5th Special Forces Group

“Love is patient, Love is kind, Love never fails.”

Monday, November 11, 2024. Yesterday was Veterans Day in America, nothing special, just another working day for many people. In my 78-year-old thoughts, I remember back to when I was 24 years old, in a war far away from home on the other side of the world in Southeast Asia. 

Between November 30, 1969 and August 14. 1970, I am a young Lieutenant (junior grade) in the U. S. Naval Advisory Group, Vietnam. I am seriously over my head in my first war. Between November 30, 1969y first assignment is with Duyen Đoan hai mươi lăm (Coastal Group 25) of the Vietnamese Navy, based at Hon Khoi, a small hamlet in the salt fields north of the city of Nha Trang (“White House”) in Khánh Hòa (“Peaceful Harmony”) Province on the central coast of Vietnam. Coastal Group 25 is part of the Lực Lượng Hải Thuyền (Vietnamese Navy Coastal Force).

Originally, the Coastal Force, known as the “Junk Force,” was a paramilitary organization formed in 1960, composed of civilians trained by the Vietnamese Navy to work with the Republic of Vietnam National Police. The idea of a coastal force as a paramilitary unit fit well with U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s belief that home self-defense units were among the best means of fighting the Việt Cộng (Vietnamese Communist) insurgency in Vietnam. 

A year later, in 1961, President Kennedy activated U.S. Army Special Forces to organize and train Vietnamese “Montagnard” (Mountaineer) ethnic minority people as paramilitary soldiers to fight the Communist insurgency in Vietnam.

Coastal Group 25 operates about 20 Yabuta junks built at the Saigon Naval Shipyard. These are small wooden boats painted gray, with red bows and black and white eyes painted on the bows, so they can find their way in the dangerous waters of the South China Sea. The roof of the deck shelter on each Yabuta junk is painted with a large yellow square and a big red “X” to identify it to friendly aircraft.

Our Yabuta junks are named after a Japanese engineer at the Saigon Naval Shipyard, named Yabuta, who designed the original 57 foot long junks. When I was at Coastal Group 25, our junks were built with wooden hulls. Later in the war, the boats were built with fiberglass hulls, which eliminated the need to treat the hulls for wood-boring Teredo worms.

Our Yabuta junks are powered by Gray Marine 6-71 diesel engines. These are exactly the same Gray Marine diesel engines that powered American Navy LCVP amphibious landing craft during the Second World War. These tough little 110-horsepower engines, capable of generating ten knots of speed, carried U.S. soldiers to the beaches of Anzio in Italy and Normandy in France in 1944, and U.S. marines to their landing beaches on Iwo Jima and Okinawa during the Pacific War in 1945.

The main armament of our Yabuta junks is one single M2HB Browning .50 caliber machine gun mounted on a shielded stanchion bolted to the forward deck. The Vietnamese Navy crew is lightly armed with ordinary small arms, M16 rifles, M79 grenade launchers, and M1911A1 Colt pistols.

Operationally, the work of the “Junk Force” is exhausting and dangerous. We stop and search thousands of junks on the Biển Đông (Eastern Sea, South China Sea) and many thousands of sampans on the inland rivers and canals along the Vietnamese coast to interdict the flow of Communist supplies. We transport ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) soldiers in encirclement operations against Việt Cộng and NVA (North Vietnamese Army) formations on canals and rivers. We set ambush positions at night to intercept enemy forces.

We provide blocking support to friendly forces engaged in fighting with enemy forces on inland waterways near the coast and on large rivers. We evacuate civilians from dangerous situations during battles against Việt Cộng and NVA forces. We conduct Medical Civic Action Patrols (MedCaps) that carry doctors and nurses and sometimes dentists who provide medical care to civilians in small isolated villages on the coast and on islands of the South China Sea.

Every night is filled with the steady thud of artillery fire and the constant rattle of machine gun fire. Parachute flares light up the night. In the darkness, groups of local Vietnamese “Ruff Puff” (Regional Force) soldiers make their way down the peninsula road to our base, carrying their wounded on stretchers lifted up on their shoulders. Arriving at Coastal Group 25, they request medical evacuation for their wounded men. These muddy, blood-splattered, wounded soldiers are the friends, neighbors, and family members of people who live in our local area.

