True Faith and Allegiance: An American Paratrooper and the 1972 Battle for An Loc

15. Airborne Rangers into the Breach

15 Airborne Rangers into the Breach The South Vietnamese army’s strategic reconnaissance unit was the 81st Airborne Ranger Group, a battalion-sized outfit. It was organized around teams of highly motivated and very experienced soldiers whose primary mission was to conduct long-range patrols and combat raids into the most inaccessible corners of the country. They also did cross-border operations. Trained and equipped for those types of special operations missions, their advisors were highly trained American Special Forces officers and senior sergeants who volunteered to serve with them. I knew the South Vietnamese army was running out of resources when the Airborne Rangers were thrown into the battle to fight as a conventional infantry unit. Burning up the army’s most valuable strategic reconnaissance unit in a ground combat role had to be a last option. But at that point the outcome of the battle was very much in doubt and no other unit was available that possessed the experience, ability, and absolute fidelity to the mission that marked the Airborne Rangers, and that made them expendable. We were alerted they would be moving through our area soon after we began establishing our new position next to Highway 13. They had also done an airmobile insertion southeast of the city, similar to the one that had introduced us to the fight. While they knew where we were located, we had to be particularly alert to their approach because of their unconventional appearance . Although the Airborne Rangers were not part of the Vietnamese Airborne Division, the men of both organizations were cut from the same bolt of material. Battalion officers and sergeants knew men in the Airborne Rangers as many had trained or served together on previous assignments. There were heart-felt greetings and warm handshakes as they moved past our perimeter on their way to engage the enemy in the city. Colonel Hieu made a point of greeting the Airborne Ranger commander, Major Pham Van Airborne Rangers into the Breach 75 Huan, who was a tough-looking hombre. I later learned two American advisors were with the unit, but I didn’t pick them out of that shaggy-haired crew slipping through the rubber trees. The Airborne Rangers certainly were a motley-looking bunch. Some of them had just been extracted from a cross-border mission in the Cambodian jungles with no opportunity to catch their breath. The whole outfit was a weapon in the fully cocked position. They were armed with everything under the sun to include weapons taken from the enemy. Their uniforms were equally diverse with some soldiers in camouflage and others in mixed uniforms. Some of them were wearing steel helmets and others had on soft caps. If there was one common feature they all shared to a remarkable degree , it was that they were the toughest-looking crew I had seen in many a moon. That was saying a lot because up until that point the paratroopers I was serving with were as ferocious as any soldiers I had ever laid eyes on. Within hours of moving into An Loc the Airborne Rangers launched a night attack to clear the enemy from an area that threatened the integrity of the garrison’s defense. While not organized or equipped as conventional 6. An Airborne Ranger comforts a wounded buddy during the battle. Photo courtesy of the 81st Airborne Ranger Group & Vietnamese Special Forces Association . 76 Chapter 15 infantry, they certainly knew how to fight with enthusiasm. The Airborne Rangers possessed extraordinary bravery and were supremely confident, and they took terrific casualties while destroying the enemy in their objective area. The survivors were then ordered to dig in and defend a key portion of the garrison’s perimeter, and over the next several weeks they defeated a series of persistent North Vietnamese attacks in their sector. When the unit was eventually withdrawn from An Loc, it reported sixty-one men killed and approximately three hundred wounded.1 The Airborne Rangers accomplished their mission, but during that furious combat the finest strategic reconnaissance unit in the Vietnamese army was irrevocably crippled. It had taken years to develop that outfit’s specialized capabilities and much was lost when they were used up in the battle for An Loc. ...