnam when the first helicopter transportation company arrived 
in December 1961. Within three years, however, each of South 
Vietnam's divisions and corps was supported by Army helicopters, 
with the faster, more reliable and versatile UH-1 (Huey) 
replacing the older CH-21. In addition to transporting men and 
supplies, helicopters were used to reconnoiter, to evacuate 
wounded, and to provide command and control. The Vietnam 
conflict became the crucible in which Army airmobile and air 
assault tactics evolved. As armament was added-first machine 
gun-wielding door-gunners, and later rockets and mini-guns-armed 
helicopters began to protect troop carriers against antiaircraft 
fire, to suppress enemy fire around landing zones during air 
assaults, and to deliver fire support to troops on the ground. 
Army fixed-wing aircraft also flourished. Equipped with a 
variety of detection devices, the OV-1 Mohawk conducted day and 
night surveillance of Viet Cong bases and trails. The Caribou, 
with its sturdy frame and ability to land and take off on short, 
unimproved airfields, proved ideal to supply remote camps.

Army aviation revived old disagreements with the Air Force over 
the roles and missions of the two services and the adequacy of 
Air Force close air support. The expansion of the Army's own 
"air force" nevertheless continued, abetted by the Kennedy 
administration's interest in extending airmobility to all types 
of land warfare, from counterinsurgency to the nuclear 
battlefield. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara himself 
encouraged the Army to test an experimental air assault 
division. During 1963 and 1964 the Army demonstrated that 
helicopters could successfully replace ground vehicles for 
mobility and provide fire support in lieu of ground artillery. 
The result was the creation in 1965 of the 1st Cavalry Division 
(Airmobile)-the first such unit in the Army. In South Vietnam 
the helicopter's effect on organization and operations was as 
sweeping as the influence of mechanized forces in World War II. 
Many of the operational concepts of airmobility, rooted in 
cavalry doctrine and operations, were pioneered by helicopter 
units between 1961 and 1964, and later adopted by the new 
airmobile division and by all Army combat units that fought in 
South Vietnam.

In addition to Army Special Forces and helicopters, Kennedy 
greatly expanded the entire American advisory effort. Advisers 
were placed at the sector (provincial) level and were 
permanently assigned to infantry battalions and certain lower 
echelon combat units; additional intelligence advisers were sent 
to South Vietnam. Wide use was made of temporary training teams 
in psychological warfare, civic action, engineering, and a 
variety of logistical functions. With the expansion of the 
advisory and support efforts came demands for better 
communications, intelligence, and medical, logistical, and 
administrative support, all of which the Army provided from its 
active forces, drawing upon skilled men and units from U.S.-
based forces. The result was a slow, steady erosion of its 
capacity to meet worldwide contingency obligations. But if 
Vietnam depleted the Army, it also provided certain advantages. 
The war was a laboratory in which to test and evaluate new 
equipment and techniques applicable to counterinsurgency-among 
others, the use of chemical defoliants and herbicides, both to 
remove the jungle canopy that gave cover to the guerrillas and 
to destroy his crops. As the activities of all the services 
expanded, U.S. military strength in South Vietnam increased from 
under 700 at the start of 1960 to almost 24,000 by the end of 
1964. Of these, 15,000 were Army and a little over 2,000 were 
Army advisers.

Changes in American command arrangements attested to the growing 
commitment. In February 1962 the Joint Chiefs of Staff 
established the United States Military Assistance Command, 
Vietnam (USMACV), in Saigon as the senior American military 
headquarters in South Vietnam, and appointed General Paul D. 
Harkins as commander (COMUSMACV). Harkins reported to the 
Commander in Chief, Pacific (CINCPAC), in Hawaii, but because of 
high-level interest in South Vietnam, enjoyed special access to 
military and civilian leaders in Washington as well. Soon MACV 
moved into the advisory effort hitherto directed by the Military 
Assistance Advisory Group. To simplify the advisory chain of 
command, the latter was disestablished in May 1964, and MACV 
took direct control. As the senior Army commander in South 
Vietnam, the MACV commander also commanded Army support units; 
for day-to-day operations, however, control of such units was 
vested in the corps and division senior advisers. For 
administrative and logistical support Army units looked to the 
U.S. Army Support Group, Vietnam (later the U.S. Army Support 
Command), which was established in mid-1962.

Though command arrangements worked tolerably well, complaints 
were heard in and out of the Army. Some officials pressed for a 
separate Army component commander, who would be responsible both 
for operations and for logistical support-an arrangement enjoyed 
by other services in South Vietnam. Airmen tended to believe 
that an Army command already existed, disguised as MACV. They 
believed that General Harkins, though a joint commander, favored 
the Army in the bitter interservice rivalry over the roles and 
missions of aviation in South Vietnam. Some critics thought his 
span of control excessive, for Harkins' responsibility extended 
to Thailand, where Army combat units had deployed in 1962, 
aiming to overawe Communist forces in neighboring Laos. The Army 
undertook several logistical projects in Thailand, and Army 
engineers, signalmen, and other support forces remained there 
after combat forces withdrew in the fall of 1962.

While the Americans strengthened their position in South Vietnam 
and Thailand, the Communists tightened their grip in Laos. In 
1962 agreements on that small, land-locked nation were signed in 
Geneva requiring all foreign military forces to leave Laos. 
American advisers, including hundreds of Special Forces, 
departed. But the agreements were not honored by North Vietnam. 
Its army, together with Laotian Communist forces, consolidated 
their hold on areas adjacent to both North and South Vietnam 
through which passed the network of jungle roads called the Ho 
Chi Minh Trail. As a result, it became easier to move supplies 
south to support the Viet Cong in the face of the new dangers 
embodied in U.S. advisers, weapons, and tactics.

Counterinsurgency Falters

At first the enhanced mobility and firepower afforded the South 
Vietnamese Army by helicopters, armored personnel carriers, and 
close air support surprised and overwhelmed the Viet Cong. 
Saigon's forces reacted more , quickly to insurgent attacks and 
penetrated many Viet Cong areas. Even more threatening to the 
insurgents was Diem's strategic hamlet program, launched in late 
1961. Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, an ardent sponsor of 
the program, hoped to create thousands of new, fortified 
villages, often by moving peasants from their existing homes. 
Hamlet construction and defense were the responsibility of the 
new residents, with paramilitary and ARVN forces providing 
initial security while the peasants were recruited and 
organized. As security improved, Diem and Nhu hoped to enact 
social, economic, and political reforms which, when fully 
carried out, would constitute Saigon's revolutionary response to 
Viet Cong promises of social and economic betterment. If 
successful, the program might destroy the insurgency by 
separating and protecting the rural population from the Viet 
Cong, threatening the rebellion's base of support.

By early 1963, however, the Viet Cong had learned to cope with 
the army's new weapons and more aggressive tactics and had begun 
a campaign to eliminate the strategic hamlets. The insurgents 
became adept at countering helicopters and slow-flying aircraft 
and learned the vulnerabilities of armored personnel carriers. 
In addition, their excellent intelligence, combined with the 
predictability of ARVN's tactics and pattern of operations, 
enabled the Viet Cong to evade or ambush government forces. The 
new weapons the United States had provided the South Vietnamese 
did not compensate for the stifling influence of poor 
leadership, dubious tactics, and inexperience. The much 
publicized defeat of government forces at the Delta village of 
Ap Bac in January 1963 demonstrated both the Viet Cong's skill 
in countering ARVN's new capabilities and the latter's inherent 
weaknesses. Faulty intelligence, poorly planned and executed 
fire support, and over-cautious leadership contributed to the 
outcome. But Ap Bac's significance transcended a single battle. 
The defeat was a portent of things to come. Now able to 
challenge ARVN units of equal strength in quasi-conventional 
battles, the Viet Cong were moving into a more intense stage of 
revolutionary war.

As the Viet Cong became stronger and bolder, the South 
Vietnamese Army became more cautious and less offensive-minded. 
Government forces became reluctant to respond to Viet Cong 
depredations in the countryside, avoided night operations, and 
resorted to ponderous sweeps against vague military objectives, 
rarely making contact with their enemies. Meanwhile, the Viet 
Cong concentrated on destroying strategic hamlets, showing that 
they considered the settlements, rather than ARVN forces, the 
greater danger to the insurgency. Poorly defended hamlets and 
outposts were overrun or subverted by enemy agents who 
infiltrated with peasants arriving from the countryside.

The Viet Cong's campaign was aided by Saigon's failures. The 
government built too many hamlets to defend. Hamlet militia 
varied from those who were poorly trained and armed to those who 
were not trained or armed at all. Fearing that weapons given to 
the militia would fall to the Viet Cong, local officials often 
withheld arms. Forced relocation, use of forced peasant labor to 
construct hamlets, and tardy payment of compensation for 
relocation were but a few reasons why peasants turned against 
the program. Few meaningful reforms took place. Accurate 
information on the program's true condition and on the decline 
in rural security was hidden from Diem by officials eager to 
please him with reports of progress. False statistics and 
reports misled U.S. officials, too, about the progress of the 
counterinsurgency effort.

If the decline in rural security was not always apparent to 
Americans, the lack of enlightened political leadership on the 
part of Diem was all too obvious. Diem habitually interfered in 
military matters-bypassing the chain of command to order 
operations, forbidding commanders to take casualties, and 
appointing military leaders on the basis of political loyalty 
rather than competence. Many military and civilian appointees, 
especially province and district chiefs, were dishonest and put 
career and fortune above the national interest. When Buddhist 
opposition to certain policies erupted into violent 
antigovernment demonstrations in 1963, Diem's uncompromising 
stance and use of military force to suppress the demonstrators 
caused some generals to decide that the President was a 
liability in the fight against the Viet Cong. On 1 November, 
with American encouragement, a group of reform-minded generals 
ousted Diem, who was murdered along with his brother.

Political turmoil followed the coup. Emboldened, the insurgents 
stepped up operations and increased their control over many 
rural areas. North Vietnam's leaders decided to intensify the 
armed struggle, aiming to demoralize the South Vietnamese Army 
and further undermine political authority in the South. As Viet 
Cong military activity quickened, regular North Vietnamese Army 
units began to train for possible intervention in the war. Men 
and equipment continued to flow down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, with 
North Vietnamese conscripts replacing the dwindling pool of 
southerners who had belonged to the Viet Minh.

Setting the Stage for Confrontation

The critical state of rural security that came to light after 
Diem's death again prompted the United States to expand its 
military aid to Saigon. General Harkins and his successor 
General William C. Westmoreland urgently strove to revitalize 
pacification and counterinsurgency. Army advisers helped their 
Vietnamese counterparts to revise national and provincial 
pacification plans. They retained the concept of fortified 
hamlets as the heart of a new national counterinsurgency 
program, but corrected the old abuses, at least in theory. To 
help implement the program, Army advisers were assigned to the 
subsector (district) level for the first time, becoming more 
intimately involved in local pacification efforts and in 
paramilitary operations. Additional advisers were assigned to 
units and training centers, especially those of the Regional and 
Popular Forces (formerly called the Civil Guard and Self-Defense 
Corps). All Army activities, from aviation support to Special 
Forces, were strengthened in a concerted effort to undo the 
effects of years of Diem's mismanagement.

At the same time, American officials in Washington, Hawaii, and 
Saigon began to explore ways to increase military pressure 
against North Vietnam, In 1964 the South Vietnamese launched 
covert raids under MACV's auspices. Some military leaders, 
however, believed that only direct air strikes against North 
Vietnam would induce a change in Hanoi's policies by 
demonstrating American determination to defend South Vietnam's 
independence. Air strike plans ranged from immediate massive 
bombardment of military and industrial targets to gradually 
intensifying attacks spanning several months.

The interest in using air power reflected lingering sentiment in 
the United States against involving American ground forces once 
again in a land war on the Asian continent. Many of President 
Lyndon B. Johnson's advisers-among them General Maxwell D 
Taylor, who was appointed Ambassador to Saigon in mid-1964-
believed that a carefully calibrated air campaign would be the 
most effective means of exerting pressure against the North and, 
at the same time, the method least likely to provoke 
intervention by China. Taylor thought conventional Army ground 
forces ill suited to engage in day-to-day counterinsurgency 
operations against the Viet Cong in hamlets and villages. Ground 
forces might, however, be used to protect vital air bases in the 
South and to repel any North Vietnamese attack across the 
demilitarized zone, which separated North from South Vietnam. 
Together, a more vigorous counterinsurgency effort in the South 
and military pressure against the North might buy time for 
Saigon to put its political house in order, boost flagging 
military and civilian morale, and strengthen its military 
position in the event of a negotiated peace. Taylor and 
Westmoreland, the senior U.S. officials in South Vietnam, agreed 
that Hanoi was unlikely to change its course unless convinced 
that it could not succeed in the South. Both recognized that air 
strikes were neither a panacea nor a substitute for military 
efforts in the South.

As each side undertook more provocative military actions, the 
likelihood of a direct military confrontation between North 
Vietnam and the United States increased. The crisis came in 
early August 1964 in the international waters of the Gulf of 
Tonkin. North Vietnamese patrol boats attacked U.S. naval 
vessels engaged in surveillance of North Vietnam's coastal 
defenses. The Americans promptly launched retaliatory air 
strikes. At the request of President Johnson, Congress 
overwhelmingly passed the Southeast Asia Resolution-the so-
called Gulf of Tonkin Resolution-authorizing all actions 
necessary to protect American forces and to provide for the 
defense of the nation's allies in Southeast Asia. Considered by 
some in the administration as the equivalent of a declaration of 
war, this broad grant of authority encouraged Johnson to expand 
American military efforts within South Vietnam, against North 
Vietnam, and in Southeast Asia at large.

By late 1964, both sides were poised to increase their stake in 
the war. Regular NVA units had begun moving south and stood at 
the Laotian frontier, on the threshold of crossing into South 
Vietnam's Central Highlands. U.S. air and naval forces stood 
ready to renew their attacks. On 7 February 1965, Communist 
forces attacked an American compound in Pleiku in the Central 
Highlands and a few days later bombed American quarters in Qui 
Nhon. The United States promptly bombed military targets in the 
North. A few weeks later, President Johnson approved ROLLING 
THUNDER, a campaign of sustained, direct air strikes of 
progressively increasing strength against military and 
industrial targets in North Vietnam. Signs of intensifying 
conflict appeared in South Vietnam as well. Strengthening their 
forces at all echelons, from village guerrillas to main force 
regiments, the Viet Cong quickened military activity in late 
1964 and in the first half of 1965. At Binh Gia, a village forty 
miles east of Saigon in Phuoc Tuy Province, a multiregimental 
Viet Cong force-possibly the 1st Viet Cong Infantry Division-
fought and defeated several South Vietnamese battalions.

Throughout the spring the Viet Cong sought to disrupt 
pacification and oust the government from many rural areas. The 
insurgents made deep inroads in the central coastal provinces 
and withstood government efforts to reduce their influence in 
the Delta and in the critical provinces around Saigon. Committed 
to static defense of key towns and bases, government forces were 
unable or unwilling to respond to attacks against rural 
communities. In late spring and early summer, strong Communist 
forces sought a major military victory over the South Vietnamese 
Army by attacking border posts and highland camps. The enemy 
also hoped to draw government forces from populated areas, to 
weaken pacification further. By whipsawing war-weary ARVN forces 
between coast and highland and by inflicting a series of 
damaging defeats against regular units, the enemy hoped to 
undermine military morale and popular confidence in the Saigon 
government. And by accelerating the dissolution of government 
military forces, already racked by high desertions and 
casualties, the Communists hoped to compel the South Vietnamese 
to abandon the battlefield and seek an all-Vietnamese political 
settlement that would compel the United States to leave South 
Vietnam.

By the summer of 1965, the Viet Cong, strengthened by several 
recently infiltrated NVA regiments, had gained the upper hand 
over government forces in some areas of South Vietnam. With U.S. 
close air support and the aid of Army helicopter gunships, 
Saigon's forces repelled many enemy attacks, but suffered heavy 
casualties. Elsewhere highland camps and border outposts had to 
be abandoned. ARVN's cumulative losses from battle deaths and 
desertions amounted to nearly a battalion a week. Saigon was 
hard pressed to find men to replenish these heavy losses and 
completely unable to match the growth of Communist forces from 
local recruitment and infiltration. Some American officials 
doubted whether the South Vietnamese could hold out until 
ROLLING THUNDER created pressures sufficiently strong to 
convince North Vietnam's leaders to reduce the level of combat 
in the South. General Westmoreland and others believed that U.S. 
ground forces were needed to stave off an irrevocable shift of 
the military and political balance in favor of the enemy.

For a variety of diplomatic, political, and military reasons, 
President Johnson approached with great caution any commitment 
of large ground combat forces to South Vietnam. Yet preparations 
had been under way for some time. In early March 1965, a few 
days after ROLLING THUNDER began, American Marines went ashore 
in South Vietnam to protect the large airfield at Da Nang-a 
defensive security mission. Even as they landed, General Harold 
K. Johnson, Chief of Staff of the Army, was in South Vietnam to 
assess the situation. Upon returning to Washington, he 
recommended a substantial increase in American military 
assistance, including several combat divisions. He wanted U.S. 
forces either to interdict the Laotian panhandle to stop 
infiltration or to counter a growing enemy threat in the central 
and northern provinces.

But President Johnson sanctioned only the dispatch of additional 
marines to increase security at Da Nang and to secure other 
coastal enclaves. He also authorized the Army to begin deploying 
nearly 20,000 logistical troops, the main body of the 1st 
Logistical Command, to Southeast Asia. (Westmoreland had 
requested such a command in late 1964.) At the same time the 
President modified the Marines' mission to allow them to conduct 
offensive operations close to their bases. A few weeks later, to 
protect American bases in the vicinity of Saigon, Johnson 
approved sending the first Army combat unit, the 173d Airborne 
Brigade (Separate), to South Vietnam. Arriving from Okinawa in 
early May, the brigade moved quickly to secure the air base at 
Bien Hoa, just northeast of Saigon. With its arrival, U.S. 
military strength in South Vietnam passed 50,000. Despite added 
numbers and expanded missions, American ground forces had yet to 
engage the enemy in full-scale combat.

