by Richard H. Smiley
Many years after the Vietnam war, I learned the Viet Cong put prices on the heads of certain American advisors. As a 1st Lieutenant, twenty-three years old and leading a mobile advisory team in Military Assistance Command-Vietnam (MACV), I was probably worth the equivalent of about $50.
Starting in January, 1968, I served in the 1/44 Artillery, an air defense battalion on the DMZ separating North from South Vietnam. This Army unit was used in a combat role and I saw plenty of action, having arrived in country seventeen days before the start of the Tet Offensive. By July, 1968, I met the required six months of combat duty in artillery needed to qualify for assignment as an advisor to the South Vietnamese Army. Consequently, I received orders to report to Di An, a training facility northwest of Saigon, for twelve days of training as a military adviser to the Vietnamese Regional and Popular Forces (RF/PF). Lieutenants weren’t asked where they wanted to go or what they wanted to do, but I was happy to get away from the frequent incoming artillery fire that characterized duty on the DMZ.
Numbering almost a million men, the RF/PF forces, roughly equivalent to America’s National Guard, worked and lived locally and were familiar with their home territory. However, the RF/PF forces were underpaid, poorly motivated, often lacked efficient leadership, and carried few modern weapons. MACV created mobile advisory teams (MATs), consisting of two junior officers and three senior enlisted men (E-6 light and heavy weapons specialists plus a medic), to train the RF/PF Forces in a wide variety of defensive and offensive techniques. The MATs were mobile because once a RF/PF unit was properly trained, the team moved on to a different Vietnamese unit and began defensive and offensive training anew.
Upon completion of the training course, I was assigned to Sadec Province located in the center of the Mekong Delta. Once in Sadec, I was further assigned to Mobile Advisory Team 65 located in Duc Ton District on the outskirts of Phu Huu, the district capital. I first reported to Major Edward Yaugo, my immediate superior, who was the American Senior District Advisor to the Vietnamese District Chief. I was told my duties would involve counterinsurgency operations in the “Y Area,” a sizable expanse in the southern half of Duc Ton District, so called because two large canals converged to form what on a map looked like the letter “Y.” After checking in with MAT-65, I was introduced to Captain Anhi, the Vietnamese commanding officer of the 122 Regional Force Company, a unit of about 120 soldiers. Captain Anhi’s 122 RF Company was the unit that MAT-65 supported for the duration of my assignment. Because I had an earlier date of rank over the other officer in MAT-65, Major Yaugo appointed me team leader.
My billets were in a very small Army compound of about twelve Americans consisting of one small wooden building and a three-bed mobile home trailer. This was my first experience away from large American bases. In spite of being surrounded with barbed wire, I wasn’t sure the small camp could withstand a concerted Viet Cong attack. I developed this concern on the DMZ, where attacks by large North Vietnamese forces against allied bases were frequent and deadly. Although the 122 RF Company was bivouacked a hundred meters down the road, I had no experience with them and was unsure of their combat reliability.
As suggested during advisor training in Di An, I immediately set out to establish rapport with 122 Company and attempt to build their trust and confidence in my team. On my third day, I had a tent put up in the 122 Company compound. The next night my light weapons sergeant and I sacked out in the tent on folding cots we scrounged up. My intent was to demonstrate for the Vietnamese soldiers that we held enough confidence in them to shelter in their compound. About 2:00 AM we awoke to automatic weapons fire.
My sergeant and I leaped out of our sleeping bags and hit the deck. We grabbed our M-16s and low-crawled to the dirt berm that surrounded the RF compound. But by then, whoever was shooting was long gone and we fired nary a shot. The next morning, we scouted around and found bullet holes in the top of our tent. When we investigated the area outside of the compound where we suspected the fire came from, we located a Nipa Palm tree with several bullet holes in it. By aligning the bullet holes in the tree with the holes in our tent it was fairly obvious where the shooter let off his bursts of fire. No other buildings in the small compound received any gunfire. Whoever he was, the shooter knew exactly where our tent was in spite of the darkness.
I wasn’t quite sure what to think of this incident as I had only been at my new assignment four days. I knew Duc Ton District was heavily infested with VC, especially in the Y Area to the south. At the time I wondered if maybe this was just another day in district; I certainly didn’t suspect it had anything to do with me personally, although it was odd that the gunner shot up our tent but nothing else in the compound. And how did he know anyone was in the tent that night? This eventually led me to suspect that someone, probably a VC agent or sympathizer, was informing the local VC of my whereabouts.