I get on the radio and call “Blue Star Ops” at the provincial district headquarters military base in Ninh Hòa for the “dustoff” (helicopter medical evacuation) of the wounded Vietnamese Regional Force soldiers. Within a few minutes, a Bell UH-1B Iroquois helicopter (“Huey”) from the U.S. Army 48th Assault Helicopter Company arrives overhead. The chopper pilot calls me to verify that his helicopter will not receive ground fire from the area around the “dustoff” site (the helicopter landing zone – “LZ”) within our Coastal Group 25 base perimeter.

In a cloud of dust, the “Huey” settles down on the helo pad. Soon, the chopper is loaded with wounded Vietnamese soldiers, and rises up through the rushing whirlwind of dust, heading east to the U.S. Army field hospital at Ninh Hòa. A litter of bloody bandages, shredded combat boots, and torn military clothing lies scattered on the helo pad as the dust drifts downwind, lost in the night.

At Coastal Group 25, my Yabuta junk is fired upon by artillery. My jeep is hit by rifle fire. The unrelenting war is brutally killing and wounding people all around us. All of this is just part of an ordinary day. Actually, I am “okay” with the reality of my situation. After all, this is normal for war, and I volunteered to be here for the freedom of the people of Vietnam. Really. What would you fight for?

One afternoon, the senior American advisor at Coastal Group 25 accidentally shoots a light switch off the wall of our “hooch” (living quarters) with his M1911A1 Colt .45 caliber pistol while I am standing next to the light switch. Another day, a Vietnamese Navy Lieutenant nearly shoots off his private parts while jumping onto his motorcycle.

One night I sit with a Việt Cộng prisoner who is awaiting transport to district headquarters the next day. We eat ice cream and popcorn, and drink Coke while watching a John Wayne movie in our living quarters.

At Coastal Group 25, I am living with a dangerous bunch of desperadoes, a little bit of MASH here, a little bit of McHale’s Navy there. I know it’s time for a change. This is not where I am meant to be. I need to be around more competent people. None of this should be part of an ordinary day.

Finally, the last straw . . . the senior American advisor at Coastal Group 25, a U.S. Navy Lieutenant, has a Vietnamese girlfriend in the hamlet outside the base gate. He and a different Vietnamese family in the hamlet outside the base gate decide that I too should have a Vietnamese girlfriend. I say, “No. That is not going to happen.” The last thing I need in this war is the distraction and responsibility of a Vietnamese girlfriend and her family. I know, it is time for me to leave this place. My Lord knows that such stupidité would be a big mistake. He knows it, exactly. So do I. I’m out of here.

In late July 1970, with eight months down and four months to go before my service in Vietnam will end on November 30th, I arrange for a chopper flight down to Saigon, and I get myself transferred out of Coastal Group 25 to “any heavy unit anywhere in the Delta.” 

In a very large, very safe, very comfortable, air conditioned office with 150 or more cubicles at the command headquarters of U.S. Naval Forces, Vietnam in Saigon, I sign the transfer papers. As I walk across the large room, eyes follow me. Heads shake slowly in disbelief. The chairborne warriors at COMNAVFORV (Commander Naval Forces, Vietnam) think I’m jumping from a relatively safe, relatively cool frying pan into a very hot fire. They may be right.

Smiling quietly, I close the door, gently, behind me. Well, all right then, my new unit is Giang Đoan Ngan Chan bốn mươi mốt (River Interdiction Division 41) of the Vietnamese Navy river forces. I will be serving as an advisor with the men of RID 41.

RID 41 sails bar armored river boats on the winding rivers, narrow canals, and tangled mangrove swamps of the Mekong River Delta, the Đong bang Sông Cuu Long (“River of Nine Dragons”), as part of Operation Sea Lords. When I catch up with my unit, I know for sure, I am exactly where I am meant to be. I love my job, and I love my guys. Though I am the least of Your creation, Lord, yet You are generous with me. I am profoundly grateful to You. Thank you, Lord.

ATSB (Advanced Tactical Support Base) Vĩnh Gia
Kênh Vĩnh Tế (Vĩnh Tế Canal), Vietnam-Cambodia Border

In late August 1970, our RID 41 Vietnamese sailors and armored river boats are operating in Cambodia, so we U.S. advisors are ordered to remain behind in Vietnam. Somehow, the senior naval officer in our operating area finds me. He tells me “there are some problems” with the morale and military effectiveness of U.S. Navy personnel at a forward operating base called ATSB Vĩnh Gia on the Vietnam-Cambodia border. He says, “Go there, and fix it.”