Indeed, the question of how best to use large numbers of 
American ground forces was still unresolved on the eve of their 
deployment. Focusing on population security and pacification, 
some planners saw U.S. combat forces concentrating their efforts 
in coastal enclaves and around key urban centers and bases. 
Under this plan, such forces would provide a security shield 
behind which the Vietnamese could expand the pacification zone; 
when required, American combat units would venture beyond their 
enclaves as mobile reaction forces.

This concept, largely defensive in nature, reflected the pattern 
established by the first Army combat units to enter South 
Vietnam. But the mobility and offensive firepower of U.S. ground 
units suggested their use in remote, sparsely populated regions 
to seek out and engage main force enemy units as they 
infiltrated into South Vietnam or emerged from their secret 
bases. While secure coastal logistical enclaves and base camps 
still would be required, the weight of the military effort would 
be focused on the destruction of enemy military units. Yet even 
in this alternative, American units would serve indirectly as a 
shield for pacification activities in the more heavily populated 
lowlands and Delta. A third proposal had particular appeal to 
General Johnson. He wished to employ U.S. and allied ground 
forces across the Laotian panhandle to interdict enemy 
infiltration into South Vietnam. Here was a more direct and 
effective way to stop infiltration than the use of air power. 
Encumbered by military and political problems, the idea was 
revived periodically but always rejected. The pattern of 
deployment that actually developed in South Vietnam was a 
compromise between the first two concepts.

For any type of operations, secure logistical enclaves at deep-
water ports (Cam Ranh Bay, Nha Trang, Qui Nhon, for example) 
were a military necessity. In such areas combat units arrived 
and bases developed for regional logistical complexes to support 
the troops. As the administration neared a decision on combat 
deployment, the Army began to identify and ready units for 
movement overseas and to prepare mobilization plans for Selected 
Reserve forces. The dispatch of Army units to the Dominican 
Republic in May 1965 to forestall a leftist take-over caused 
only minor adjustments to the build-up plans. The episode 
nevertheless showed how unexpected demands elsewhere in the 
world could deplete the strategic reserve, and it underscored 
the importance of mobilization if the Army was to meet worldwide 
contingencies and supply trained combat units to Westmoreland as 
well.

The prospect of deploying American ground forces also revived 
discussions of allied command arrangements. For a time, 
Westmoreland considered placing South Vietnamese and American 
forces under a single commander, an arrangement similar to that 
of U.S. and South Korean forces during the Korean War. In the 
face of South Vietnamese opposition, however, the idea was 
dropped. Arrangements with other allies were varied. Americans 
in South Vietnam were joined by combat units from Australia, New 
Zealand, South Korea, Thailand, and by noncombat elements from 
several other nations. Westmoreland entered into separate 
agreements with each commander in turn; the compacts ensured 
close co-operation with MACV, but fell short of giving 
Westmoreland command over the allied forces.

While diversity marked these arrangements, Westmoreland strove 
for unity within the American build-up. As forces began to 
deploy to South Vietnam, the Army again sought to elevate the 
U.S. Army, Vietnam (USARV), to a full-fledged Army component 
command with responsibility for combat operations. But 
Westmoreland successfully warded off the challenge to his dual 
role as unified commander of MACV and Army commander. For the 
remainder of the war, USARV performed solely in a logistical and 
administrative capacity; unlike MACV's air and naval component 
commands, the Army component did not exercise operational 
control over combat forces, special forces, or field advisers. 
However, through its logistical, engineer, signal, medical, 
military police, and aviation commands, all established in the 
course of the build-up, USARV commanded and managed a support 
base of unprecedented size and scope. Despite this victory, 
unity of command over the ground war in South Vietnam eluded 
Westmoreland, as did over-all control of U.S. military 
operations in support of the war. Most air and naval operations 
outside of South Vietnam, including ROLLING THUNDER, were 
carried out by the Commander in Chief, Pacific, and his air and 
naval commanders from his headquarters thousands of miles away 
in Hawaii. This patchwork of command arrangements contributed to 
the lack of a unified strategy, the fragmentation of operations, 
and the pursuit of parochial service interests to the detriment 
of the war effort. No single American commander had complete 
authority or responsibility to fashion an over-all strategy or 
to co-ordinate all military aspects of the war in Southeast 
Asia. Furthermore, Westmoreland labored under a variety of 
political and operational constraints on the use of the combat 
forces he did command. Like the Korean War, the struggle in 
South Vietnam was complicated by enemy sanctuaries and by 
geographical and political restrictions on allied operations. 
Ground forces were barred from operating across South Vietnam's 
borders into Cambodia, Laos, or North Vietnam, although the 
border areas of those countries were vital to the enemy's war 
effort. These factors narrowed Westmoreland's freedom of action 
and detracted from his efforts to make effective use of American 
military power.

Groundwork for Combat: Build-up and Strategy

On 28 July 1965, President Johnson announced plans to deploy 
additional combat units and to increase American military 
strength in South Vietnam to 175,000 by year's end. The Army 
already was preparing hundreds of units for duty in Southeast 
Asia, among them the newly activated 1st Cavalry Division 
(Airmobile). Other combat units-the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne 
Division, and all three brigades of the 1st Infantry Division-
were either ready to go or already on their way to Vietnam. 
Together with hundreds of support and logistical units, these 
combat units constituted the first phase of the build-up during 
the summer and fall of 1965.

At the same time, President Johnson decided not to mobilize any 
Reserve units. The President's decision profoundly affected the 
manner in which the Army supported and sustained the build-up. 
To meet the call for additional combat forces and to obtain 
manpower to enlarge its training base and to maintain a pool for 
rotation and replacement of soldiers in South Vietnam, the Army 
had to increase its active strength, over the next three years, 
by nearly 1.5 million men. Necessarily, it relied on larger 
draft calls and voluntary enlistments, supplementing them with 
heavy draw downs of experienced soldiers from units in Europe 
and South Korea and extensions of some tours of duty to retain 
specialists, technicians, and cadres who could train recruits or 
round out deploying units. Combat units assigned to the 
strategic reserve were used to meet a large portion of MACV's 
force requirements, and Reservists were not available to replace 
them, Mobilization could have eased the additional burden of 
providing noncommissioned officers (NCO's) and officers to man 
the Army's growing training bases. As matters stood, 
requirements for experienced cadres competed with the demands 
for seasoned leaders in units deploying to South Vietnam.

The personnel turbulence caused by competing demands for the 
Army's limited manpower was intensified by a one-year tour of 
duty in South Vietnam. A large number of men was needed to 
sustain the rotational base, often necessitating the quick 
return to Vietnam of men with critical skills. The heightened 
demand for leaders led to accelerated training programs and the 
lowering of standards for NCO's and junior officers. Moreover, 
the one-year tour deprived units in South Vietnam of experienced 
leadership. In time, the infusion of less-seasoned NCO's and 
officers contributed to a host of morale problems that afflicted 
some Army units. At a deeper level, the administration's 
decision against calling the Reserves to active duty sent the 
wrong signal to friends and enemies alike, implying that the 
nation lacked the resolution to support an effort of the 
magnitude needed to achieve American objectives in South 
Vietnam.

Hence the Army began to organize additional combat units. Three 
light infantry brigades were activated, and the 9th Infantry 
Division was reactivated. In the meantime the 4th and 25th 
Infantry Divisions were alerted for deployment to South Vietnam. 
With the exception of a brigade of the 25th, all of the combat 
units activated and alerted during the second half of 1965 
deployed to South Vietnam during 1966 and 1967. By the end of 
1965, U.S. military strength in South Vietnam had reached 
184,000; a year later it stood at 385,000; and by the end of 
1967 it approached 490,000. Army personnel accounted for nearly 
two-thirds of the total. Of the Army's eighteen divisions, at 
the end of 1967, seven were serving in South Vietnam.

Facing a deteriorating military situation, Westmoreland in the 
summer of 1965 planned to use his combat units to blunt the 
enemy's spring-summer offensive. As they arrived in the country, 
Westmoreland moved them into a defensive arc around Saigon and 
secured bases for the arrival of subsequent units. His initial 
aim was defensive-to stop losing the war and to build a 
structure that could support a later transition to an offensive 
campaign. As additional troops poured in, Westmoreland planned 
to seek out and defeat major enemy forces. Throughout both 
phases, the South Vietnamese, relieved of major combat tasks, 
were to refurbish their forces and conduct an aggressive 
pacification program behind the American shield. In a third and 
final stage, as enemy main force units were driven into their 
secret zones and bases, Westmoreland hoped to achieve victory by 
destroying those sanctuaries and shifting the weight of the 
military effort to pacification, thereby at last subduing the 
Viet Cong throughout rural South Vietnam.

The fulfillment of this concept rested not only on the success 
of American efforts to find and defeat enemy forces, but on the 
success of Saigon's pacification program. In June 1965 the last 
in a series of coups that followed Diem's overthrow brought in a 
military junta headed by Lt Gen Nguyen Van Thieu as Chief of 
State and Air Vice Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky as Prime Minister. The 
new government provided the political stability requisite for 
successful pacification. Success hinged also on the ability of 
the U.S. air campaign against the North to reduce the 
infiltration of men and material dampening the intensity of 
combat in the South and inducing Communist leaders in Hanoi to 
alter their long-term strategic goals. Should any strand of this 
threefold strategy-the campaign against Communist forces in the 
South, Saigon's pacification program, and the air war in the 
North-falter Westmoreland's prospects would become poorer. Yet 
he was directly responsible for only one element, the U.S. 
military effort in the South. To a lesser degree, through 
American advice and assistance to the South Vietnamese forces, 
he also influenced Saigon's efforts to suppress the Viet Cong 
and to carry out pacification.

Army Operations in III and IV Corps, 1965-1967

Centered on the defense of Saigon, Westmoreland's concept of 
operations in the III Corps area had a clarity of design and 
purpose that was not always apparent elsewhere in South Vietnam.  
Nearly two years would pass before U.S. forces could maintain a 
security belt around the capital and at the same time attack the 
enemy's bases. But Westmoreland's ultimate aims and the 
difficulties he would encounter were both foreshadowed by the 
initial combat operations in the summer and fall of 1965.

Joined by newly arrived Australian infantrymen, the 173d 
Airborne Brigade during June began operations in War Zone D, a 
longtime enemy base north of Saigon. Though diverted several 
times to other tasks, the brigade gained experience in 
conducting heliborne assaults and accustomed itself to the 
rigors of jungle operations. It also established a pattern of 
operations that was to grow all too familiar. Airmobile 
assaults, often in the wake of B-52 air strikes, were followed 
by extensive patrolling, episodic contact with the Viet Cong, 
and withdrawal after a few days' stay in the enemy's territory. 
In early November the airborne soldiers uncovered evidence of 
the enemy's recent and hasty departure-abandoned camps, recently 
vacated tunnels and caches of food and supplies. However, the 
Viet Cong by observing the brigade began to formulate plans for 
dealing with the Americans.

On 8 November, moving deeper into War Zone D, the brigade 
encountered the first significant resistance. A multibattallion 
Viet Cong force attacked at close quarters and forced the 
Americans into a tight defensive perimeter. Hand-to-hand combat 
ensued as the enemy tried to "hug" American soldiers to prevent 
the delivery of supporting air and artillery fire. Unable to 
prepare a landing zone to receive reinforcements or to evacuate 
casualties, the beleaguered Americans withstood repeated enemy 
assaults. At nightfall the Viet Cong ceased their attack and 
withdrew under cover of darkness. Next morning, when 
reinforcements arrived, the brigade pursued the enemy, finding 
evidence that he had suffered heavy casualties. Such operations 
inflicted losses but failed either to destroy the enemy's base 
or to prevent him from returning to it later on.

Like the airborne brigade, the 1st Infantry Division initially 
divided its efforts. In addition to securing its base camps 
north of Saigon, the division helped South Vietnamese forces 
clear an area west of the capital in the vicinity of Cu Chi in 
Hau Nghia Province. Reacting to reports of enemy troop 
concentrations, units of the division launched a series of 
operations in the fall of 1965 and early 1966 that entailed 
quick forays into the Ho Bo and Boi Loi woods, the Michelin 
Rubber Plantation, the Rung Sat swamp, and War Zones C and D. In 
Operation MASTIFF, for example, the division sought to disrupt 
Viet Cong infiltration routes between War Zones C and D that 
crossed the Boi Loi woods in Tay Ninh Province, an area that had 
not been penetrated by government forces for several years.

But defense of Saigon was the first duty of the "Big Red One" as 
well as of the 25th Infantry Division, which arrived in the 
spring of 1966. The 1st Division took up a position protecting 
the northern approaches, blocking Route 13 from the Cambodian 
border. The 25th guarded the western approaches, chiefly Route 1 
and the Saigon River. The two brigades of the 25th Division 
served also as a buffer between Saigon and the enemy's base 
areas in Tay Ninh Province. Westmoreland hoped, however, that 
the 25th Division would loosen the insurgents' tenacious hold on 
Hau Nghia Province as well. Here American soldiers found to 
their amazement that the division's camp at Cu Chi had been 
constructed atop an extensive Viet Cong tunnel complex. 
Extending over an area of several miles, this subterranean 
network, one of several in the region, contained hospitals, 
command centers, and storage sites. The complex, though 
partially destroyed by Army "tunnel rats," was never completely 
eliminated and lasted for the duration of the war. The 25th 
Division worked closely with South Vietnamese Army and 
paramilitary forces throughout 1966 and 1967 to foster 
pacification in Hau Nghia and to secure its own base. But 
suppressing insurgency in Hau Nghia proved as difficult as 
eradicating the tunnels at Cu Chi.

As the number of Army combat units in Vietnam grew larger, 
Westmoreland established two corps-size commands, I Field Force 
in the II Corps area and II Field Force in the III Corps area. 
Reporting directly to the MACV commander, the field force 
commander was the senior Army tactical commander in his area and 
the senior U.S. adviser to ARVN forces there. Working closely 
with his South Vietnamese counterpart, he coordinated ARVN and 
American operations by establishing territorial priorities for 
combat and pacification efforts. Through his deputy senior 
adviser, a position established in 1967, the field force 
commander was able to keep abreast both of the activities of 
U.S. sector (province) and subsector (district) advisers and of 
the progress of Saigon's pacification efforts. A similar 
arrangement was set up in I Corps, where the commander of the 
III Marine Amphibious Force was the equivalent of a field force 
commander. Only in IV Corps, in the Mekong Delta where few 
American combat units served, did Westmoreland choose not to 
establish a corps-size command. There the senior U.S. adviser 
served as COMUSMACV's representative; he commanded Army advisory 
and support units, but no combat units.

Although Army commanders in III Corps were eager to seek out and 
engage enemy main force units in their strongholds along the 
Cambodian border, operations at first were devoted to base and 
area security and to clearing and rehabilitating roads. The 1st 
Infantry Division's first major encounter with the Viet Cong 
occurred in November as division elements carried out a routine 
road security operation along Route 13, in the vicinity of the 
village of Bau Bang. Trapping convoys along Route 13 had long 
been a profitable Viet Cong tactic. Ambushed by a large, well-
entrenched enemy force, division troops reacted aggressively and 
mounted a successful counterattack. But the road was by no means 
secured; close to enemy bases, the Cambodian border, and Saigon, 
Route 13 would be the site of several major battles in years to 
come.

Roads were a major concern of U.S. commanders. In some 
operations, infantrymen provided security as Army engineers 
improved neglected routes. Defoliants and the Rome plow-a 
bulldozer modified with sharp front blades-removed from the 
sides of important highways the jungle growth that provided 
cover for Viet Cong ambushes. Road-clearing operations also 
contributed to pacification by providing peasants with secure 
access to local markets. In III Corps, with its important road 
network radiating from Saigon, ground mobility was as essential 
as airmobility for the conduct of military operations. Lacking 
as many helicopters as the airmobile division, the 1st and 25th 
Infantry Divisions, like all Army units in South Vietnam, 
strained the resources of their own aviation support units and 
of other Army aviation units providing area support to obtain 
the maximum airmobile capacity for each operation. Nevertheless, 
on many occasions the Army found itself road bound.

Road and convoy security was also the original justification for 
introducing Army mechanized and armor units into South Vietnam 
in 1966. At first Westmoreland was reluctant to bring heavy 
mechanized equipment into South Vietnam, for it seemed ill 
suited either to counterinsurgency operations or to operations 
during the monsoon season, when all but a few roads were 
impassable. Armor advocates pressed Westmoreland to reconsider 
his policy. Operation CIRCLE PINES, carried out by elements of 
the 25th Infantry Division in the spring of 1966, successfully 
combined an infantry force and an armor battalion. This 
experience, together with new studies indicating a greater 
potential for mechanized forces, led Westmoreland to reverse his 
original policy and request deployment of the 11th Armored 
Cavalry Regiment, with its full complement of tanks, to Vietnam.

Arriving in III Corps in the last half of 1966, the regiment set 
up base at Xuan Loc, on Route 1 northeast of Saigon in Long 
Khanh Province. In addition to assuming an area support mission 
and strengthening the eastern approaches to Saigon as part of 
Westmoreland's security belt around the capital, squadrons of 
the regiment supported Army units throughout the corps zone, 
often "homesteading" with other brigades or divisions.