Two weeks later I was on an operation with the 122 RF Company in the Y Area. I took a new E-6 sergeant with me who just arrived in Vietnam and was assigned to my team as a replacement for another sergeant who transferred back to the USA. This was the new sergeant’s first time in the field. We slogged through rice paddies and jungle most of the morning and did not make contact with the VC. Later in the morning, we were moving single file across a large, open grassy field hemmed in on four sides by jungle. I was in the middle of the column and my new sergeant was immediately in front of me carrying our PRC-25 radio. At six feet in height, I stood out like a sore thumb in a long column of Vietnamese soldiers whose height averaged 5’ 4”. Since one MAT-65 officer always accompanied the 122 Company when in the field, and my Executive Officer was about 5’ 7”, it was fairly obvious who I was.
We were approximately in the middle of the field when I felt the shockwave of a bullet passing about an inch or two from my face about eyeball level. A split second later I heard the crack of a loud rifle shot. The noise made by the bullet resembled the sound of an angry bumble bee whizzing by. I must have blinked about the time of the shot since I felt the shock waves from the bullet on my eyelids. All soldiers who have been in combat know the sound of rifle and machine gun fire, but when you feel the shock waves of a bullet whizzing by, you know it is damn close.
Everyone immediately hit the ground (actually a few inches of mud and water) and the South Vietnamese soldiers began firing at the tree line. I doubt they hit anything, as hit-and-run tactics were standard for the outnumbered VC. No doubt the shooter was hoping for one of those exploding watermelon headshots that snipers like to brag about in their memoirs. But it wasn’t my time to go—lady luck was on my side. For the second time, it appeared I was targeted. Still I didn’t have a clue who might be the instigator.
This encounter with the sniper also involved a funny moment despite the deadly situation. When the sniper fired at me, everyone hit the ground, including my new sergeant who was immediately in front of me. The knee-high grass field we were in was very muddy. When my new sergeant dived for the ground, he was assisted in his fall by the 24-pound PRC-25 radio on his back. He hit the mud face down with a loud smack and a few seconds later turned his head around and looked back at me. All I could see when I raised up my head to check if he was ok were the soles of his combat boots, the PRC-25 radio on his back, and an Al Jolson blackface made of mud. His eyes were mostly white and he mouthed something to me on the order of “what the fuck just happened?” Later that night during a debrief with the rest of the team, we shared a good laugh about that.
Several weeks later 122 Company was sweeping up the east canal that formed the right side of the Y. The company commander and I along with our radiomen were walking on the berm of the canal while the troopers from the company were slogging through waist-high water clogged with tall grass and weeds. About thirty minutes later I heard several of the soldiers chattering excitedly. When I checked, I saw they surprised a very large snake. The snake was slithering ahead and off to the right of the troopers and while I couldn’t see the snake it was obvious where he was as the reeds bent to either side as he slithered away. I’d guess he was four or five feet long. Although a few soldiers took potshots at him, he apparently escaped unscathed.
Half an hour later we received automatic weapons fire from directly in front of the command group on the canal berm and we immediately hit the dirt. The shooter was not very accurate as his bullets whistled high over our heads and I clearly recall the tick tick tick tick sound of the bullets as they passed through the fronds of the palm trees that lined the canal.
The VC guerilla shooting at us apparently wasn’t too bright as he missed two opportunities to escape: first after hearing the 122 Company soldiers shooting at the snake and second, after the first couple of bursts from his machine gun. He was dug into a small but very well fortified bunker on the canal berm directly in front of the 122 Company command group. To get close to him, several Vietnamese soldiers surreptitiously flanked him while the rest of the company kept him pinned down with rifle fire. The flanking troopers then tossed two grenades into his bunker and after the explosions, I heard a report on my radio that he was dead. I thought this was the end of the encounter, but unfortunately for me, it was not to be.
About noon, the company stopped for lunch. I was leaning up against a palm tree and smoking a cigarette after eating some canned chicken. Two Vietnamese soldiers approached me, giggling. One held a shoebox-sized clump of leaves. As they neared me, the man with the leaves thrust it close to my face. Wrapped in the leaves was one bloody foot of the VC they killed earlier that morning. Most likely, one of the grenades landed next to the VC’s ankle and blew his foot completely off; the stump was a mess of flesh and jagged bone.