Okay, so now I am temporarily in charge of the Advanced Tactical Support Base at Vĩnh Gia (ATSB Vĩnh Gia), on the Vĩnh Tế Canal, that forms the border between Vietnam and Cambodia. Vĩnh Gia is a rural commune (xã) and village in the Tri Tôn District of An Giang Province, Republic of Vietnam.

When I arrive at ATSB Vĩnh Gia, a lot of new challenges present themselves very quickly.

There has been no officer in charge of the base for some time before I show up. Enlisted men are on their own without any command structure. Some sailors are using drugs. Others are malingering and insubordinate, refusing to obey the men appointed over them. I relieve one man of duty and make him go away by sending him up the chain of command “for further disposition.”

A group of sailors decides to shoot and kill a dog at long range with their M16 rifles inside the base perimeter, endangering the safety of others.

This is the first day. Then there is the first night. I sleep on a smelly, damp, filthy mattress, in a drenching, greasy sweat, in a fiercely hot, humid bunker, in a humming cloud of vicious mosquitoes. Overall, I am grateful for the soft mattress.

The toxic, chaotic culture of indiscipline and disorder among the men in this exposed and dangerous active combat area is a serious risk to the security of the base. I wonder, how could this level of indiscipline have been allowed to develop? How is it that I am chosen to enter this hornets’ nest of potential disaster? “Go there, and fix it,” he says. What can go wrong?

In a quiet place, I sit down with the men. We talk. I ask questions. They offer suggestions. We make decisions. Our opinions seem to brighten. Things begin to improve.

U.S. Army and U.S. Navy units work well together at ATSB Vĩnh Gia. Ultimately, though, it is the North Vietnamese Army that pulls these men together to protect and defend each other against the common enemy.

The U.S. Army’s 268th Field Artillery Radar Detachment (“Night Eyes”) is here. These guys use special radar equipment to detect and locate enemy forces, and alert other units to the presence of the enemy.

Also here is a U.S. Navy Beach Jumper “Duffel Bag” team. These guys plant and monitor vibration and body heat sensors on the Cambodian side of the Vĩnh Te Canal that track the movements of enemy soldiers. Sometimes these sensors also track the movements of water buffaloes and “just folks” in sampans.

We also have the good fortune to be supported by the “Seawolves” of U.S. Navy Helicopter Attack Squadron Light (HAL) 3 and the “Black Ponies” of U.S. Navy Attack Squadron Light (VAL) 4.

Army “Night Eyes” and Navy “Duffel Bag” technology is all well and good, but there is nothing like boots on the ground to find out what’s really going on in the distant darkness.

Two U.S. Army Special Forces officers arrive at our forward operating base and ask my permission for their airboat detachment of Nùng montagnard soldiers to operate from ATSB Vĩnh Gia. Fifth Group has a reputation for taking the fight to the enemy, so I know this is going to be good. Our Vietnamese Navy river forces work beautifully well with soldiers of the U.S. Army’s 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne).

Fifth Group is one of the most highly regarded military units of the United States Army. During the Vietnam War, 16 of its soldiers are awarded the Medal of Honor, making 5th Group the most highly decorated unit of its size in Vietnam. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy activated U.S. Army Special Forces units to fight in Vietnam. President Kennedy personally approved the Special Forces distinctive green beret.

In the Vietnam War, Fifth Group is well known for its unconventional ways of getting things done, especially its innovative use of Hurricane Aircat airboats, very much like those that operate in the Everglades of Florida in the USA. Adopting riverine tactics, 5th Group uses the speed and firepower of its Aircat airboats with extremely effective tactical success. 

When working with armed helicopters, air cushion vehicles, reconnaissance aircraft, river patrol boats, and artillery, 5th Group airboats win a lot of fights with the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the Việt Cộng (VC).

The next night, these Special Forces Nùng montagnard airboat soldiers go out into the night, snooping around in the dark swampy areas on the Vietnam side of the canal. Prospecting for trouble, they strike paydirt.

They make contact with a North Vietnamese Army (NVA) formation that has slipped across the canal from Cambodia about two miles into Vietnam. The Special Forces airboat soldiers immediately take the fight to the intruding NVA force, attacking, testing, probing in the darkness at their enemy. Like an encircling war party of Sioux warriors, they are relentlessly harassing, herding, assessing, measuring the size and strength of the NVA unit.