Route security, however, was only the first step in carving out 
a larger role for Army mechanized forces. Facing an enemy who 
employed no armor, American mechanized units, often in 
conjunction with airmobile assaults, acted both as blocking or 
holding forces and as assault or reaction forces, where terrain 
permitted. "Jungle bashing," as offensive armor operations were 
sometimes called, had its uses but also its limitations. The 
intimidating presence of tanks and personnel carriers was often 
nullified by their cumbersomeness and noise, which alerted the 
enemy to an impending attack. The Viet Cong also took 
countermeasures to immobilize tracked vehicles. Crude tank 
traps, locally manufactured mines (often made of plastic to 
thwart discovery by metal detectors), and well-aimed rocket or 
recoilless rifle rounds could disable a tank or personnel 
carrier. Together with the dust and tropical humidity, such 
weapons placed a heavy burden on Army maintenance units. Yet 
mechanized units brought the allies enhanced mobility and 
firepower and often were essential to counter ambushes or 
destroy an enemy force protected by bunkers.

As Army strength increased in III Corps, Westmoreland encouraged 
his units to operate farther afield. In early 1966 intelligence 
reports indicated that enemy strength and activity were 
increasing in many of his base areas. In two operations during 
the early spring of 1966, units of the 1st and 25th Divisions 
discovered Viet Cong training camps and supply dumps, some of 
the sites honeycombed with tunnels. But they failed to engage 
major enemy forces. As Army units made the deepest penetration 
of War Zone C since 1961, all signs pointed to the foe's hasty 
withdrawal into Cambodia. An airmobile raid failed to locate the 
enemy's command center, COSVN. (COSVN, in fact, was fragmented 
among several sites in Tay Ninh Province and in nearby 
Cambodia.) Like the 173d Airborne Brigade's operations, the new 
attacks had no lasting effects.

By May 1966 an ominous build-up of enemy forces, among them NVA 
regiments that had infiltrated south, was detected in Phuoc Long 
and Binh Long Provinces in northern III Corps. U.S. commanders 
viewed the build-up as a portent of the enemy's spring 
offensive, plans for which included an attack on the district 
town of Loc Ninh and on a nearby Special Forces camp. The 1st 
Division responded, sending a brigade to secure Route 13. But 
the threat to Loc Ninh heightened in early June, when regiments 
of the 9th Viet Cong Division took up positions around the town. 
The arrival of American reinforcements apparently prevented an 
assault. About a week later, however, an enemy regiment was 
spotted in fortified positions in a rubber plantation adjacent 
to Loc Ninh. Battered by massive air and artillery strikes, the 
regiment was dislodged and its position overrun, ending the 
Route security, however, was only the first step in carving out 
a larger role for Army mechanized forces. Facing an enemy who 
employed no armor, American mechanized units, often in 
conjunction with airmobile assaults, acted both as blocking or 
holding forces and as assault or reaction forces, where terrain 
permitted. "Jungle bashing," as offensive armor operations were 
sometimes called, had its uses but also its limitations. The 
intimidating presence of tanks and personnel carriers was often 
nullified by their cumbersomeness and noise, which alerted the 
enemy to an impending attack. The Viet Cong also took 
countermeasures to immobilize tracked vehicles. Crude tank 
traps, locally manufactured mines (often made of plastic to 
thwart discovery by metal detectors), and well-aimed rocket or 
recoilless rifle rounds could disable a tank or personnel 
carrier. Together with the dust and tropical humidity, such 
weapons placed a heavy burden on Army maintenance units. Yet 
mechanized units brought the allies enhanced mobility and 
firepower and often were essential to counter ambushes or 
destroy an enemy force protected by bunkers.

As Army strength increased in III Corps, Westmoreland encouraged 
his units to operate farther afield. In early 1966 intelligence 
reports indicated that enemy strength and activity were 
increasing in many of his base areas. In two operations during 
the early spring of 1966, units of the 1st and 25th Divisions 
discovered Viet Cong training camps and supply dumps, some of 
the sites honeycombed with tunnels. But they failed to engage 
major enemy forces. As Army units made the deepest penetration 
of War Zone C since 1961, all signs pointed to the foe's hasty 
withdrawal into Cambodia. An airmobile raid failed to locate the 
enemy's command center, COSVN. (COSVN, in fact, was fragmented 
among several sites in Tay Ninh Province and in nearby 
Cambodia.) Like the 173d Airborne Brigade's operations, the new 
attacks had no lasting effects.

By May 1966 an ominous build-up of enemy forces, among them NVA 
regiments that had infiltrated south, was detected in Phuoc Long 
and Binh Long Provinces in northern III Corps. U.S. commanders 
viewed the build-up as a portent of the enemy's spring 
offensive, plans for which included an attack on the district 
town of Loc Ninh and on a nearby Special Forces camp. The 1st 
Division responded, sending a brigade to secure Route 13. But 
the threat to Loc Ninh heightened in early June, when regiments 
of the 9th Viet Cong Division took up positions around the town. 
The arrival of American reinforcements apparently prevented an 
assault. About a week later, however, an enemy regiment was 
spotted in fortified positions in a rubber plantation adjacent 
to Loc Ninh. Battered by massive air and artillery strikes, the 
regiment was dislodged and its position overrun, ending the 
threat. Americans recorded other successes, trapping Viet Cong 
ambushers in a counterambush, securing Loc Ninh, and spoiling 
the enemy's spring offensive. But if the enemy still 
underestimated the mobility and firepower that U.S. commanders 
could bring to bear, he had learned how easily Americans could 
be lured away from their base camps.

By the summer of 1966 Westmoreland believed he had stopped the 
losing trend of a year earlier and could begin the second phase 
of his general campaign strategy. This entailed aggressive 
operations to search out and destroy enemy main force units, in 
addition to continued efforts to improve security in the 
populated areas of III Corps. In Operation ATTLEBORO he sent the 
196th Infantry Brigade and the 3d Brigade, 4th Infantry 
Division, to Tay Ninh Province to bolster the security of the 
province seat. Westmoreland's challenge prompted COSVN to send 
the 9th Viet Cong Division on a "countersweep," the enemy's term 
for operations to counter allied search and destroy tactics. 
Moving deeper into the enemy's stronghold, the recently arrived 
and inexperienced 196th Infantry Brigade sparred with the enemy. 
Then an intense battle erupted, as elements of the brigade were 
isolated and surprised by a large enemy force. Operation 
ATTLEBORO quickly grew to a multidivision struggle as American 
commanders sought to maintain contact with the Viet Cong and to 
aid their own surrounded forces. Within a matter of days, 
elements of the 1st and 25th Divisions, the 173d Airborne 
Brigade, and the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment had converged on 
War Zone C. Control of ATTLEBORO passed in turn from the 196th 
to the 1st Division and finally to the II Field Force, making it 
the first Army operation in South Vietnam to be controlled by a 
corps-size headquarters. With over 22,000 U.S. troops 
participating, the battle had become the largest of the war. Yet 
combat occurred most often at the platoon and company levels, 
usually at night. As the number of American troops increased, 
the 9th Viet Cong Division shied away, withdrawing across the 
Cambodian border. Then Army forces departed, leaving to the 
Special Forces the task of detecting the enemy's inevitable 
return.

As the threat along the border abated, Westmoreland turned his 
attention to the enemy's secret zones near Saigon, among them 
the so-called Iron Triangle in Binh Duong Province. Harboring 
the headquarters of Military Region IV, the Communist command 
that directed military and terrorist activity in and around the 
capital, this stronghold had gone undisturbed for several years. 
Westmoreland hoped to find the command center, disrupt Viet Cong 
activity in the capital region, and allow South Vietnamese 
forces to accelerate pacification and uproot the stubborn Viet 
Cong political organization that flourished in many villages and 
hamlets.

Operation CEDAR FALLS began on 8 January 1967 with the 
objectives of destroying the headquarters, interdicting the 
movement of enemy forces into the major war zones in III Corps, 
and defeating Viet Cong units encamped there. Like ATTLEBORO 
before it, CEDAR FALLS tapped the manpower and resources of 
nearly every major Army unit in the corps area. A series of 
preliminary maneuvers brought Army units into position. Several 
air assaults sealed off the Iron Triangle, exploiting the 
natural barriers of the rivers that formed two of its 
boundaries. Then American units began a series of sweeps to push 
the enemy toward the blocking forces. At the village of Ben Suc, 
long under the sway of the insurgents, sixty helicopters 
descended into seven landing zones in less than a minute. Ben 
Suc was surrounded, its entire population evacuated, and the 
village and its tunnel complex destroyed. But insurgent forces 
had fled before the heliborne assault. As CEDAR FALLS 
progressed, U.S. troops destroyed hundreds of enemy 
fortifications, captured large quantities of supplies and food, 
and evacuated other hamlets. Contact with the enemy was 
fleeting. Most of the Viet Cong, including the high-level cadre 
of the regional command, had escaped, sometimes infiltrating 
through allied lines.

By the time Army units left the Iron Triangle, MACV had already 
received reports that Viet Cong and NVA regiments were returning 
to War Zone C in preparation for a spring offensive. This time 
Westmoreland hoped to prevent Communist forces from escaping 
into Cambodia, as they had done in ATTLEBORO. From forward field 
positions established during earlier operations, elements of the 
25th and 1st Divisions, the 196th Infantry Brigade, and the 9th 
Armored Cavalry Regiment launched JUNCTION CITY, moving rapidly 
to establish a cordon around the war zone and to begin a new 
sweep of the base area. As airmobile and mechanized units moved 
into positions on the morning of 21 February 1967, elements of 
the 173d Airborne Brigade made the only parachute drop of the 
Vietnam War-and the first combat airborne assault since the 
Korean War-to establish a blocking position near the Cambodian 
border. Then other U.S. units entered the horseshoe-shaped area 
of operations through its open end.

Despite the emphasis on speed and surprise, Army units did not 
encounter many enemy troops at the outset. As the operation 
entered its second phase, however, American forces concentrated 
their efforts in the eastern portion of War Zone C, close to 
Route 13. Here several violent battles erupted, as Communist 
forces tried to isolate and defeat individual units and possibly 
also to screen the retreat of their comrades into Cambodia. On 
19 March a mechanized unit of the 9th Infantry Division was 
attacked and nearly overrun along Route 13 near the battered 
village of Bau Bang. The combined firepower of armored cavalry, 
supporting artillery, and close air support finally caused the 
enemy to break contact. A few days later, at Fire Support Base 
GOLD, in the vicinity of Soui Tre, an infantry and artillery 
battalion of the 25th Infantry engaged the 272d Viet Cong 
Regiment. Behind an intense, walking mortar barrage, enemy 
troops breached GOLD's defensive perimeter and rushed into the 
base. Man-to-man combat ensued. A complete disaster was averted 
when Army artillerymen lowered their howitzers and fired, 
directly into the oncoming enemy, Beehive artillery rounds that 
contained hundreds of dartlike projectiles. The last major 
encounter with enemy troops during JUNCTION CITY occurred at the 
end of March, when elements of two Viet Cong regiments, the 
271st and the 70th (the latter directly subordinate to COSVN) 
attacked a battalion of the 1st Infantry Division in a night 
defensive position deep in War Zone C, near the Cambodian 
border. The lopsided casualties-over 600 enemy killed in 
contrast to 10 Americans-forcefully illustrated once again the 
U.S. ability to call in overwhelmingly superior fire support by 
artillery, armed helicopters, and tactical aircraft.

Thereafter, JUNCTION CITY became a pale shadow of the 
multidivision effort it had been at its outset. Most Army units 
were withdrawn, either to return to their bases or to 
participate in other operations. The 196th Infantry Brigade was 
transferred to I Corps to help replace Marine forces sent north 
to meet a growing enemy threat near the demilitarized zone. 
Contacts with enemy forces in this final phase were meager. 
Again a planned Viet Cong offensive had been aborted; the enemy 
himself escaped, though not unscathed.

In the wake of JUNCTION CITY, MACV's attention reverted to the 
still critical security conditions around Saigon. The 1st 
Infantry Division returned to War Zone D to search for the 271st 
Viet Cong Regiment and to disrupt the insurgents' lines of 
communications between War Zones C and D. Despite two major 
contacts, the main body of the regiment eluded its American 
pursuers. Army units again returned to the Iron Triangle between 
April and July 1967, after enemy forces were detected in their 
old stronghold. Supplies and documents were found in quantities 
even larger than those discovered in CEDAR FALLS. Once again, 
however, encounters with the Communists were fleeting. The 
enemy's reappearance in the Iron Triangle and War Zone D, 
combined with rocket and mortar attacks on U.S. bases around 
Saigon, heightened Westmoreland's concern about the security of 
the capital. When the 1st Infantry Division's base at Phuoc Vinh 
and the Bien Hoa Air Base were attacked in mid-1967, the 
division mounted operations into the Ong Dong jungle and the 
Vinh Loi woods. Other operations swept the jungles and villages 
of Bien Hoa Province and sought once again to support 
pacification in Hau Nghia Province.

These actions pointed up a basic problem. The large, 
multidivision operations into the enemy's war zones produced 
some benefits for the pacification campaign; by keeping enemy 
main force regiments at bay, Westmoreland impeded their access 
to heavily populated areas and prevented them from reinforcing 
Viet Cong provincial and district forces. Yet when American 
units were shifted to the border, the local Viet Cong units 
gained a measure of relief. Westmoreland faced a strategic 
dilemma: he could not afford to keep substantial forces away 
from their bases for more than a few months at a time without 
jeopardizing local security. Unless he received additional 
forces, Westmoreland would always be torn between two 
operational imperatives. By the summer of 1967, MACV's 
likelihood of receiving more combat troops, beyond those 
scheduled to deploy during the latter half of the year and in 
early 1968, had become remote. In Washington the administration 
turned down his request for an additional 200,000 men.

Meanwhile, however, the 9th Infantry Division and the 199th 
Infantry Brigade arrived in South Vietnam. Westmoreland 
stationed the brigade at Bien Hoa, where it embarked on FAIRFAX, 
a year-long operation in which it worked closely with a South 
Vietnamese ranger group to improve security in Gia Dinh 
Province, which surrounded the capital. Units of the brigade 
"paired off" with South Vietnamese rangers and, working closely 
with paramilitary and police forces, sought to uproot the very 
active Viet Cong local forces and destroy the enemy's political 
infrastructure. Typical activities included ambushes by combined 
forces; cordon and search operations in villages and hamlets, 
often in conjunction with the Vietnamese police; psychological 
and civic action operations; surprise road blocks to search for 
contraband and Viet Cong supporters; and training programs to 
develop proficient military and local self-defense capabilities.

Likewise, the 9th Infantry Division set up bases east and south 
of Saigon. One brigade deployed to Bear Cat; another set up camp 
at Tan An in Long An Province, south of Saigon, where it sought 
to secure portions of Route 4, an important north-south highway 
connecting Saigon with the rice-rich lower Delta. Further south, 
the 2d Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, established its base at 
Dong Tam in Dinh Tuong Province in IV Corps. Located in the 
midst of rice paddies and swamps, Dong Tam was created by Army 
engineers with sand dredged from the My Tho River. From this 
600-acre base, the brigade began a series of riverine operations 
unique to the Army's experience in South Vietnam.

To patrol and fight in the inundated marshlands and rice paddies 
and along the numerous canals and waterways crossing the Delta, 
the Army modernized the concept of riverine warfare employed 
during the Civil War by Union forces on the Mississippi River 
and by the French during the Indochina War. The Mobile Riverine 
Force utilized a joint Army-Navy task force controlled by a 
ground commander. In contrast to amphibious operations, where 
control reverts to the ground commander only after the force is 
ashore, riverine warfare was an extension of land combat with 
infantry units traveling by water rather than by trucks or 
tracked vehicles, Aided by a Navy river support squadron and 
river assault squadron, infantrymen were housed on barracks 
ships and supported by gunships or fire support boats called 
monitors. Howitzers and mortars mounted on barges provided 
artillery support. The 2d Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, began 
operations against the Cam Son Secret Zone, approximately 10 
miles west of Dong Tam, in May 1967.

Meanwhile, the war of main force units along the borders waxed 
and waned in relation to seasonal weather cycles, which affected 
the enemy's pattern of logistical activity, his ability to 
infiltrate men and supplies from North Vietnam, and his penchant 
for meticulous preparation of the battlefield. By the fall of 
1967, enemy activity had increased again in the base areas, and 
sizable forces began appearing along South Vietnam's border from 
the demilitarized zone to III Corps. By the year's end, American 
forces had returned to War Zone C to screen the Cambodian border 
to prevent Communist forces from re-entering South Vietnam. 
Units of the 25th Infantry Division that had been conducting 
operations in the vicinity of Saigon moved to the border. 
Elements of the 1st Infantry Division had resumed road-clearing 
operations along Route 13, but the division soon faced another 
major enemy effort to capture Loc Ninh. On 29 October Viet Cong 
units assaulted the CIDG camp and the district Command post, 
breaching the defense perimeter. Intense air and artillery fire 
prevented its complete loss. Within a few hours, South 
Vietnamese and U.S. reinforcements reached Loc Ninh, their 
arrival made possible by the enemy's failure to capture the 
local airstrip.

When the build-up ended, ten Army battalions were positioned 
within Loc Ninh and between the town and the Cambodian border. 
During the next two days allied units warded off repeated enemy 
attacks as Communist forces desperately tried to score a 
victory. Tactical air support and artillery fire prevented the 
enemy form massing though he outnumbered allied forces by about 
ten to one. At end of a ten-day battle, over 800 enemy were left 
on the battlefield, while allied deaths numbered only 50. Some 
452 close air support sorties, 8 B-52 bomber strikes, and 30,125 
rounds of artillery had been directed at the enemy. Once again, 
Loc Ninh had served as a lightning rod to attract U.S. forces to 
the border. The pattern of two wars-one in the villages, one on 
the border-continued without decision.