I flashed a subtle grin but didn’t react with horror as they were probably hoping I would. I’d seen combat on the DMZ, was ambushed several times, and saw more than a few dead bodies, Vietnamese and US while in-country. The DMZ area was the most “consistently” active battleground in Vietnam. Something was always happening. On occasion I put up with the gruesome humor of a few enlisted soldiers in 122 Company. I understood how years of warfare with the VC made some soldiers develop a gallows’ sense of humor. Even some American troops succumbed to this attitude, but I wasn’t one of them. As an officer I probably should have reported the incident because desecrating the dead is not permitted under the Geneva Convention. But my job was to promote cooperation and camaraderie with the South Vietnamese allies I was advising, so I said nothing.
By October, 1968, our operations were increasingly making fewer contacts with the VC. There was a feeling among the senior RF Command and their American intelligence advisors that the 122 Company was simply chasing well-informed VC around the Y Area. My suspicion that there was a saboteur in the allied chain of command tipping off the VC about our plans of operation was not unreasonable. I was pretty certain the culprit was someone in the 122 Company command structure or at Duc Ton District HQ. All our operations were planned at the district level and the average 122 Company trooper rarely had any idea the location of our next assaults. How else would the sniper who took a potshot at me know that we were going to pass through that very open, grassy field where the ambush took place? The Y Area was huge.
In early October we planned an airborne assault that was intended to drop us off close enough to the VC that we could engage them or drive them into a blocking force that would also be set up in conjunction with our operation. We loaded the 122 Company in old rickety Sikorsky H-34s helicopters on a long stretch of highway near Sadec City and after a half hour flying south, the Vietnamese pilots dropped us at our designated landing zone (LZ) deep in the Y Area.
The choppers also flew in another RF company to act as the blocking force, which was placed about a mile northwest of our LZ. Although we burned one recently deserted VC hamlet littered with baskets, eating utensils, and squawking chickens fluttering about, we made no contact with the VC. I suspected the VC were tipped off again. But by who? We had no way of knowing.
In mid-October, 1968, a large operation was planned involving the 122 Company’s parent unit, the 4th RF Battalion, which included three other RF companies. The target was the Lap Vo District on the far northwest side of Sadec Province, believed to be the VC headquarters for the province.
The attack on the Lap Vo District involved all four of the RF Companies in Sadec Province with MATs assigned to them. The northern tip of Lap Vo District was to be attacked from four sides, one direction for each supporting RF Company. One RF company was airlifted into the attack zone, two were trucked in and 122 Company was ferried up the Mekong River in two landing ship tanks (LSTs). On the designated jump off date 122 Company, which was farthest from the Lap Vo District, duly loaded onto the LSTs, which began chugging north up the Mekong River. About halfway to our LZ we received sniper fire that pinged harmlessly off the metal sides of the LSTs. About an hour later we reached our LZ at the northern end of the Lap Vo District, disembarked, and began sweeping south in the direction of Lap Vo Village.
The operation caught the VC by surprise. Closing in on the VC from four different directions over a period of three days left the insurgents nowhere to flee. The many VC prisoners of war and those killed in action (KIA), the two substantial weapons caches discovered, and the reams of important documents seized from underground bunkers was testimony to the success of the operation. Among the KIA was one district committee member of the Sadec Province Viet Cong infrastructure. This was all a very big deal. The four RF Company commanders and their American advisors were awarded the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry in an impressive Brigade ceremony. Additionally, an extensive propaganda campaign was initiated that involved elaborate displays in several village squares of the weapons captured in the Lap Vo operation. When these displays were taken down, I talked Captain Anhi into securing for me one of the captured rifles to take home as a war souvenir.
The success of the Lap Vo operation had a deleterious province-wide effect on the command and logistical capacities of the local VC. For the duration of my duty with MAT-65, the 122 Company had better luck tracking down the small squads of VC that remained in the Y Area. There were several firefights between the 122 Company and VC squads we encountered but they were minor and the VC usually fled rather than fight. Of particular satisfaction for me was that there were no further attempts on my life—what shooting took place was between soldiers of the 122 Company and the VC. At the conclusion of my very last operation with 122 Company, as the chopper returning us to our departure LZ was zooming along, I felt a warm flush and a sense of elation that for me it was over. I really was going to make it home alive.
My tour of duty in Vietnam ended late in December, 1968. On New Year’s Day, I flew back to the United States and mustered out of active duty eight days later at Fort Lewis, WA.
To this day, more than fifty-six years later, I still wonder who was the informant passing on details of 122 Company operations to the snipers trying to kill me. But whoever he was, he didn’t get to split fifty bucks with his snipers on my account.
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Richard H. Smiley, Ph.D., was an Army platoon leader in B Battery, 1st Battalion, 44th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, near the DMZ and later team leader of Mobile Advisory Team 65 in the Mekong Delta in 1968. He is a retired psychologist living in Anacortes, WA.
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