Within minutes, Special Forces officers’ radios are crackling with calls for other friendly forces to join the fight. Soon Bell UH-1 Iroquois (“Huey”) “Seawolves” of U.S. Navy Helicopter Attack Squadron Light (HAL) 3, and North American Rockwell OV-10 Bronco “Black Ponies” of U.S. Navy Attack Squadron Light (VAL) 4 arrive on scene, and become involved in the fight.

The “Seawolves” and “Black Ponies” unload a lot of ordnance on that NVA formation, that is now trying to break away, and disperse, from under the relentless pounding from above.

Each “Seawolf” gunship has two side door gunners, one on each side of the helicopter, armed with an M60 machine gun. In combat, these amazing young men fire their M60 machine guns at the enemy while leaning out of the helicopter door with one boot on the 2.75 inch rocket launcher pod.

Taking hostile fire from the ground, they steadfastly return fire as their “Seawolf” gunships turn and jerk, bump and lurch, each time they roll into an attack run, and climb out of one.

During the running battle, U.S. Navy HAL-3 “Seawolf” attack helicopters land half a dozen times on our ATSB Vĩnh Gia helicopter pad to refuel and reload ammunition. 

Some of our guys refuel the choppers from very large, very heavy black rubber fuel bladders. Others reload and arm the choppers’ 2.75″ Mighty Mouse rocket launcher pods on either side of the Huey gunships. Still others bring steel boxes loaded with belts of 7.62x51mm NATO M60C machine gun ammunition for the door gunners.

Just as I finish loading and arming a Mighty Mouse rocket into one of the starboard side rocket launcher pods, a “Seawolf” door gunner hands me a damaged machine gun belt link that he has removed from his M60 machine gun. Lodged in the aluminum link is a spent Chinese 7.62×39mm bullet that was fired at the chopper door gunner by an NVA soldier on the ground while the chopper door gunner was standing in the right side door of his chopper, returning fire, during the fight. 

Our eyes meet eyes. We smile and laugh and bump knuckles. So far, so good. Very close, but no cigar. Not this night.

North Vietnamese Army Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles, Degtyaryov RPD machine guns, and Kalashnikov RPK light machine guns use Russian and Chinese 7.62×39mm ammunition.

Within a couple of minutes, refueling and rearming is complete.

The chopper engine whines into high gear as it gains power. The chopper blades whirr loudly, whup, whup, whup. The “Huey” lifts off our helo pad, gains altitude, leans into the night, and disappears, returning to the ongoing fight.

Eventually, the battle slows. Finally it is called off. Special Forces AN/PRC-25 radios call us for illumination to guide the airboats of the special forces soldiers back to our base. Our guys fire 81mm mortar parachute flares into the black sky above our base to provide just enough light for safe passage of the Special Forces airboats heading back home through the night to our forward operating base.

The next day, the Special Forces airboat soldiers prepare to move out to a larger base to seek medical care for their wounded, including one of the U.S. Army Special Forces officers.

Before moving out, the U.S. Special Forces captain asks me for ammunition to rearm his airboats. I give orders for our sailors to open the ammunition bunker and help the Special Forces soldiers rearm their airboats with all the ammunition they can carry.

Later that day, the Special Forces captain tells me that his Nùng soldiers have asked him to invite me to a special honoring ceremony, to give thanks for the successful fight they fought with the NVA the night before.

The Special Forces captain tells me that to be invited by Nùng soldiers to an honoring ceremony for helping them in a fight is a rare and unusual honor.

The Nùng soldiers have chosen a sunny, open building near the canal for the ceremony. The two U.S. Army Special Forces officers usher me inside and ask me to sit down on a reed mat at the open end of a U-shaped gathering of Nùng soldiers sitting on reed mats.

We regard each other, their eyes measuring my worth.

The Nùng chief comes forward, and sits down in front of me. Small white porcelain cups of a strong alcoholic drink are placed in our hands. The Nùng chief and I cross our hands at the wrist, and lean forward to drink, eyes to eyes, nose to nose.

This is the Nùng way of showing personal trust and respect. A plate holding the cooked, blackened, hardened head of a chicken is brought forward and handed to me.

The expected, proper response is to take a bite, which I do, to the smiling, nodding, appreciative murmurs of the Nùng soldiers gathered there.