Army Operations in II and I Corps, 1965-1967

Spearheaded by at least three NVA regiments, Communist forces 
mounted a strong offensive in South Vietnam's Central Highlands 
during the summer of 1965, overrunning border camps and 
besieging some district towns. Here the enemy threatened to cut 
the nation in two. To meet the danger, Westmoreland proposed to 
introduce the newly organized Army airmobile division, the 1st 
Cavalry Division, with its large contingent of helicopters, 
directly into the highlands. Some of his superiors in Hawaii and 
Washington opposed this plan, preferring to secure coastal 
bases. Though Westmoreland contended that enclave security made 
poor use of U.S. mobility and offensive firepower, he was unable 
to overcome the fear of an American Dien Bien Phu, if a unit in 
the highlands should be isolated and cut off from the sea.

In the end, the deployment of Army forces to II Corps reflected 
a compromise. As additional American and South Korean forces 
arrived during 1965 and 1966, they often reinforced South 
Vietnamese efforts to secure coastal enclaves, usually centered 
on the most important cities and ports. At Phan Thiet, Tuy Hoa, 
Qui Nhon, Nha Trang, and Cam Ranh Bay, allied forces provided 
area security, not only protecting the ports and logistical 
complexes that developed in many of these locations, but also 
assisting Saigon's forces to expand the pacified zone that 
extended from the urban cores to the countryside.

Here, as in III Corps, Westmoreland addressed two enemy threats. 
Local insurgents menaced populated areas along the coastal 
plain, while enemy main force units intermittently pushed 
forward in the western highlands. Between the two regions 
stretched the piedmont, a transitional area in whose lush 
valleys lived many South Vietnamese. In the piedmont's craggy 
hills and jungle-covered uplands, local and main force Viet Cong 
units had long flourished by exacting food and taxes from the 
lowland population through a well-entrenched shadow government. 
Although the enemy's bases in the piedmont did not have the 
notoriety of the secret zones near Saigon, they served similar 
purposes, harboring units, command centers, and training and 
logistical facilities. Extensions of the Ho Chi Minh Trail ran 
from the highlands through the piedmont to the coast, 
facilitating the movement of enemy units and supplies from 
province to province. To be effective, allied operations on the 
coast had to uproot local units living amid the population and 
to eradicate the enemy base areas in the piedmont, together with 
the main force units that supported the village and hamlet 
guerrillas.

Despite their sparse population and limited economic resources, 
the highlands had a strategic importance equal to and perhaps 
greater than the coastal plain. Around the key highland towns-
Pleiku, Kontum, Ban Me Thuot, and Da Lat-South Vietnamese and 
U.S. forces had created enclaves. Allied forces protected the 
few roads that traversed the highlands, screened the border, and 
reinforced outposts and Montagnard settlements from which the 
irregulars and Army Special Forces sought to detect enemy cross-
border movements and to strengthen tribal resistance to the 
Communists. Such border posts and tribal camps, rather than 
major towns, most often were the object of enemy attacks. 
Combined with road interdiction, such attacks enabled the 
Communists to disperse the limited number of defenders and to 
discourage the maintenance of outposts.

Such actions served a larger strategic objective. The enemy 
planned to develop the highlands into a major base area from 
which to mount or support operations in other areas. A 
Communist-dominated highlands would be a strategic fulcrum, 
enabling the enemy to shift the weight of his operations to any 
part of South Vietnam. The highlands also formed a "killing 
zone" where Communist forces could mass. Challenging American 
forces had become the principal objective of leaders in Hanoi, 
who saw their plans to undermine Saigon's military resistance 
thwarted by U.S. intervention. Salient victories against 
Americans, they believed, might deter a further build-up and 
weaken Washington's resolve to continue the war.

The 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) moved with its 435 
helicopters into this hornet's nest in September 1965, 
establishing its main base at An Khe, a government stronghold on 
Route 19, halfway between the coastal port of Qui Nhon and the 
highland city of Pleiku. The location was strategic: at An Khe 
the division could help to keep open the vital east-west road 
from the coast to the highlands and could pivot between the 
highlands and the coastal districts, where the Viet Cong had 
made deep inroads. Meanwhile, the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne 
Division, had begun operations in the rugged Song Con valley, 
about 18 miles northeast of An Khe. Here, on 18 September, one 
battalion ran into heavy fire from an enemy force in the tree 
line around its landing zone. Four helicopters were lost and 
three company commanders killed; reinforcements could not land 
because of the intense enemy fire. With the fight at close 
quarters, the Americans were unable to call in close air 
support, armed gunships, and artillery fire, except at the risk 
of their own lives. But as the enemy pressed them back, 
supporting fires were placed almost on top of the contending 
forces. At dusk the fighting subsided; as the Americans steeled 
themselves for a night attack, the enemy, hard hit by almost 100 
air strikes and 11,000 rounds of artillery, slipped away. 
Inspection of the battlefield revealed that the Americans had 
unwittingly landed in the midst of a heavily bunkered enemy 
base.

The fight had many hallmarks of highland battles that were to 
come. Americans had little information about enemy forces or the 
area of operations; the enemy could "hug" Army units to nullify 
their massive advantage in firepower. In compensation, the enemy 
underestimated the accuracy of such fire and the willingness of 
U.S. commanders to call it in even when fighting at close 
quarters. Finally, enemy forces when pressed too hard could 
usually escape, and pursuit, as a rule, was futile.

Less than a month later the newly arrived airmobile division 
received its own baptism of combat. The North Vietnamese Army 
attacked a Special Forces camp at Plei Me; when it was repulsed, 
Westmoreland directed the division to launch an offensive to 
locate and destroy enemy regiments that had been identified in 
the vicinity of the camp. The result was the battle of the Ia 
Drang valley, named for a small river that flowed through the 
area of operations. For thirty-five days the division pursued 
and fought the 32d, 33d, and 66th North Vietnamese Regiments, 
until the enemy, suffering heavy casualties, returned to his 
bases in Cambodia.

With scout platoons of its air cavalry squadron covering front 
and flanks, each battalion of the division's 1st Brigade 
established company bases from which patrols searched for enemy 
forces. For several days neither ground patrols nor aero-scouts 
found any trace but on 4 November the scouts spotted a 
regimental aid station several miles west of Plei Me. Quick 
reacting aero-rifle platoons converged on the site. Hovering 
above, the airborne scouts detected an enemy battalion nearby 
and attacked from UH-1B gunships with aerial rockets and machine 
guns. Operating beyond the range of their ground artillery, Army 
units engaged the enemy in an intense firefight. Again enemy 
troops "hugged" American forces, then broke contact as 
reinforcements began to arrive.

The search for the main body of the enemy continued for the next 
few days, with Army units concentrating their efforts in the 
vicinity of the Chu Pong Massif, a mountain near the Cambodian 
border that was believed to be an enemy base. Communist forces 
were given little rest, as patrols harried and ambushed them. 
The enemy attacked an American patrol base Landing Zone MARY, at 
night, but was repulsed by the first night air assault into a 
defensive perimeter under fire, accompanied by aerial rocket 
fire.

The heaviest fighting was yet to come. As the division began the 
second stage of its campaign, enemy forces began to move out of 
the Chu Pong base. Units of the 1st Cavalry Division advanced to 
establish artillery bases and landing zones at the base of the 
mountain. Landing Zone X-RAY was one of several U.S. positions 
vulnerable to attack by the enemy forces that occupied the 
surrounding high ground. Here on 14 November began fighting that 
pitted three battalions against elements of two NVA regiments. 
Withstanding repeated mortar attacks and infantry assaults, the 
Americans used every means of firepower available to them-the 
division's own gunships, massive artillery bombardment, hundreds 
of strafing and bombing attacks by tactical aircraft, and earth-
shaking bombs dropped by B-52 bombers from Guam- to turn back a 
determined enemy. The Communists lost 600 dead, the Americans 
79.

Although badly hurt, the enemy did not leave the Ia Drang 
valley. Elements of the 66th North Vietnamese Regiment moving 
east toward Plei Me encountered an American battalion on 17 
November, a few miles north of X-RAY. The fight that resulted 
was a gory reminder of the North Vietnamese mastery of the 
ambush. The Communists quickly snared three U.S. companies in 
their net. As the trapped units struggled for survival, nearly 
all semblance of organized combat disappeared in the confusion 
and mayhem, Neither reinforcements nor effective firepower could 
be brought in. At times combat was reduced to valiant efforts by 
individuals and small units to avert annihilation. When the 
fighting ended that night, 60 percent of the Americans were 
casualties, and almost one of every three soldiers in the 
battalion had been killed.

Lauded as the first major American triumph of the Vietnam War, 
the battle of the Ia Drang valley was in truth a costly and 
problematic victory. The airmobile division, committed to combat 
less than a month after it arrived in-country, relentlessly 
pursued the enemy for thirty-five days over difficult terrain 
and defeated three NVA regiments. In part, its achievements 
underlined the flexibility that Army divisions had gained in the 
early 1960's under the Reorganization Objective Army Division 
(ROAD) concept. Replacing the pentomic division with its five 
lightly armed battle groups, the ROAD division, organized around 
three brigades, facilitated the creation of brigade and 
battalion task forces tailored to respond and fight in a variety 
of military situations. The newly organized division reflected 
the Army's embrace of the concept of flexible response and 
proved eminently suitable for operations in Vietnam. The 
helicopter was given great credit as well. Nearly every aspect 
of the division's operations was enhanced by its airmobile 
capacity. Artillery batteries were moved sixty-seven times by 
helicopter. Intelligence, medical, and all manner of logistical 
support benefited as well from the speed and flexibility 
provided by helicopters. Despite the fluidity of the tactical 
situation, airmobile command and control procedures enabled the 
division to move and to keep track of its units over a large 
area, and to accommodate the frequent and rapid changes in 
command arrangements as units were moved from one headquarters 
to another.

Yet for all the advantages that the division accrued from 
airmobility, its performance was not without blemish. Though the 
conduct of division-size airmobile operations proved tactically 
sound, two major engagements stemmed from the enemy's initiative 
in attacking vulnerable American units. On several occasions 
massive air and artillery support provided the margin of victory 
(if not survival). Above all, the division's logistical self-
sufficiency fell short of expectations. It could support only 
one brigade in combat at a time, for prolonged and intense 
operations consumed more fuel and ammunition than the division's 
helicopters and fixed-wing Caribou aircraft could supply. Air 
Force tactical airlift became necessary for resupply. Moreover, 
in addition to combat losses and damage, the division's 
helicopters suffered from heavy use and from the heat, humidity, 
and dust of Vietnam, taxing its maintenance capacity. Human 
attrition was also high; hundreds of soldiers, the equivalent of 
almost a battalion, fell victim to a resistant strain of malaria 
peculiar to Vietnam's highlands.

Westmoreland's satisfaction in blunting the enemy's offensive 
was tempered by concern that enemy forces might re-enter South 
Vietnam and resume their offensive while the airmobile division 
recuperated at the end of November and during most of December. 
He thus requested immediate reinforcements from the Army's 25th 
Infantry Division, based in Hawaii and scheduled to deploy to 
South Vietnam in the spring of 1966. By the end of 1965, the 
division's 3d Brigade had been airlifted to the highlands and, 
within a month of its arrival, had joined elements of the 1st 
Cavalry Division to launch a series of operations to screen the 
border. Army units did not detect any major enemy forces trying 
to cross from Cambodia into South Vietnam. Each operation, 
however, killed hundreds of enemy soldiers and refined airmobile 
techniques, as Army units learned to cope with the vast 
territorial expanse and difficult terrain of the highlands.

In Operation MATADOR, for example, air strikes were used to 
blast holes in the forests, enabling helicopters to bring in 
heavy engineer equipment to construct new landing zones for use 
in future operations. Operation LINCOLN, a search and destroy 
operation on the Chu Pong Massif, featured combined armor and 
airmobile operations; air cavalry scouts guided armored vehicles 
of the 3d Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, as they operated in a 
lightly wooded area near Pleiku City. Also in LINCOLN, Army 
engineers, using heli-lifted equipment, in two days cleared and 
constructed a runway to handle C-130 air transports in an area 
inaccessible by road.

Despite the relative calm that followed the Ia Drang fighting, 
the North Vietnamese left no doubt of their intent to continue 
infiltration and to challenge American forces along the highland 
border. In February 1966 enemy forces overran the Special Forces 
camp at A Shau, in the remote northwest corner of I Corps. The 
loss of the camp had long-term consequences, enabling the enemy 
to make the A Shau valley a major logistical base and staging 
area for forces infiltrating into the piedmont and coastal 
areas. The loss also highlighted certain differences between 
operational concepts of the Army and the Marines. Concentrating 
their efforts in the coastal districts of I Corps and lacking 
the more extensive helicopter support enjoyed by Army units, the 
Marines avoided operations in the highlands. On the other hand, 
Army commanders in II Corps sought to engage the enemy as close 
to the border as possible and were quick to respond to threats 
to Special Forces camps in the highlands. Operations near the 
border were essential to Westmoreland's efforts to keep main 
force enemy units as far as possible from heavily populated 
areas.

For Hanoi's strategists, however, a reciprocal relation existed 
between highlands and coastal regions. Here, as in the south, 
the enemy directed his efforts to preserving his own influence 
among the population near the coast, from which he derived 
considerable support. At the same time, he maintained a constant 
military threat in the highlands to divert allied forces from 
efforts at pacification. Like the chronic shifting of units from 
the neighborhood of Saigon to the war zones in III Corps, the 
frequent movement of American units between coast and border in 
II Corps reflected the Communist desire to relieve allied 
military pressure whenever guerrilla and local forces were 
endangered. In its broad outlines, Hanoi's strategy to cope with 
U.S, forces was the same employed by the Viet Minh against the 
French and by Communist forces in 1964 and 1965 against the 
South Vietnamese Army. Whether it would be equally successful 
remained to be seen.

The airmobile division spent the better part of the next two 
years fighting Viet Cong and NVA main force units in the coastal 
plain and piedmont valleys of Binh Dinh Province. Here the enemy 
had deep roots, while pacification efforts were almost dead. 
Starting in early 1966, the 1st Cavalry Division embarked on a 
series of operations against the 2d Viet Cong and the 18th and 
22d North Vietnamese Regiments of the 3d North Vietnamese 
Division (the Yellow Star Division). For the most part, the 1st 
Cavalry Division operated in the Bong Son plain and the adjacent 
hills, from which enemy units reinforced the hamlet and village 
guerrillas who gathered in taxes, food, and recruits. As in the 
highlands, the division exploited its airmobility, using 
helicopters to establish positions in the upper reaches of the 
valleys. They sought to flush the enemy from his hiding places 
and drive him toward the coast, where American, South 
Vietnamese, and South Korean forces held blocking positions. 
When trapped, the enemy was attacked by ground, naval, and air 
fire, The scheme was a new version of an old tactical concept, 
the "hammer and anvil," with the coastal plain and the natural 
barrier formed by the South China Sea forming the anvil or 
killing zone. Collectively the operations became known as the 
Binh Dinh Pacification Campaign.

For forty-two days elements of the airmobile division scoured 
the An Lao and Kim Son valleys, pursuing enemy units that had 
been surprised and routed from the Bong Son plain. Meanwhile, 
Marine forces in neighboring Quang Ngai Province in southern I 
Corps sought to bar the enemy's escape routes to the north. The 
enemy units evaded the Americans, but thousands of civilians Red 
from the Viet Cong-dominated valleys to government. controlled 
areas. Although the influx of refugees taxed the government's 
already strained relief services, the exodus of peasants 
weakened the Viet Cong's infrastructure and aimed a 
psychological blow at the enemy's prestige. The Communists had 
failed either to confront the Americans or to protect the 
population over which they had gained control.

Failing to locate the fleeing enemy in the An Lao valley, units 
of the airmobile division assaulted another enemy base area, a 
group of valleys and ridges southwest of the Bong Son plain 
known as the Crow's Foot or the Eagle's Claw. Here some Army 
units sought to dislodge the enemy from his upland bases while 
others established blocking positions at the "toe" of each 
valley, where it found outlet to the plain. In six weeks over 
1,300 enemy soldiers were killed. Enemy forces in northern Binh 
Dinh Province were temporarily thrown off balance. Beyond this, 
the long-term effects of the operation were unclear. The 1st 
Cavalry Division did not stay in one area long enough to exploit 
its success. Whether the Saigon government could marshal its 
forces effectively to provide local security and to reassert its 
political control remained to be seen.

Later operations continued to harass an elusive foe. Launching a 
new attack without the extensive preparatory reconnaissance that 
often alerted the enemy, Army units again surprised him in the 
Bong Son area but soon lost contact. The next move was against 
an enemy build-up in the vicinity of the Vinh Thanh Special 
Forces Camp. Here the Green Berets watched the "Oregon Trail," 
an enemy infiltration corridor that passed through the Vinh 
Thanh valley from the highlands to the coast. Forestalling the 
attack, Army units remained in the area where they conducted 
numerous patrols and made frequent contact with the enemy. (One 
U.S. company came close to being overrun in a ferocious 
firefight.) But again the action had little enduring effect, 
except to increase the enemy's caution by demonstrating the 
airmobile division's agility in responding to a threat.

After a brief interlude in the highlands, the division returned 
to Binh Dinh Province in September 1966. Conditions in the Bong 
Son area differed little from those the division had first 
encountered. For the most part, the Viet Cong rather than the 
Saigon government had been successful in reasserting their 
authority, and pacification was at a standstill. The division 
devoted most of its resources for the remainder of 1966 and 
throughout 1967 to supporting renewed efforts at pacification. 
In the fall of 1966, for the first time in a year, all three of 
the division's brigades were reunited and operating in Binh Dinh 
Province. Although elements of the division were occasionally 
transferred to the highlands as the threat there waxed and 
waned, the general movement of forces was toward the north. Army 
units increasingly were sent to southern I Corps during 1967, 
replacing Marine units in operations similar to those in Binh 
Dinh Province.

