Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars: Memoirs of a Victim Turned Soldier

15 The Limited War

200 The Limited War MACV: Stepping Up the War In his first year as president of the United States, John F. Kennedy brought a lot ofhopetotheSouthVietnameseanticommunists.Thesefeelingsweresostrong that some Vietnamese began having concerns about the elections, which could remove Kennedy from power. In early 1962, the Military Advisory and Assistance Group (MAAG) was transformed into the Military Assistance Command in Việt Nam (MACV). ThischangemarkedanotherstepintheAmericanwareffort.TheU.S.AirForce came with fighters, and several U.S. Army helicopter units were deployed in every key area. That year, along with more aid from the United States, the Vietnamese armed forces were largely restructured. In the late 1950s, many province chiefs were civilians; only some were military officers. Later on, most were army majors and lieutenant colonels. Similarly, most district chiefs were army lieutenants and captains. Presidential Decree 7 of 1959 vested large powers to the provincechief .Aprovincechief,astherepresentativeofthepresidentintheprovince, had the power to mobilize military personnel and units of any size or any rank stationed in the province and to implement tasks concerning the maintenance of social and political order, provided the province chief promptly reported his actions to the president of the republic. The infantry divisions, supposedly mobile units, were given territorial responsibility ,namely,DivisionTacticalAreas(DTA).ADTAsupervisedanumber of sectors, each of which was the military territory of a province. As 99 percent of province chiefs were military officers, they were also sector commanding officers and virtually under control of the division CO. Similarly, the fifteen • The Limited War · 201 four corps commanders were also COs of the Corps Tactical Zones (CTZ), and each included two or three DTAs. AmilitaryofficerservingastheprovincechiefwithpowersvestedbyDecree 7/59andcumulatingtheauthorityofaterritorialmilitarycommanderwasinfact a powerful official in the domains of administration, political and military. The RVN armed forces’ strength increased. The Airborne Brigade became the Airborne Division. The RVN air force and navy received more personnel and equipment . U.S. aid began to pay for and equip the Bảo An Đoàn (national guard), whose salaries had previously been covered by the national budget and whose members were equipped with ordnance left by the French Army. Bảo An units andofficers’corpswerealsoreorganizedtotakecareofterritorialsecurityresponsibility . After this reorganization, it was much easier to coordinate the war effort withothergovernmentactivities.Inlateryears,however,itwouldhelpconstitute a kind of militarism. On the plus side, we staff officers had opportunities to learn and to run our shops with knowledge beyond the military domain. As more Americans arrived after MACV was established, people began to talk about the larger involvement of the United States in Việt Nam, especially when there was a demand from the American side to place their advisors at lower levels. Previously, American military advisors were assigned only down toregimentsandcivilianadvisorstoprovinces;nowtheAmericanswereasking thatadvisorsbeassignedtobattalionanddistrictlevels.Adirectivemydivision received from the Presidential Palace ordered that, in any talk with the Americansat our level relating tothe matter,we should say no. But sometime later,the Americans got what they wanted. SomefriendsofminewereconcernedaboutthepossiblepresenceofAmerican combat troops fighting the communist forces in Việt Nam. Their presence wouldcertainlyaggravateSàiGòn’sexistingweakspotonthepropagandafront. The short peaceful period after 1954 in South Việt Nam thus came to a definite end. From then on, life would never be the same, and most Vietnamese peasants began to lose what they had gained in the previous years. One of the Forgotten Heroes After 1961, more and more battles were fought and more and more soldiers became heroes, but most were not well known to the public. Among those who fought and suffered heroically in the Twenty-second Division, Second Lieutenant Phạm Văn Châu was forever in my memory. Châu graduated in 1958 from Thủ Đức Reserve Officer School as an “aspirant ” (above sergeant major and below second lieutenant) and served in the engineering corps. In 1961 he was promoted to second lieutenant and commandedanengineercompanyoftheTwenty -secondDivisionCombatEngineer 202 · The Cogwheel Battalion. He was a good friend, and I helped him with paperwork for his marriage approval, as military security regulation required. At the time, his company was opening a new road into a military site in a jungle area some ten miles north of Pleiku City. When his wedding was approved by the Ministry of Defense, he asked his parents to arrange a wedding party in Sài Gòn. The division commander awarded him a fifteen-day leave for his wedding. A few days before the wedding ceremony,helefthiscompanyroadconstructionsiteforKontumtotakeaflight to Sài Gòn. He was traveling in a three-quarter-ton truck along with ten of his soldiers...