In my memory, I see their faces. These are exceptional warriors, descendants of an ancient race of “Montagnards” (Mountaineers), little tough guys from the rugged mountain border country of North Vietnam and the southern Chinese border province of Guangxi.

God works in His mysterious ways to have chosen me to be here with them. I think of these guys with the greatest of respect for their completely breath taking bravery, unbelievable daring, and absolutely astounding success.

I truly do hope and trust that My Lord, Jesus, knows some of these guys very well. My Lord is generous with me to have allowed me to know them. They are head and shoulders, exceptional people. I often think of them and wonder where they are now.

The badge of the green beret worn by every U.S. Army Special Forces soldier carries the Latin words “De Oppresso Liber.” Loosely translated, it means “to free the oppressed.” In the Old Testament, Psalm 146:7 and Isaiah 58:6, and in the New Testament, Luke 4:18, of the Bible, we are called upon “to free the oppressed.” We know why we are here.

Knowing the story of a people makes them personal to me. I am genuinely grateful to have once been in their company.

The Nùng are a Chinese ethnic minority who live in the northeastern mountains of North Vietnam in the provinces of Cao Bang, Lang Sơn, Tuyên Quang, and Thái Nguyên, on the North Vietnam border with Guangxi province, Peoples Republic of China.

The Nùng are culturally similar to the T’ai, Hmong, and Mưong peoples of the northwestern mountains of North Vietnam, China, Laos, and Thailand.

When the French left Indochina in 1954, Nùng people fled from the Communists in North Vietnam and joined the great exodus of more than one million North Vietnamese refugees who fled to the south and resettled in the Republic of Vietnam.

During the Vietnam War, Nùng soldiers operating with U.S. Army Special Forces are highly regarded as fearsome warriors, and are known for their loyalty to the Green Berets.

When Saigon fell to the Communists on April 30, 1975, Nùng people once again became political refugees, and fled South Vietnam as “Boat People” sailing to refugee camps in Malaysia, and eventually resettling in the United States, Canada, France, and Australia. (As my Lord would be so generous with me, back home in America in the 1970s I was privileged to work as a resettlement social worker at Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota resettling “unaccompanied minors” – “boat children” – in foster homes in Pelican Rapids, Minnesota, and other farming communities in Otter Tail County, Minnesota.)

A few days after the fight with the NVA unit, RID 41 receives new orders. My guys and I are now on our way to a different operating area, the Cà Mau Peninsula, the southernmost tip of Vietnam.

Before we leave, I turn over command of ATSB Vĩnh Gia to another U.S. Naval Advisory Group officer.

I find out later that ATSB Vĩnh Gia is rocketed and shelled by mortar fire a few days after RID 41 leaves the area. That tells me the U.S. Army Special Forces airboat soldiers and the U.S. Navy “Seawolves,” and “Black Ponies” hurt the NVA significantly. The rocket and mortar attacks on our base are payback for our small part in the fight.

Operation Sea Float, later called Solid Anchor, is where I am destined to remain for my last two and a half months in Vietnam before returning home to Fargo, North Dakota on November 30, 1970.

As for the U.S. Army Special Forces, 5th Group begins reducing its personnel in Vietnam in April 1970. On March 5, 1971, 5th Group “officially” returns to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, but in name only. Personnel and equipment are not transferred.

The 6th Special Forces Group is renamed 5th Special Forces Group. Soldiers of 5th Group continue to conduct intelligence operations in Southeast Asia until the collapse of the South Vietnamese government on April 29, 1975.

“Love is patient, Love is kind, Love never fails.”

At times, back home in America more than 50 years later, I may suddenly feel the need to calm down from an unexpected rush of remembered moments in Southeast Asia. Unexpectedly recalling chaotic, confusing events from that momentous time of long ago, I force my mind to regather strength and quiet within myself, to come back to the real world of now.

Sometimes, even standing in line behind an excruciatingly slow person at the grocery store, I may need to calm my impatience. Within myself, I say the words of Paul, the apostle, who wrote to the world in 1st Corinthians 13:4-8 that “Love is patient, Love is kind . . .” 

Paul wrote clearly, truly, honestly. I know absolutely for sure, “Love is patient, Love is kind . . .” I know that promise. I trust that promise. I will not break faith with that promise. I am grateful to hold onto that promise. I am a witness. My Lord, Jesus, has written the words on my heart. He has branded the words on my soul. My Lord, Jesus, is Love, and He never fails.