In one such operation the familiar pattern of hammer and anvil 
was tried anew, with some success. The 1st Cavalry Division 
opened with a multibattalion air assault in an upland valley to 
flush the enemy toward the coast, where allied ground and naval 
forces were prepared to bar his escape. Enemy forces had 
recently left their mountain bases to plunder the rice harvest 
and to harass South Vietnamese forces providing security for 
provincial elections. These units were caught with their backs 
to the sea. For most of October, allied forces sought to destroy 
the main body of a Communist regiment isolated on the coast and 
to seize an enemy base in the nearby Phu Cat Mountain. The first 
phase consisted of several sharp combat actions near the coastal 
hamlet of Hoa Hoi. With South Vietnamese and U.S. naval forces 
blocking an escape by sea, the encircled enemy fought 
desperately to return to the safety of his bases in the upland 
valleys. His plight was compounded when floods forced his troops 
out of their hiding places and exposed them to attacks. After 
heavy losses, remnants of the regiment divided into small 
parties that escaped through allied lines. As contacts with the 
enemy diminished on the coast, American efforts shifted inland, 
with several sharp engagements occurring when enemy forces tried 
to delay pursuit or to divert the allies from entering base 
areas. By the end of October, as the Communists retreated north 
and west, the running fight had accounted for over 1,000 enemy 
killed. Large caches of supplies, equipment, and food were 
uncovered, and the Viet Cong's shadow government in some coastal 
hamlets and villages was severely damaged, some hamlets 
reverting to government control for the first time in several 
years.

Similar operations continued through 1967 and into early 1968. 
In addition to offensive operations against enemy main forces, 
Army units in Binh Dinh worked in close co-ordination with South 
Vietnamese police, Regional and Popular Forces, and the South 
Vietnamese Army to help the Saigon government gain a foothold in 
villages and hamlets dominated or contested by the Communists. 
The 1st Cavalry Division adopted a number of techniques in 
support of pacification. Army units frequently participated in 
cordon and search operations: airmobile forces seized positions 
around a hamlet or village at dawn to prevent the escape of 
local forces or cadres while South Vietnamese authorities 
undertook a methodical house-to-house search. The Vietnamese 
checked the legal status of residents, took a census, and 
interrogated suspected Viet Cong to obtain more information 
about the enemy's local political and military apparatus. At the 
same time, allied forces engaged in a variety of civic action 
and psychological operations; specially trained pacification 
cadres established the rudiments of local government and 
provided various social and economic services. At other times, 
the division might participate in "checkpoint and snatch" 
operations, establishing surprise roadblocks and inspecting 
traffic on roads frequented by the insurgents.

Although much weakened by such methods, enemy forces found 
opportunities to attack American units. They aimed both to win a 
military victory and to remind the local populace of their 
presence and power. An attack on Landing Zone BIRD, an artillery 
base on the Bong Son plain, was one such example. Taking 
advantage of the Christmas truce of 1966, enemy units moved into 
position and mounted a ferocious attack as soon as the truce 
ended. Although portions of the base were overrun, the onslaught 
was checked when artillerymen leveled their guns and fired 
Beehive antipersonnel rounds directly into the waves of oncoming 
enemy troops. Likewise, several sharp firefights occurred 
immediately after the 1967 Tet truce, when the enemy took 
advantage of the cease-fire to move back among the population. 
This time units of the 1st Cavalry Division forced the enemy to 
leave the coastal communities and seek refuge in the piedmont. 
As the enemy moved across the boundary into southern I Corps, so 
too did units of the airmobile division. About a month later, 
the 3d Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, also moved to southern I 
Corps. Throughout the remainder of 1967, other Army units 
transferred to either I Corps to reinforce the marines or to the 
highlands to meet renewed enemy threats. As the strength of 
American units committed to the Binh Dinh Pacification Campaign 
decreased during late 1967 and early 1968, enemy activity in the 
province quickened as the Viet Cong sought to reconstitute their 
weakened military forces and to regain a position of influence 
among the local population.

In many respects, the Binh Dinh campaign was a microcosm of 
Westmoreland's over-all campaign strategy. It showed clearly the 
intimate relation between the war against enemy main force units 
and the fight for pacification waged by the South Vietnamese, 
and it demonstrated the effectiveness of the airmobile concept. 
After two years of persistent pursuit of the NVA's Yellow Star 
Division, the 1st Cavalry Division had reduced the combat 
effectiveness of each of its three regiments. By the end of 
1967, the threat to Binh Dinh Province posed by enemy main force 
units had been markedly reduced. The airmobile division's 
operations against the 3d North Vietnamese Division, as well as 
its frequent role in operations directly in support of 
pacification, had weakened local guerrilla forces and created an 
environment favorable to pacification.

The campaign in Binh Dinh also exposed the vulnerabilities of 
Westmoreland's campaign strategy. Despite repeated defeats at 
the hands of the Americans, the three NVA regiments still 
existed. They contrived to find respite and a measure of 
rehabilitation, building their strength anew with recruits 
filtering down from the North, with others found in-country, and 
with Viet Cong units consolidated into their ranks. Although 
much weakened, Communist forces persistently returned to areas 
cleared by the 1st Cavalry Division. Even more threatening to 
the allied cause, Saigon's pacification efforts languished as 
South Vietnamese forces failed in many instances to provide 
security to the villages and effective police action to root out 
local Viet Cong cadres. And the government, dealing with a 
population already skeptical, failed to grant the political, 
social, and economic benefits it had promised.

The Highlands: Progress or Stalemate?

Moreover, the allies could not concentrate their efforts 
everywhere as they had in strategic Binh Dinh. The expanse of 
the highlands compelled Army operations there to be carried out 
with economy of force. During 1966 and 1967, the Americans 
engaged in a constant search for tactical concepts and 
techniques to maximize their advantages of firepower and 
mobility and to compensate for the constraints of time, 
distance, difficult terrain, and an inviolable border. Here the 
war was fought primarily to prevent the incursion of NVA units 
into South Vietnam and to erode their combat strength. In the 
highlands, each side pursued a strategy of military 
confrontation, seeking to weaken the fighting forces and will of 
its opponent through attrition. Each sought military victories 
to convince opposing leaders of the futility of continuing the 
contest. For the North Vietnamese, however, confrontation in the 
highlands had the additional purpose of relieving allied 
pressure in other areas, where pacification jeopardized their 
hold on the rural population. Of all the factors influencing 
operations in the highlands, the most significant may well have 
been the strength and success of pacification elsewhere.

For Americans, the most difficult problem was to locate the 
enemy. Yet Communist strategists sometimes created threats to 
draw in the Americans.

Recurrent menaces to Special Forces camps reflected the enemy's 
seasonal cycle of operations, his desire to harass and eliminate 
such camps, and his hope of luring allied forces into situations 
where he held the military advantages. Thus Army operations in 
the highlands during 1966 and 1967 were characterized by wide-
ranging, often futile searches, punctuated by sporadic but 
intense battles fought usually at the enemy's initiative.

For the first few months of 1966, the Communists lay low. In 
May, however, a significant concentration of enemy forces 
appeared in Pleiku and Kontum Provinces. The 1st Brigade, 101st 
Airborne Division, the reserve of I Field Force, was summoned to 
Pleiku and subsequently moved to Dak To, a CIDG camp in northern 
Kontum Province, to assist a besieged South Vietnamese force at 
the nearby government post at Toumorong. Although the 24th North 
Vietnamese Regiment had surrounded Toumorong, allied forces 
secured the road to Dak To and evacuated the government troops, 
leaving one battalion of the 101st inside the abandoned camp and 
one company in an exposed defensive position in the jungle a 
short distance beyond. On the night of 6 June a large North 
Vietnamese force launched repeated assaults on this lone 
company. Facing disaster, the commander called in air strikes on 
his own position to stop the enemy's human-wave attacks. Relief 
arrived the next morning, as additional elements of the brigade 
were heli-lifted to the battlefield to pursue and trap the North 
Vietnamese. Fighting to close off the enemy's escape routes, the 
Americans called in renewed air strikes, including B-52's. By 20 
June enemy resistance had ended, and the NVA regiment that had 
begun the fighting, leaving behind dead, escaped to the safety 
of its Laotian base.

Although the enemy's push in Kontum Province was blunted, the 
siege of Toumorong was only one aspect of his summer offensive 
in the highlands. Suspecting that NVA forces meant to return to 
the Ia Drang, Westmoreland sent the 3d Brigade, 25th Infantry 
Division, back into the valley in May. Dividing the area into 
"checkerboard" squares, the brigade methodically searched each 
square. Small patrols set out ambushes and operated for several 
days without resupply to avoid having helicopters reveal their 
location. After several days in one square, the patrols 
leapfrogged by helicopter to another. Though the Americans made 
only light, sporadic contacts, the cumulative toll of enemy 
killed was equal to many short, violent battles. One significant 
contact was made in late May near the Chu Pong Massif. A running 
battle ensued, as the enemy again sought safety in Cambodia. 
Westmoreland now appealed to Washington for permission to 
maneuver Army units behind the enemy, possibly into Cambodian 
territory. But officials refused, fearing international 
repercussions, and the NVA sanctuary remained inviolate.

Yet the operation confirmed that sizable enemy forces had 
returned to South Vietnam and, as in the fall of 1965, were 
threatening the outposts at Plei Me and Duc Co. To meet the 
renewed threat, I Field Force sent additional Army units to 
Pleiku Province and launched a new operation under the 1st 
Cavalry Division. The action followed the now familiar pattern 
of extensive heli-lifts, establishment of patrol bases, and 
intermittent contact with an enemy who usually avoided American 
forces. When the Communists elected to fight, they preferred to 
occupy high ground; dislodging them from hilltop bunkers was a 
difficult task, requiring massive air and artillery support. By 
the time the enemy left Pleiku again at the end of August, his 
forces had incurred nearly 500 deaths.

Border battles continued, however, and some were sharp. When 
enemy forces appeared in strength around a CIDG camp at Plei 
Djering in October, elements of the 4th Infantry and 1st Cavalry 
Divisions rapidly reinforced the camp, clashing with the enemy 
in firefights during October and November. As North Vietnamese 
forces began to withdraw through the Plei Trap valley, the 1st 
Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, was airlifted from Phu Yen to 
northern Kontum to try to block their escape, but failed to trap 
them before they reached the border. Army operations in the 
highlands were continued by the 4th Infantry Division. In 
addition to screening the border to detect infiltration, the 
division constructed a new road between Pleiku and the highland 
outpost at Plei Djering and helped the Saigon government 
resettle thousands of Montagnards in secure camps. Contact with 
the enemy generally was light, the heaviest occurring in mid-
February 1967, in an area west of the Nam Sathay River near the 
Cambodian border, when Communist forces unsuccessfully tried to 
overrun several American fire bases. Despite infrequent 
contacts, however, 4th Division troops killed 700 enemy over a 
period of three months.

In I Corps as well, the enemy seemed intent on dispersing 
American forces to the border regions. Heightened activity along 
the demilitarized zone drew marines from southern I Corps. To 
replace them, Army units were transferred from III and II Corps 
to the area vacated by the marines, among them the 196th 
Infantry Brigade, which was pulled out of Operation JUNCTION 
CITY, and the 3d Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, which had been 
operating in the II Corps Zone. Together with the 1st Brigade, 
101st Airborne Division, these units formed Task Force OREGON, 
activated on 12 April 1967 and placed under the operational 
control of the III Marine Amphibious Force. Army infantry units 
were now operating in all four of South Vietnam's corps areas.

Once at Chu Lai, the Army forces supported an extensive South 
Vietnamese pacification effort in Quang Tin Province. To the 
north, along the demilitarized zone, Army heavy artillery 
engaged in almost daily duels with NVA guns to the north. In 
Quang Tri Province, the marines fought a hard twelve-day battle 
to prevent NVA forces from dominating the hills surrounding Khe 
Sanh. The enemy's heightened military activity along the 
demilitarized zone, which included frontal attacks across it, 
prompted American officials to begin construction of a barrier 
consisting of highly sophisticated electronic and acoustical 
sensors and strong point defenses manned by allied forces. Known 
as the McNamara Line, after Secretary of Defense Robert S. 
McNamara, who vigorously promoted the concept, the barrier was 
to extend across South Vietnam and eventually into Laos. 
Westmoreland was not enthusiastic about the project, for he 
hesitated to commit large numbers of troops to man the 
strongpoints and doubted that the barrier would prevent the 
enemy from breaching the demilitarized zone. Hence the McNamara 
Line was never completed.

Throughout the summer of 1967, Marine forces endured some of the 
most intense enemy artillery barrages of the war and fought 
several battles with NVA units that infiltrated across the 17th 
parallel. Their stubborn defense, supported by massive 
counterbattery fire, naval gunfire, and air attacks, ended the 
enemy's offensive in northern I Corps, but not before 
Westmoreland had to divert additional Army units as 
reinforcements. A brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division and South 
Korean units were deployed to southern I Corps to replace 
additional marines who had been shifted further north. The depth 
of the Army's commitment in I Corps was shown by Task Force 
OREGON's reorganization as the 23d Infantry Division (Americal). 
The only Army division to be formed in South Vietnam, its name 
echoed a famous division of World War II that had also been 
organized in the Pacific. If the enemy's aim was to draw 
American forces to the north, he evidently was succeeding.

Even as Westmoreland shifted allied forces from II Corps to I 
Corps, fighting intensified in the highlands. After Army units 
made several contacts with enemy forces during May and June, 
Westmoreland moved the 173d Airborne Brigade from III Corps to 
II Corps to serve as the I Field Force's strategic reserve. 
Within a few days, however, the brigade was committed to an 
effort to forestall enemy attacks against the CIDG camps of Dak 
To, Dak Seang, and Dak Pek in northern Kontum Province. Under 
the control of the 4th Infantry Division, the operation 
continued throughout the summer until the enemy threat abated. A 
few months later, however, reconnaissance patrols in the 
vicinity of Dak To detected a rapid and substantial build-up of 
enemy forces in regimental strength. Believing an attack to be 
imminent,4th Infantry Division forces reinforced the garrison. 
In turn, the 173d Airborne Brigade returned to the highlands, 
arriving on 2 November. From 3 to 15 November enemy forces 
estimated to number 12,000 probed, harassed, and attacked 
American and South Vietnamese positions along the ridges and 
hills surrounding the camp. As the attacks grew stronger, more 
U.S. and South Vietnamese reinforcements were sent, including 
two battalions from the airmobile division and six ARVN 
battalions. By mid-November allied strength approached 8,000.

Despite daily air and artillery bombardments of their positions, 
the North Vietnamese launched two attacks against Dak To on 15 
November, destroying two C-130 aircraft and causing severe 
damage to the camp's ammunition dump. Allied forces strove to 
dislodge the enemy from the surrounding hills, but the North 
Vietnamese held fast in fortified positions. The center of enemy 
resistance was Hill 875; here, two battalions of the 173d 
Airborne Brigade made a slow and painful ascent against 
determined resistance and under grueling physical conditions, 
fighting for every foot of ground. Enemy fire was so intense and 
accurate that at times the Americans were unable to bring in 
reinforcements by helicopter or to provide fire support. In 
fighting that resembled the hill battles of the final stage of 
the Korean War, the confusion at Dak To pitted soldier against 
soldier in classic infantry battle. In desperation, beleaguered 
U.S. commanders on Hill 875 called in artillery and even B-52 
air strikes at perilously close range to their own positions. On 
17 November American forces at last gained control of Hill 875.

The battle of Dak To was the longest and most violent in the 
highlands since the battle of the Ia Drang two years before. 
Enemy casualties numbered in the thousands, with an estimated 
1,400 killed. Americans had suffered too. Approximately one-
fifth of the 173d Airborne Brigade had become casualties, with 
174 killed, 642 wounded, and 17 missing in action. If the battle 
of the Ia Drang exemplified airmobility in all its versatility, 
the battle of Dak To, with the arduous ascent of Hill 875, 
epitomized infantry combat at its most basic and the crushing 
effect of supporting air power.

Yet Dak To was only one of several border battles in the waning 
months of 1967. At Song Be and Loc Ninh in III Corps, and all 
along the northern border of I Corps, the enemy exposed his 
positions in order to confront U.S. forces in heavy fighting. By 
the end of 1967 the 1st Infantry Division had again concentrated 
near the Cambodian border, and the 25th Infantry Division had 
returned to War Zone C. The enemy's threat in I Corps caused 
Westmoreland to disperse more Army units. In the vacuum left by 
their departure, local Viet Cong sought to reconstitute their 
forces and to reassert their control over the rural population. 
In turn, Viet Cong revival often was a prelude to the resurgence 
of Communist military activity at the district and village 
level. Hard pressed to find additional Army units to shift from 
III Corps and II Corps to I Corps, Westmoreland asked the Army 
to accelerate deployment of two remaining brigades of the 101st 
Airborne Division from the United States. Arriving in December 
1967, the brigades were added to the growing number of Army 
units operating in the northern provinces.

While allied forces were under pressure, the border battles of 
1967 also led to a reassessment of strategy in Hanoi. 
Undeviating in their long-term aim of unification, the leaders 
of North Vietnam recognized that their strategy of military 
confrontation had failed to stop the American military build-up 
in the South or to reduce U.S. military pressure on the North. 
The enemy's regular and main force units had failed to inflict a 
salient military defeat on American forces. Although the North 
Vietnamese Army maintained the tactical initiative, Westmoreland 
had kept its units at bay and in some areas, like Binh Dinh 
Province, diminished their influence on the contest for control 
of the rural population. Many Communist military leaders 
perceived the war to be a stalemate and thought that continuing 
on their present course would bring diminishing returns, 
especially if their local forces were drastically weakened.

On the other side, Westmoreland could rightly point to some 
modest progress in improving South Vietnam's security and to 
punishing defeats inflicted on several NVA regiments and 
divisions. Yet none of his successes were sufficient to turn the 
tide of the war. The Communists had matched the build-up of 
American combat forces, the number of enemy divisions in the 
South increasing from one in early 1965 to nine at the start of 
1968. Against 320 allied combat battalions, the North Vietnamese 
and Viet Cong could marshal 240. Despite heavy air attacks 
against enemy lines of infiltration, the flow of men from the 
North had continued unabated, even increasing toward the end of 
1967.

Although the Military Assistance Command had succeeded in 
warding off defeat in 1965 and had gained valuable time for the 
South Vietnamese to concentrate their political and military 
resources on pacification, security in many areas of South 
Vietnam had improved little. Americans noted that the Viet Cong, 
in one district within artillery range of Saigon, rarely had any 
unit as large as a company. Yet, relying on booby traps, mines, 
and local guerrillas, they tied up over 6,000 American and South 
Vietnamese troops. More and more, success in the South seemed to 
depend not only on Westmoreland's ability to hold off and weaken 
enemy main force units, but on the equally important efforts of 
the South Vietnamese Army, the Regional and the Popular Forces, 
and a variety of paramilitary and police forces to pacify the 
countryside. Writing to President Johnson in the spring of 1967, 
outgoing Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge warned that if the South 
Vietnamese "dribble along and do not take advantage of the 
success which MACV has achieved against the main force and the 
Army of North Viet-Nam, we must expect that the enemy will lick 
his wounds, pull himself together and make another attack in 
'68." Westmoreland's achievements, he added, would be "judged 
not so much on the brilliant performance of the U.S. troops as 
on the success in getting ARVN, RF and PF quickly to function as 
a first-class ... counter-guerrilla force." Meanwhile the war 
appeared to be in a state of equilibrium. Only an extraordinary 
effort by one side or the other could bring a decision.

The Tet Offensive

The Tet offensive marked a unique stage in the evolution of 
North Vietnam's People's War. Hanoi's solution to the stalemate 
in the South was the product of several factors. North Vietnam's 
large unit war was unequal to the task of defeating American 
combat units. South Vietnam was becoming politically and 
militarily stronger, while the Viet Cong's grip over the rural 
population eroded. Hanoi's leaders suspected that the United 
States, frustrated by the slow pace of progress, might intensify 
its military operations against the North. (Indeed, Westmoreland 
had broached plans for an invasion of the North when he appealed 
for additional forces in 1967.) The Tet offensive was a 
brilliant stroke of strategy by Hanoi, designed to change the 
arena of war from the battlefield to the negotiating table, and 
from a strategy of military confrontation to one of talking and 
fighting.

Communist plans called for violent, widespread, simultaneous 
military actions in rural and urban areas throughout the South-a 
general offensive. But as always, military action was 
subordinate to a larger political goal. By focusing attacks on 
South Vietnamese units and facilities, Hanoi sought to undermine 
the morale and will of Saigon's forces. Through a collapse of 
military resistance, the North Vietnamese hoped to subvert 
public confidence in the government's ability to provide 
security, triggering a crescendo of popular protest to halt the 
fighting and force a political accommodation. In short, they 
aimed at a general uprising. Hanoi's generals, however, were not 
completely confident that the general offensive would succeed. 
Viet Cong forces, hastily reinforced with new recruits and part-
time guerrillas, bore the brunt. Except in the northern 
provinces, the North Vietnamese Army stayed on the sidelines, 
poised to exploit success. While hoping to spur negotiations, 
Communist leaders probably had the more modest goals of 
reasserting Viet Cong influence and undermining Saigon's 
authority so as to cast doubt on its credibility as the United 
States' ally, In this respect, the offensive was directed toward 
the United States and sought to weaken American confidence in 
the Saigon government, discredit Westmoreland's claims of 
progress, and strengthen American antiwar sentiment. Here again, 
the larger purpose was to bring the United States to the 
negotiating table and hasten American disengagement from 
Vietnam.

The Tet offensive began quietly in mid-January 1968 in the 
remote northwest corner of South Vietnam. Elements of three NVA 
divisions began to mass near the Marine base at Khe Sanh. At 
first the ominous proportions of the build-up led the Military 
Assistance Command to expect a major offensive in the northern 
provinces. To some observers the situation at Khe Sanh resembled 
Dien Bien Phu, the isolated garrison where the Viet Minh had 
defeated French forces in 1954. Khe Sanh, however, was a 
diversion, an attempt to entice Westmoreland to defend yet 
another border post by withdrawing forces from the populated 
areas of the South.

While pressure around Khe Sanh increased, 85,000 Communist 
troops prepared for the Tet offensive. Since the fall of 1967, 
the enemy had been infiltrating arms, ammunition, and men, 
including entire units, into Saigon and other cities and towns. 
Most of these meticulous preparations went undetected, although 
MACV received warnings of a major enemy action to take place in 
early 1968. The command did pull some Army units closer to 
Saigon just before the attack. However, concern over the 
critical situation at Khe Sanh and preparations for the Tet 
holiday festivities preoccupied most Americans and South 
Vietnamese. Even when Communist forces prematurely attacked 
Kontum, Qui Nhon, Da Nang, and other towns in the northern and 
central provinces on 29 January, Americans were unprepared for 
what followed.

On 31 January combat erupted throughout the entire country. 
Thirty-six of 44 provincial capitals and 64 of 242 district 
towns were attacked, as well as 5 of South Vietnam's 6 
autonomous cities, among them Hue and Saigon. Once the shock and 
confusion wore off, most attacks were crushed in a few days. 
During those few days, however, the fighting was some of the 
most violent ever seen in the South or experienced by many ARVN 
units. Though the South Vietnamese were the main target, 
American units were swept into the turmoil. All Army units in 
the vicinity of Saigon helped to repel Viet Cong attacks there 
and at the nearby logistical base of Long Binh. In some American 
compounds, cooks, radiomen, and clerks took up arms in their own 
defense. Military police units helped root the Viet Cong out of 
Saigon, and Army helicopter gunships were in the air almost 
continuously, assisting the allied forces.

The most tenacious combat occurred in Hue, the ancient capital 
of Vietnam, where the 1st Cavalry and 101st Airborne Divisions, 
together with Marines and South Vietnamese forces, participated 
in the only extended urban combat of the war. Hue had a 
tradition of Buddhist activism, with overtones of neutralism, 
separatism, and anti-Americanism, and Hanoi's strategists 
thought that here if anywhere the general offensive-general 
uprising might gain a political foothold. Hence they threw North 
Vietnamese regulars into the battle, indicating that the stakes 
at Hue were higher than elsewhere in the South. House-to-house 
and street-to-street fighting caused enormous destruction, 
necessitating massive reconstruction and community assistance 
programs after the battle. The allies took three weeks to 
recapture the city. The slow, hard-won gains of 1967 vanished 
overnight as South Vietnamese and Marine forces were pulled out 
of the countryside to reinforce the city.

Yet throughout the country the South Vietnamese forces acquitted 
themselves well, despite high casualties and many desertions. 
Stunned by the attacks, civilian support for the Thieu 
government coalesced instead of weakening. Many Vietnamese for 
whom the war had been an unpleasant abstraction were outraged. 
Capitalizing on the new feeling, South Vietnam's leaders for the 
first time dared to enact general mobilization. The change from 
grudging toleration of the Viet Cong to active resistance 
provided an opportunity to create new local defense 
organizations and to attack the Communist infrastructure. 
Spurred by American advisers, the Vietnamese began to revitalize 
pacification. Most important, the Viet Cong suffered a major 
military defeat, losing thousands of experienced combatants and 
seasoned political cadres, seriously weakening the insurgent 
base in the South.

Americans at home saw a different picture. Dramatic images of 
the Viet Cong storming the American Embassy in the heart of 
Saigon and the North Vietnamese Army clinging tenaciously to Hue 
obscured Westmoreland's assertion that the enemy had been 
defeated. Claims of progress in the war, already greeted with 
skepticism, lost more credibility in both public and official 
circles. The psychological jolt to President Johnson's Vietnam 
policy was redoubled when the military requested an additional 
206,000 troops. Most were intended to reconstitute the strategic 
reserve in the United States, exhausted by Westmoreland's 
appeals for combat units between 1965 and 1967. But the 
magnitude of the new request, at a time when almost a half-
million U.S. troops were already in Vietnam, cast doubts on the 
conduct of the war and prompted a reassessment of American 
policy and strategy,

Without mobilization, the United States was overcommitted. The 
Army could send few additional combat units to Vietnam without 
making deep inroads on forces destined for NATO or South Korea. 
The dwindling strategic reserve left Johnson with fewer options 
in the spring of 1968 than in the summer of 1965. His problems 
were underscored by heightened international tensions when North 
Korea captured an American naval vessel, the USS Pueblo, a week 
before the Tet offensive; by Soviet armed intervention in 
Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1968; and by chronic crises in 
the Mideast. In addition, Army units in the United States were 
needed often between 1965 and 1968 to enforce federal civil 
rights legislation and to restore public order in the wake of 
civil disturbances.

Again, as in 1967, Johnson refused to sanction a major troop 
levy, but he did give Westmoreland some modest reinforcements to 
bolster the northern provinces. Again tapping the strategic 
reserve, the Army sent him the 3d Brigade, 82d Airborne 
Division, and the 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division, 
(Mechanized)-the last Army combat units to deploy to South 
Vietnam. In addition, the President called to active duty a 
small number of Reserve units, totaling some 40,000 men, for 
duty in Southeast Asia and South Korea, the only use of Reserves 
during the Vietnam War. For Westmoreland, Johnson's decision 
meant that future operations would have to make the best 
possible use of American forces, and that the South Vietnamese 
Army would have to shoulder a larger share of the war effort. 
The President also curtailed air strikes against North Vietnam 
to spur negotiations. Finally, on 31 March Johnson announced his 
decision not to seek re-election in order to give his full 
attention to the goal of resolving the conflict. Hanoi had 
suffered a military defeat, but had won a political and 
diplomatic victory by shifting American policy toward 
disengagement.

For the Army the new policy meant a difficult time. In South 
Vietnam, as in the United States, its forces were stretched 
thin. The Tet offensive had concentrated a large portion of the 
combat forces in I Corps, once a Marine preserve. A new command, 
the XXIV Corps, had to be activated at Da Nang, and Army 
logistical support, previously confined to the three southern 
corps zones, extended to the five northern provinces as well. 
While Army units reinforced Hue and the demilitarized zone, the 
marines at Khe Sanh held fast. Enemy pressure on the besieged 
base increased daily, but the North Vietnamese refrained from an 
all-out attack, still hoping to divert American forces from Hue. 
Recognizing that he could ill afford Khe Sanh's defense, 
Westmoreland decided to subject the enemy to the heaviest air 
and artillery bombardment of the war. His tactical gamble 
succeeded; the enemy withdrew, and the Communist offensive 
slackened. The enemy nevertheless persisted in his effort to 
weaken the Saigon government, launching nationwide "mini-Tet" 
offensives in May and August Pockets of heavy fighting occurred 
throughout the south, and Viet Cong forces again tried to 
infiltrate into Saigon-the last gasps of the general offensive-
general uprising. Thereafter enemy forces generally dispersed 
and avoided contact with Americans. In turn, the allies withdrew 
from Khe Sanh itself in the summer of 1968. Its abandonment 
signaled the demise of the McNamara Line and further 
postponement of MACV's hopes for large-scale American cross-
border operations. For the remainder of 1968, Army units in I 
Corps were content to help restore security around Hue and other 
coastal areas, working closely with the marines and the South 
Vietnamese in support of pacification. North Vietnamese and Viet 
Cong forces generally avoided offensive operations. As armistice 
negotiations began in Paris, both sides prepared to enter a new 
phase of the war.

Vietnamization

The last phase of American involvement in South Vietnam was 
carried out under a broad policy called Vietnamization. Its main 
goal was to create strong, largely self-reliant South Vietnamese 
military forces, an objective consistent with that espoused by 
U.S. advisers as early as the 1950's. But Vietnamization also 
meant the withdrawal of a half-million American soldiers. Past 
efforts to strengthen and modernize South Vietnam's Army had 
proceeded at a measured pace, without the pressure of 
diminishing American support, large-scale combat, or the 
presence of formidable North Vietnamese forces in the South. 
Vietnamization entailed three overlapping phases: redeployment 
of American forces and the assumption of their combat role by 
the South Vietnamese; improvement of ARVN's combat and support 
capabilities, especially firepower and mobility; and replacement 
of the Military Assistance Command by an American advisory 
group. Vietnamization had the added dimension of fostering 
political, social, and economic reforms to create a vibrant 
South Vietnamese state based on popular participation in 
national political life. Such reforms, however, depended on 
progress in the pacification program which never had a clearly 
fixed timetable.

The task of carrying out the military aspects of Vietnamization 
fell to General Creighton W. Abrams, who succeeded General 
Westmoreland as MACV commander in mid-1968, when the latter 
returned to the United States to become Chief of Staff of the 
Army. Although he had the aura of a blunt, hard-talking, World 
War II tank commander, Abrams had spent two years as 
Westmoreland's deputy, working closely with South Vietnamese 
commanders. Like Westmoreland before him, Abrams viewed the 
military situation after Tet as an opportunity to make gains in 
pacifying rural areas and to reduce the strength of Communist 
forces in the South. Until the weakened Viet Cong forces could 
be rebuilt or replaced with NVA forces, both guerrilla and 
regular Communist forces had adopted a defensive posture. 
Nevertheless, 90,000 NVA forces were in the South, or in border 
sanctuaries, waiting to resume the offensive at a propitious 
time.

Abrams still had strong American forces; indeed, they reached 
their peak strength of 543,000 in March 1969. But he was also 
under pressure from Washington to minimize casualties and to 
conduct operations with an eye toward leaving the South 
Vietnamese in the strongest possible military position when U.S. 
forces withdrew. With these considerations in mind, Abrams 
decided to disrupt and destroy the enemy's bases, especially 
those near the border, to prevent their use as staging areas for 
offensive operations. His primary objective was the enemy's 
logistical support system rather than enemy main combat forces. 
At the same time, to enhance Saigon's pacification efforts and 
improve local security, Abrams intended to emphasize small unit 
operations, with extensive patrolling and ambushes, aiming to 
reduce the enemy's base of support among the rural population.

To the greatest extent possible, he planned to improve ARVN's 
performance by conducting combined operations with American 
combat units. As the South Vietnamese Army assumed the lion's 
share of combat, it was expected to shift operations to the 
border and to assume a role similar to that performed by U.S. 
forces between 1965 and 1969. The Regional and Popular , Forces, 
in turn, were to take over ARVN's role in area security and 
pacification support, while the newly organized People's Self-
Defense Force took on the task of village and hamlet defense. 
Stressing the close connection between combat and pacification 
operations, the need for co-operation between American and South 
Vietnamese forces, and the importance of coordinating all 
echelons of Saigon's armed forces, Abrams propounded a "one war" 
concept.

Yet even in his emphasis on combined operations and American 
support of pacification, Abrams' strategy had strong elements of 
continuity with Westmoreland's. For the first, operations in War 
Zones C and D in 1967 and the thrust into the A Shau valley in 
1968 were ample precedents. Again, Westmoreland had laid the 
foundation for a more extensive U.S. role in pacification in 
1967 by establishing Civil Operations Rural Development Support 
(CORDS). Under CORDS, the Military Assistance Command took 
charge of all American activities, military and civilian, in 
support of pacification. Abrams' contribution was to enlarge the 
Army's role. Under him, the U.S. advisory effort at provincial 
and district levels grew as the territorial forces gained in 
importance, and additional advisers were assigned to the Phoenix 
program, a concerted effort to eliminate the Communist political 
apparatus. Numerous mobile advisory teams helped the South 
Vietnamese Army and paramilitary forces to become adept in a 
variety of combat and support functions.

Despite all efforts, many Americans doubted whether Saigon's 
armed forces could successfully play their enlarged role under 
Vietnamization. Earlier counterinsurgency efforts had languished 
under less demanding circumstances, and Saigon's forces 
continued to be plagued with high desertions, spotty morale, and 
shortages of high quality leaders. Like the French before them, 
U.S. advisers had assumed a major role in providing and 
coordinating logistical and firepower support, leaving the 
Vietnamese inexperienced in the conduct of large combined-arms 
operations. Despite the Viet Cong's weakened condition, South 
Vietnamese forces also continued to incur high casualties.

Similarly, pacification registered ostensible gains in rural 
security and other measures of progress, but such improvements 
of ten obscured its failure to establish deep roots. The Phoenix 
program, despite its success in seizing low-level cadres, rarely 
caught hard-core, high-level party officials, many of whom 
survived, as they had in the mid-1950's, by taking more 
stringent security measures. Furthermore, the program was abused 
by some South Vietnamese officials, who used it as a vehicle for 
personal vendettas. Saigon's efforts at political, social, and 
economic reform likewise were susceptible to corruption, 
venality, and nepotism. Temporary social and economic benefits 
for the peasantry rested on an uncertain foundation of continued 
American aid, as did South Vietnam's entire economy and war 
effort.

Influencing all parts of the struggle was a new defense policy 
enunciated by Richard M. Nixon, who became President in January 
1969. The "Nixon Doctrine" harkened back to the precepts of the 
New Look, placing greater reliance on nuclear retaliation, 
encouraging allies to accept a larger share of their own defense 
burden, and barring the use of U.S. ground forces in limited 
wars in Asia, unless vital national interests were at stake. 
Under this policy, American ground forces in South Vietnam, once 
withdrawn, were unlikely to return. For President Thieu in 
Saigon, the future was inauspicious. For the time being, large 
numbers of American forces were still present to bolster his 
country's war effort; what would happen when they departed, no 
one knew.

Military Operations, 1968-1969

Vietnamization began in earnest when two brigades of the U.S. 
Army's 9th Infantry Division left South Vietnam in July 1968, 
making the South Vietnamese Army responsible for securing the 
southern approaches to Saigon. The protective area that 
Westmoreland had developed around the capital was still intact. 
Allied forces engaged in a corps-wide counteroffensive to locate 
and destroy remnants of the enemy units that had participated in 
the Tet offensive, combining thousands of small unit operations, 
frequent sweeps through enemy bases, and persistent screening of 
the Cambodian border to prevent enemy main force units from 
returning. As the Military Assistance Command anticipated, the 
Communists launched a Tet offensive in 1969, but a much weaker 
one than a year earlier. Allied forces easily suppressed the 
outbreaks. Meanwhile, in critical areas around Saigon 
pacification had begun to take hold. Such signs of progress 
probably resulted mainly from the attrition of Viet Cong forces 
during Tet 1968. But the vigilant screening of the border 
contributed to the enemy's difficulty in reaching and helping 
local insurgent forces.

Yet Saigon was not impregnable. With increasing frequency, enemy 
sappers penetrated close enough to launch powerful rocket 
attacks against the capital. Such incidents terrorized 
civilians, caused military casualties, and were a violent 
reminder of the government's inability to protect the 
population. Sometimes simultaneous attacks were conducted 
throughout the country. An economy-of-force measure, the attacks 
brought little risk to the enemy and compelled allied forces to 
suspend other tasks while they cleared the "rocket belts" around 
every major urban center and base in the country,

In the Central Highlands the war of attrition continued. Until 
its redeployment of 1970, the Army protected major highland 
population centers and kept open important interior roads. 
Special Forces worked with the tribal highlanders to detect 
infiltration and harass enemy secret zones. As in the past, 
highland camps and outposts were a magnet for enemy attacks, 
meant to lure reaction forces into an ambush or to divert the 
allies from operations elsewhere. Ben Het in Kontum Province was 
besieged from March to July of 1969. Other bases-Thien Phuoc and 
Thuong Duc in I Corps; Bu Prang, Dak Seang, and Dak Pek in II 
Corps; and Katum, Bu Dop, and Tong Le Chon in III Corps-were 
attacked because of their proximity to Communist strongholds and 
infiltration routes. In some cases camps had to be abandoned, 
but in most the attackers were repulsed. By the time the 5th 
Special Forces Group left South Vietnam in March 1971, all CIDG 
units had been converted to Regional Forces or absorbed by the 
South Vietnamese Rangers, The departure of the Green Berets 
brought an end to any significant Army role in the highlands.

Following the withdrawal of the 4th and 9th Divisions, Army 
units concentrated around Saigon and in the northern provinces. 
Operating in Quang Ngai, Quang Tin, and Quang Nam Provinces, the 
23d Infantry Division (Americal) conducted a series of 
operations in 1968 and 1969 to secure and pacify the heavily 
populated coastal plain or southern I Corps, Along the 
demilitarized zone, the 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division 
(Mechanized), helped marines and South Vietnamese forces to 
screen the zone and to secure the northern coastal region, 
including a stretch of highway, the "street without joy," that 
was notorious from the time of the French. The 101st Airborne 
Division (converted to the Army's second airmobile division in 
1968) divided its attention between the defense of Hue and 
forays into the enemy's base in the A Shau valley.

Since the 1968 Tet offensive, the Communists had restocked the A 
Shau valley with ammunition, rice, and equipment. The logistical 
build-up pointed to a possible NVA offensive in early 1969. In 
quick succession, Army operations were launched in the familiar 
pattern: air assaults, establishment of fire support bases, and 
exploration of the lowlands and surrounding hills to locate 
enemy forces and supplies. This time the Army met stiff enemy 
resistance, especially from antiaircraft guns. The North 
Vietnamese had expected the American forces and now planned to 
hold their ground.

On 11 May 1969, a battalion of the 101st Airborne Division 
climbing Hill 937 found the 29th North Vietnamese Regiment 
waiting for it. The struggle for "Hamburger Hill" raged for ten 
days and became one of the war's fiercest and most controversial 
battles. Entrenched in tiers of fortified bunkers with well-
prepared fields of fire, the enemy forces withstood repeated 
attempts to dislodge them. Supported by intense artillery and 
air strikes, Americans made a slow, tortuous climb, fighting 
hand to hand. By the time Hill 937 was taken, three Army 
battalions and an ARVN regiment had been committed to the 
battle. Victory, however, was ambiguous as well as costly; the 
hill itself had no strategic or tactical importance and was 
abandoned soon after its capture. Critics charged that the 
battle wasted American lives and exemplified the irrelevance of 
U.S. tactics in Vietnam. Defending the operation, the commander 
of the 101st acknowledged that the hill's only significance was 
that the enemy occupied it. "My mission" he said, "was to 
destroy enemy forces and installations. We found the enemy on 
Hill 937, and that is where we fought them."

About one month later the 101st left the A Shau valley, and the 
North Vietnamese were free to use it again. American plans to 
return in the summer of 1970 came to nothing when enemy pressure 
forced the abandonment of two fire support bases needed for 
operations there. The loss of Fire Support Base O'REILLY, only 
eleven miles from Hue, was an ominous sign that enemy forces had 
reoccupied the A Shau and were seeking to dominate the valleys 
leading to the coastal plain. Until it redeployed in 1971, the 
101st Airborne, with the marines and South Vietnamese forces, 
now devoted most of its efforts to protecting Hue. The 
operations against the A Shau had achieved no more than 
Westmoreland's large search and destroy operations in 1967. As 
soon as the allies left, the enemy reclaimed his traditional 
bases.

The futility of such operations was mirrored in events on the 
coastal plain. Here the 23d Infantry Division fought in an area 
where the population had long been sympathetic to the Viet Cong. 
As in other areas, pacification in southern I Corps seemed to 
improve after the 1968 Tet offensive, though enemy units still 
dominated the piedmont and continued to challenge American and 
South Vietnamese forces on the coast. Operations against them 
proved to be slow, frustrating exercises in warding off NVA and 
Viet Cong main force units while enduring harassment from local 
guerrillas and the hostile population. Except during spasms of 
intense combat, as in the summer of 1969 when the Americal 
Division confronted the 1st North Vietnamese Regiment, most U.S. 
casualties were caused by snipers, mines, and booby traps. 
Villages populated by old men, women, and children were as 
dangerous as the elusive enemy main force units. Operating in 
such conditions day after day induced a climate of fear and hate 
among the Americans. The already thin line between civilian and 
combatant was easily blurred and violated. In the hamlet of My 
Lai, elements of the Americal Division killed about two hundred 
civilians in the spring of 1968. Although only one member of the 
division was tried and found guilty of war crimes, the 
repercussions of the atrocity were felt throughout the Army. 
However rare, such acts undid the benefit of countless hours of 
civic action by Army units and individual soldiers and raised 
unsettling questions about the conduct of the war.

What happened at My Lai could have occurred in any Army unit in 
Vietnam in the late 1960's and early 1970's. War crimes were 
born of a sense of frustration that also contributed to a host 
of morale and discipline problems, among enlisted men and 
officers alike. As American forces were withdrawn by a 
government eager to escape the war, the lack of a clear military 
objective contributed to a weakened sense of mission and a 
slackening of discipline. The short-timer syndrome, the 
reluctance to take risks in combat toward the end of a soldier's 
one-year tour, was compounded by the "last-casualty" syndrome. 
Knowing that all U.S. troops would soon leave Vietnam, no 
soldier wanted to be the last to die. Meanwhile, in the United 
States harsh criticism of the war, the military, and traditional 
military values had become widespread. Heightened individualism, 
growing permissiveness, and a weakening of traditional bonds of 
authority pervaded American society and affected the Army's rank 
and file. The Army grappled with problems of drug abuse, racial 
tensions, weakened discipline, and lapses of leadership. While 
outright refusals to fight were few in number, incidents of 
"fragging" murderous attacks on officers and noncoms-occurred 
frequently enough to compel commands to institute a host of new 
security measures within their cantonments. All these problems 
were symptoms of larger social and political forces and 
underlined a growing disenchantment with the war among soldiers 
in the field.

As the Army prepared to leave Vietnam, lassitude and war-
weariness at times resulted in tragedy, as at Fire Support Base 
MARY ANN in 1971. There soldiers of the Americal Division, soon 
to go home, relaxed their security and were overrun by a North 
Vietnamese force. Such incidents reflected a decline in the 
quality of leadership among both noncommissioned and  
commissioned officers. Lowered standards, abbreviated training, 
and  accelerated promotions to meet the high demand for 
noncommissioned and junior officers often resulted in the 
assignment of squad, platoon, and company  leaders with less 
combat experience than the troops they led. Careerism and  
ticket-punching in officer assignments, false reporting and 
inflated body counts, and revelations of scandal and corruption 
all raised disquieting questions about the professional ethics 
of Army leadership. Critics indicted the tactics and techniques 
used by the Army in Vietnam, noting that airmobility, for 
example, tended to distance troops from the population they were 
sent to protect and that commanders aloft in their command and 
control helicopters were at a psychological and physical 
distance from the soldiers they were supposed to lead.

Cross-border Operations

With most U.S. combat units slated to leave South Vietnam during 
1970 and 1971, time was a critical factor for the success of 
Vietnamization and pacification. Neither program could thrive if 
Saigon's forces were distracted by enemy offensives launched 
from bases in Laos or Cambodia. While Abrams' logistical 
offensive temporarily reduced the level of enemy activity in the 
South, bases outside South Vietnam had been inviolable to allied 
ground forces. Harboring enemy forces, command facilities, and 
logistical depots, the Cambodian and Laotian bases threatened 
the fragile progress made in the South since Tet 1968. To the 
Nixon administration, Abrams' plans to violate the Communist 
sanctuaries had the special appeal of gaining more time for 
Vietnamization and of compensating for the bombing halt  over 
North Vietnam.

Because of their proximity to Saigon, the bases in Cambodia 
received first priority. Planning for the cross border attack 
occurred at a critical time in Cambodia. In early 1970 
Cambodia's-neutralist leader, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, was 
overthrown by his pro-Western Defense Minister, General Lon Nol. 
Among Lon Nol's first actions was closing the port of 
Sihanoukville to supplies destined for Communist forces in the 
border bases and in South Vietnam. He also demanded that 
Communist forces leave Cambodia and accepted Saigon's offer to 
apply pressure against those located near the border. A few 
weeks earlier, American B-52 bombers had begun in secret to bomb 
enemy bases in Cambodia. By late April, South Vietnamese 
military units, accompanied by American advisers, had mounted 
large-scale ground operations across the border.

On 1 May 1970, units of the 1st Cavalry Division, the 25th 
Infantry Division, and the 11th Armored Cavalry followed. 
Cambodia became a new battlefield of the Vietnam War. Cutting a 
broad swath through the enemy's Cambodian bases, Army units 
discovered large, sprawling, well-stocked  storage sites, 
training camps, and hospitals, all recently occupied. What 
Americans did not find were large enemy forces or COSVN 
headquarters. Only small delaying forces offered sporadic 
resistance, while main force units retreated to northeastern 
Cambodia. Meanwhile the expansion of the war produced violent 
demonstrations in the United States. In response to the public 
outcry, Nixon imposed a geographical and time limit on 
operations in Cambodia, enabling the enemy to stay beyond reach. 
At the end of June, one day short of the sixty days allotted to 
the operation, all advisers  accompanying the South Vietnamese 
and all U.S. Army units had left Cambodia.

Political and military events in Cambodia triggered changes in 
the war as profound as those engendered by the Tet offensive. 
From a quiescent "side-show" of the war, Cambodia became an 
arena for the major belligerents. Military activity increased in 
northern Cambodia and southern Laos as Hanoi established new 
infiltration routes and bases to replace those lost during the 
incursion. Hanoi made clear that it regarded all Indochina as a 
single theater of operations. Cambodia itself was engulfed in a 
virulent civil war.

As U.S. Army units withdrew, the South Vietnamese Army found 
itself in a race against Communist forces to secure the 
Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. Americans provided Saigon's 
overextended forces air and logistical support to enable them to 
stabilize the situation there. The time to strengthen 
Vietnamization gained by the incursion now had to be weighed in 
the balance against ARVN's new commitment in Cambodia. To the 
extent that South Vietnam's forces bolstered Lon Nol's regime, 
they were unable to contribute to pacification and rural 
security in their own country. Moreover, the South Vietnamese 
performance in Cambodia was mixed. When working closely with 
American advisers, the army acquitted itself well. But when 
forced to rely on its own resources, the army revealed its 
inexperience and limitations in attempting to plan and execute 
large operations.

Despite ARVN's equivocal performance, less than a year later the 
Americans pressed the South Vietnamese to launch a second cross-
border operation, this time into Laos. Although U.S. air, 
artillery, and logistical support would be provided, this time 
Army advisers would not accompany South Vietnamese forces. The 
Americans' enthusiasm for the operation exceeded that of their 
allies. Anticipating high casualties, South Vietnam's leaders 
were reluctant to involve their army once more in extended 
operations outside their country. But American intelligence had 
detected a North Vietnamese build-up in the vicinity of 
Tchepone, a logistical center on the Ho Chi Minh Trail 
approximately 25 miles west of the South Vietnamese border in 
Laos. The Military Assistance Command regarded the build-up as a 
prelude to an NVA spring offensive in the northern provinces. 
Like the Cambodian incursion, the Laotian invasion was justified 
as benefiting Vietnamization, but with the added bonuses of 
spoiling a prospective offensive and cutting the Ho Chi Minh 
Trail.

In preparation for the operation, Army helicopters and artillery 
were moved to the vicinity of the abandoned base at Khe Sanh. 
The 101st Airborne Division conducted a feint toward the A Shau 
valley to conceal the true objective. On 8 February 1971, 
spearheaded by tanks and with airmobile units leapfrogging ahead 
to establish fire support bases in Laos, a South Vietnamese 
mechanized column advanced down Highway 9 toward Tchepone. 
Operation LAM SON 719 had begun.

The North Vietnamese were not deceived. South Vietnamese forces 
numbering about 25,000 became bogged down by heavy enemy 
resistance and bad weather. The drive toward Tchepone stalled. 
Facing the South Vietnamese were elements of five NVA divisions, 
as well as a tank regiment, an artillery regiment, and at least 
nineteen antiaircraft battalions. After a delay of several days, 
South Vietnamese forces air-assaulted into the heavily bombed 
town of Tchepone. By that time, the North Vietnamese had 
counterattacked with Soviet-built T54 and T55 tanks, heavy 
artillery, and infantry. They struck the rear of the South 
Vietnamese forces strung out on Highway 9, blocking their main 
avenue of withdrawal. Enemy forces also overwhelmed several 
South Vietnamese fire support bases, depriving ARVN units of 
desperately needed flank protection. The South Vietnamese also 
lacked antitank weapons to counter the North Vietnamese armor 
that appeared on the Laotian jungle trails. The result was near-
disaster. Army helicopter pilots trying to rescue South 
Vietnamese soldiers from their besieged hilltop fire bases 
encountered intense antiaircraft fire. Panic ensued when some 
South Vietnamese units ran out of ammunition. In some units, all 
semblance of an orderly withdrawal vanished as desperate South 
Vietnamese soldiers pushed the wounded off evacuation 
helicopters or clung to helicopter skids to reach safety. 
Eventually, ARVN forces punched their way out of Laos, but only 
after paying a heavy price.

That the South Vietnamese Army had reached its objective of 
Tchepone was of little consequence. Its stay there was brief and 
the supply caches it discovered disappointingly small. Saigon's 
forces had failed to sever the Ho Chi Minh Trail; infiltration 
reportedly increased during LAM SON 719, as the North Vietnamese 
shifted traffic to roads and trails further to the west in Laos. 
In addition to losing nearly 2,000 men, the South Vietnamese 
lost large amounts of equipment during their disorderly 
withdrawal, and the U.S. Army lost 107 helicopters, the highest 
number in any one operation of the war. Supporters pointed to 
heavy enemy casualties and argued that equipment losses were 
reasonable, given the large number of helicopters used to 
support LAM SON 719. The battle nevertheless raised disturbing 
questions among Army officials about the vulnerability of 
helicopters in mid- or high intensity conflict. What was the 
future of airmobility in any war where the enemy possessed a 
significant antiaircraft capability?

LAM SON 719 proved to be a less ambiguous test of Vietnamization 
than the Cambodian incursion. The South Vietnamese Army did not 
perform well in Laos. Reflecting on the operation, General Ngo 
Quan Truong the commander of I Corps, noted ARVN's chronic 
weakness in planning for and coordinating combat support. He 
also noted that from the battalion to the division level, the 
army had become dependent on U.S. advisers. At the highest 
levels of command, he added, "the need for advisers was more 
acutely felt in two specific areas: planning and leadership. The 
basic weakness of ARVN units at regimental and sometimes 
division level in those areas," he continued, "seriously 
affected the performance of subordinate units." LAM SON 719 
scored one success, forestalling a Communist spring offensive in 
the northern provinces; in other respects, it was a failure and 
an ill omen for the future.

Withdrawal: The Final Battles

As the Americans withdrew, South Vietnam's combat capability 
declined. The United States furnished its allies the heavier M48 
tank to match the NVA's T54 tank and heavier artillery to 
counter North Vietnamese 130-mm. guns, though past experience 
suggested that additional arms and equipment could not 
compensate for poor skills and mediocre leadership. In fact, the 
weapons and equipment were insufficient to offset the reduction 
in U.S. combat strength. In mid-1969, for example, an aggregate 
of fifty-six allied combat battalions were present in South 
Vietnam's two northern provinces; in 1972, after the departure 
of most American units, only thirty battalions were in the same 
area. Artillery strength in the northern region declined from 
approximately 400 guns to 169 in the same period, and ammunition 
supply rates fell off as well. Similar reductions took place 
throughout South Vietnam, causing decreases in mobility, 
firepower, intelligence support, and air support. Five thousand 
American helicopters were replaced by about 500. American 
specialties -B-52 strikes, photo reconnaissance, and the use of 
sensors and other means of target acquisition-were drastically 
curtailed.

Such losses were all the more serious because operations in 
Cambodia and Laos had illustrated how deeply ingrained in the 
South Vietnamese Army the American style of warfare had become. 
Nearly two decades of U.S. military involvement were exacting an 
unexpected price. As one ARVN division commander commented, 
"Trained as they were through combined action with US units, the 
[South Vietnamese] unit commander was used to the employment of 
massive firepower." That habit, he added, "was hard to 
relinquish."

By November 1971, when the 101st Airborne Division withdrew from 
the South, Hanoi was planning its 1972 spring offensive. With 
ARVN's combat capacity diminished and nearly all U.S. combat 
troops gone, North Vietnam sensed an opportunity to demonstrate 
the failure of Vietnamization, hasten ARVN's collapse, and 
revive the stalled peace talks. In its broad outlines and goals, 
the 1972 offensive resembled Tet 1968, except that the North 
Vietnamese Army, instead of the Viet Cong, bore the major burden 
of combat. The Nguyen-Hue offensive or Easter offensive began on 
30 March 1972. Total U.S. military strength in South Vietnam was 
about 95,000, of which only 6,000 were combat troops, and the 
task of countering the offensive on the ground fell almost 
exclusively to the South Vietnamese. Attacking on three fronts, 
the North Vietnamese Army poured across the demilitarized zone 
and out of Laos to capture Quang Tri, South Vietnam's 
northernmost province. In the Central Highlands, enemy units 
moved into Kontum Province, forcing Saigon to relinquish several 
border posts before government forces contained the offensive. 
On 2 April, Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces struck Loc 
Ninh, just south of the Cambodian border on Highway 13, and 
advanced south to An Loc along one of the main invasion routes 
toward Saigon. A two-month-long battle ensued, until enemy units 
were driven from An Loc and forced to disperse to bases in 
Cambodia. By late summer the Easter offensive had run its 
course; the South Vietnamese, in a slow, cautious 
counteroffensive, recaptured Quang Tri City and most of the lost 
province. But the margin of victory or defeat often was supplied 
by the massive supporting firepower provided by U.S. air and 
naval forces.

The tactics of the war were changing. Communist forces now made 
extensive use of armor and artillery. Among the new weapons in 
the enemy's arsenal was the Soviet SA-7 hand-held antiaircraft 
missile, which posed a threat to slow-flying tactical aircraft 
and helicopters. On the other hand, the Army's attack 
helicopter, the Cobra, outfitted with TOW antitank missiles, 
proved effective against NVA armor at stand-off range. In their 
antitank role, Army attack helicopters were crucial to ARVN's 
success at An Loc, suggesting a larger role for helicopters in 
the future as part of a combined arms team in conventional 
combat.

Vietnamization continued to show mixed results. The benefits of 
the South Vietnamese Army's newly acquired mobility and 
firepower were dissipated as it became responsible for securing 
areas vacated by American forces. Improvements of territorial 
and paramilitary troops were offset as they became increasingly 
vulnerable to attack by superior North Vietnamese forces. 
Insurgency was also reviving. Though their progress was less 
spectacular than the blitzkrieg-like invasion of the South, 
North Vietnamese forces entered the Delta in thousands between 
1969 and 1973 to replace the Viet Cong-one estimate suggested a 
tenfold increase in NVA strength, from 3,000 to 30,000, in this 
period. Here the fighting resembled that of the early 1960's, as 
enemy forces attacked lightly defended outposts and hamlets to 
regain control over the rural population in anticipation of a 
cease-fire. The strength of the People's Self-Defense Force, 
Saigon's first line of hamlet and village defense, after steady 
increases in 1969 and 1970, began to decline after 1971, also 
suggesting a revival of the insurgency in the countryside. 
Pursuing a strategy used successfully in the past, the North 
Vietnamese forced ARVN troops to the borders, exposing the 
countryside and leaving its protection in the hands of weaker 
forces.

Such unfavorable signs, however, did not disturb South Vietnam's 
leaders as long as they could count on continued United States 
air and naval support. Nixon's resumption of the bombing of 
North Vietnam during the Easter offensive and, for the first 
time, his mining of North Vietnamese ports encouraged this 
expectation, as did the intense American bombing of Hanoi and 
Haiphong in late 1972. But such pressure was intended, at least 
in part, to force North Vietnam to sign an armistice. If Thieu 
was encouraged by the display of U.S. military muscle, the 
course of negotiations could only have been a source of 
discouragement. Hanoi dropped an earlier demand for Thieu's 
removal, but the United States gave up its insistence on Hanoi's 
withdrawal of its troops from the South. In early 1973 the 
United States, North and South Vietnam, and the Viet Cong signed 
an armistice that promised a cease-fire and national 
reconciliation. In fact, fighting continued, but the Military 
Assistance Command was dissolved, remaining U.S. forces 
withdrawn, and American military action in South Vietnam 
terminated. Perhaps most important of all, American advisers-
still in many respects the backbone of ARVN's command structure-
were withdrawn.

Between 1973 and 1975 South Vietnam's military security further 
declined through a combination of old and new factors. Plagued 
by poor maintenance and shortages of spare parts, much of the 
equipment provided Saigon's forces under Vietnamization became 
inoperable. A rise in fuel prices stemming from a worldwide oil 
crisis further restricted ARVN's use of vehicles and aircraft. 
South Vietnamese forces in many areas of the country were on the 
defensive, confined to protecting key towns and installations. 
Seeking to preserve its diminishing assets, the South Vietnamese 
Army became garrison bound and either reluctant or unable to 
react to a growing number of guerrilla attacks that eroded rural 
security. Congressionally mandated reductions in U.S. aid 
further reduced the delivery of repair parts, fuel, and 
ammunition. American military activities in Cambodia and Laos, 
which had continued after the cease-fire in South Vietnam went 
into effect, ended in 1973 when Congress cut off funds. 
Complaining of this austerity, President Thieu noted that he had 
to fight a "poor man's war." Vietnamization's legacy was that 
South Vietnam had to do more with less.

In 1975 North Vietnam's leaders began planning for a new 
offensive, still uncertain whether the United States would 
resume bombing or once again intervene in the South. When their 
forces overran Phuoc Long Province, north of Saigon, without any 
American military reaction, they decided to proceed with a major 
offensive in the Central Highlands. Neither President Nixon, 
weakened by the Watergate scandal and forced to resign, nor his 
successor, Gerald Ford, was prepared to challenge Congress by 
resuming U.S. military activity in Southeast Asia. The will of 
Congress seemed to reflect the mood of an American public weary 
of the long and inconclusive war.

What had started as a limited offensive in the highlands to draw 
off forces from populated areas now became an all-out effort to 
conquer South Vietnam. Thieu, desiring to husband his military 
assets, decided to retreat rather than to reinforce the 
highlands. The result was panic among his troops and a mass 
exodus toward the coast. As Hanoi's forces spilled out of the 
highlands, they cut off South Vietnamese defenders in the 
northern provinces from the rest of the country. Other NVA units 
now crossed the demilitarized zone, quickly overrunning Hue and 
Da Nang, and signaling the collapse of South Vietnamese 
resistance in the north. Hurriedly established defense lines 
around Saigon could not hold back the inexorable enemy offensive 
against the capital. As South Vietnamese leaders waited in vain 
for American assistance, Saigon fell to the Communists on 29 
April 1975.

The Post-Vietnam Army

Saigon's fall was a bitter end to the long American effort to 
sustain South Vietnam. Ranging from advice and support to direct 
participation in combat and involving nearly three million U.S. 
servicemen, the effort failed to stop Communist leaders from 
reaching their goal of unifying a divided nation. South 
Vietnam's military defeat tended to obscure the crucial 
inability of this massive military enterprise to compensate for 
Saigon's political shortcomings. Over a span of nearly two 
decades, a series of regimes failed to mobilize fully and 
effectively their nation's political, social, and economic 
resources to foster a popular base of support. North Vietnamese 
main force units ended the war, but local insurgency among the 
people of the South made that outcome possible and perhaps 
inevitable.

The U.S. Army paid a high price for its long involvement in 
South Vietnam. American military deaths exceeded 58,000, and of 
these about two thirds were soldiers. The majority of the dead 
were low-ranking enlisted men (E-2 and E-3), young men twenty-
three years old or younger, of whom approximately 13 percent 
were black. Most deaths were caused by small-arms fire and 
gunshot, but a significant portion, almost 30 percent, stemmed 
from mines, booby traps, and grenades. Artillery, rockets, and 
bombs accounted for only a small portion of the total 
fatalities.

If not for the unprecedented medical care that the Army provided 
in South Vietnam, the death toll would have been higher yet. 
Nearly 300,000 Americans were wounded, of whom half required 
hospitalization. The lives of many seriously injured men, who 
would have become fatalities in earlier wars, were saved by 
rapid helicopter evacuation direct to hospitals close to the 
combat zone. Here, relatively secure from air and ground attack, 
usually unencumbered by mass casualties, and with access to an 
uninterrupted supply of whole blood, Army doctors and nurses 
availed themselves of the latest medical technology to save 
thousands of lives. As one medical officer pointed out, the Army 
was able to adopt a "civilian philosophy of casualty triage" in 
the combat zone that directed the "major effort first to the 
most seriously injured." But some who served in South Vietnam 
suffered more insidious damage from the adverse psychological 
effects of combat or the long-term effects of exposure to 
chemical agents. More than a decade after the end of the war, 
1,761 American soldiers remain listed as missing in action.

The war-ravaged Vietnamese, north and south, incurred the 
greatest losses. South Vietnamese military deaths exceeded 
200,000. War-related civilian deaths in the South approached a 
half-million, while the injured and maimed numbered many more. 
Accurate estimates of enemy casualties run afoul of the 
difficulty in distinguishing between civilians and combatants, 
imprecise body counts, and the difficulty of verifying 
casualties in areas controlled by the enemy. Nevertheless, 
nearly a million Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers are 
believed to have perished in combat through the spring of 1975.

For the U.S. Army the scars of the war ran even deeper than the 
grim statistics showed. Given its long association with South 
Vietnam's fortunes, the Army could not escape being tarnished by 
its ally's fall. The loss compounded already unsettling 
questions about the Army's role in Southeast Asia, about the 
soundness of its advice to the South Vietnamese, about its 
understanding of the nature of the war, about the 
appropriateness of its strategy and tactics, and about the 
adequacy of the counsel provided by Army leaders to national 
decision makers. Marked by ambiguous military objectives, 
defensive strategy, lack of tactical initiative, ponderous 
tactics, and untidy command arrangements, the struggle in 
Vietnam seemed to violate most of the time-honored principles of 
war. Many officers sought to erase Vietnam from the Army's 
corporate memory, feeling uncomfortable with the ignominy of 
failure or believing that the lessons and experience of the war 
were of little use to the post-Vietnam Army. Although a 
generation of officers, including many of the Army's future 
leaders, cut their combat teeth in Vietnam, many regretted that 
the Army's reputation, integrity, and professionalism had been 
tainted in the service of a flawed strategy and a dubious ally.

Even before South Vietnam fell, Army strategists turned their 
attention to what seemed to them to be the Army's more enduring 
and central mission-the defense of western Europe. Ending a 
decade of neglect of its forces there, the Army began to 
strengthen and modernize its NATO contingent. Army planners 
doubted that in any future European war they would enjoy the 
luxury of a gradual, sustained mobilization, or unchallenged 
control of air and sea lines of communication, or access to 
support facilities close to the battlefield. France's decision 
in 1966 to end its affiliation with NATO had already forced the 
Army to re-evaluate its strategy and support arrangements. The 
end of the draft in 1972 and the transition to an all-volunteer 
Army in 1973-a reflection of popular dissatisfaction with the 
Vietnam War-added to the unlikelihood of another war similar to 
Vietnam and made it seem more than ever an anomaly.

Instead, Army planners faced a possible future conflict that 
would begin with little or no warning and confront allied 
forces-in-being with a numerically superior foe. Combat in such 
a war was likely to be violent and sustained, entailing deep 
thrusts by armored forces, intense artillery and counterbattery 
fire, and a fluid battlefield with a high degree of mobility. 
Army doctrine to fight this war, codified in 1976 in FM (Field 
Manual) 100-5, Operations, barely acknowledged the decade of 
Army combat in Vietnam. The new doctrine of "active defense" 
drew heavily on the experience of armored operations in World 
War II and recent fighting in the Middle East between Arab and 
Israeli forces. From a study of about 1,000 armored battles, 
Army planners deduced that an outnumbered defender could force a 
superior enemy to concentrate his forces and reveal his 
intentions, and thus bring to bear in the all-important initial 
phase of the battle sufficient forces and firepower in the 
critical area to defeat his main attack. The conversion of the 
1st Cavalry Division, the unit that exemplified combat 
operations in South Vietnam, from an airmobile division to a new 
triple capabilities (TRICAP) division symbolized the post-
Vietnam Army's reorientation toward combat in Europe. Infused 
with additional mechanized and artillery forces to give it 
greater flexibility and firepower, the division's triple 
capabilities-armor, airmobility, and air cavalry-better suited 
it to carry out the tactical concepts of FM 100-5 than its 
previous configuration.

Yet the Army did not totally ignore its Vietnam experience. U. 
S. armor and artillery forces had gained valuable experience 
there in coordinating operations with airmobile forces. Although 
some in the military questioned whether helicopters could 
operate in mid-intensity conflict Army doctrine rested heavily 
on concepts of airmobility that had evolved during Vietnam. 
Helicopters were still expected to move forces from one sector 
of the battlefield to another, to carry out reconnaissance and 
surveillance, to provide aerial fire support, and to serve as 
antitank weapons systems In many respects, the role contemplated 
for helicopters in the post-Vietnam Army harkened back to 
concepts of airmobility originally formulated for the atomic 
battlefield of the early 1960's, but modified by combat in 
Vietnam. Like the Army of the Vietnam era, the postwar Army 
continued a common hallmark of the American military tradition 
by emphasizing technology and firepower over manpower.

The Army's new operational doctrine had its share of critics. 
Stressing tactical operations of units below the division, the 
doctrine of FM 100-5 neglected the role of larger Army echelons. 
Recognition of this deficiency led to a revival of interest in 
the role of divisions, corps, and armies in the gray area 
between grand strategy and tactics. But some strategists warned 
that the Army seemed to be preparing for the war it was least 
likely to fight. Like the strategists of the New Look in the 
1950's, they viewed an attack on Army forces in Europe as a mere 
trip wire that would ignite a nuclear confrontation between the 
superpowers and thus make the land battle irrelevant. With 
insurgencies, small wars, subversion, and terrorism flourishing 
throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America, others believed that 
Army would sooner or later find itself once again engaged in 
conflicts that closely resembled Vietnam.

Ten years after the loss of South Vietnam, the U.S. Army's major 
overseas commitments remained anchored in NATO and South Korea. 
International realities still compelled it to prepare for a 
variety of contingencies. In addition to organizing divisions to 
fight in Europe, the Army revived its old interest in light 
infantry divisions. By the mid-1980's two such divisions, the 
10th Mountain Division and the 6th Infantry Division (Light), 
had been activated, giving the Army once again a total of 
eighteen divisions. Lower active-duty strength required many 
divisions to be fleshed out by Reserve Components before they 
could be committed to combat. Nevertheless, the Army viewed its 
new divisions as suitable for use in a rapid deployment force to 
reinforce NATO or world trouble spots. Although their strength 
was drastically reduced following the Vietnam War, Special 
Forces continued to be called upon to advise and train anti-
Communist military forces in Latin America and elsewhere and to 
participate in a variety of special activities to counter 
terrorism. Operations like the abortive attempt to rescue 
American hostages in Iran and the successful operation to 
prevent a Communist takeover of the Caribbean island of Grenada 
attested to the Army's continuing need for both rapidly 
deployable and special-purpose forces. The realities of a 
complex world reinforced the pervasive influence of flexible 
response on the U.S. national security policy. Many other 
missions fell under the doctrinal umbrella of low-intensity 
conflict, a vague and faddish term that became popular in the 
1980's as counterinsurgency had two decades earlier. The 
relevance of Vietnam to low-intensity conflict remains an open 
question.

Nevertheless, by the 1980's the conduct and lessons of the war 
in Vietnam had again become the subject of lively debate in the 
Army. Reassessments of its role tend to center around the issue 
of whether the Army should have devoted more effort to 
pacification or to defeating the conventional military threat 
posed by North Vietnam. These issues stem from the ambiguities 
of the war and the paradox of the Army's experience. Reliance on 
massive firepower and technological superiority and the ability 
to marshal vast logistical resources have been hallmarks of the 
American military tradition. Tactics have often seemed to exist 
apart from larger issues, strategies, and objectives. Yet in 
Vietnam the Army experienced tactical success and strategic 
failure. The rediscovery of the Vietnam War suggests that its 
most important legacy may be the lesson that unique historical, 
political, cultural, and social factors always impinge on the 
military. Strategic and tactical success rests not only on 
military progress but on correctly analyzing the nature of the 
particular conflict, understanding the enemy's strategy, and 
realistically assessing the strengths and weaknesses of allies. 
A new humility and a new sophistication may form the best parts 
of the complex heritage left the Army by the long, bitter war in 
Vietnam.

Transcribed by:
Larry W.Jewell
jewell@mace.cc.purdue.edu