The Green Berets: The Amazing Story of the U. S. Army's Elite Special Forces Unit

by Robin Moore

  Smith continued matter-of-factly. “Our third special assignment is to plan assassinations of Communist political officers throughout our area of operations.”

  Fraley nodded and Smith sat down. “Lieutenant Vo,” Fraley said, “you and Sergeant Ossidian are in charge of intelligence. Will you read back your part of the operation?”

  “Mr. Ton,” the Vietnamese officer said, “is a native of Hang Mang who defected from the Viet Cong to us the first chance he had. I also have connections in Hang Mang. Ton’s family are Catholics who lost most of their property and money when the Communists took over. They were merchants. Ton has a female cousin, one Quand, who is in the opium trade in Hang Mang. We hear that she is close to Ti.”

  Lieutenant Vo spoke good English and was proud of his ability to talk to the Americans. “Quand has a brother, Pham. He also hates the Communists. They will both help us.”

  Major Fraley nodded. “Ossidian?”

  “Our intelligence on the Tai people we will be working with is short,” the swarthy Syrian said. “The chief, Muk Thon, was a sergeant with the French Army for three or four years. My asset here, Krak”—Ossidian pointed at the montagnard seated next to him—“was in the army with Muk Thon. Krak is a Tai tribesman who came to us a year ago to tell us his people would help fight the Communist lowland Viet Cong. Thon’s village, like most of them, grows opium poppy and we hope to use this to penetrate the corrupt elements in the city and use them against the Communists.” Ossidian described the area and the target analyses he would make on site.

  Then Fraley asked each of the other members of Acbat to describe his assignments on the operation.

  When the briefing was complete Major Fraley introduced Major Copitz, the G-4 or supply officer who would help Acbat draw and check equipment.

  As the men stood up and stretched, Captain Buckingham and Captain Locke walked over to DePorta. “Jesse,” Buckingham said, “don’t you forget us. We gotta stay right here in isolation in the briefing center until we infiltrate. We’re all professionals but you can keep men on ice just so long.”

  “Don’t worry, Sam,” DePorta promised. “I’ll get Alton and Artie out where you can get zapped just as fast as I can.”

  Major Copitz came up to DePorta. “Ready to go into the sterile supply center, Captain?”

  “Let’s go.”

  Followed by his team they left the briefing room, walked through the solarium where the light-skinned men had lain in the sun, constantly rubbing a greasy liquid into their skin which stained it dark brown, and on past the operations situation room, intelligence, and personnel into the barnlike logistical building.

  DePorta’s men spent the remainder of the day drawing their sterile equipment. Not one item of equipment from boots, socks, and underwear to radios, weapons, and medical kits could be traced to American manufacture.

  Sergeant Rodriguez, a dark-skinned Latin, and Captain Smith had spent three weeks preparing sterile demolition equipment. Sergeant Frenchy Pierrot, the chief medic, had made up the surgical packs he and his Vietnamese assistant, Sergeant Lin, would carry, from medical supplies brought in from all over the Communist and neutral world. Certain American-manufactured drugs were transferred to foreign-made containers. Ashton Everett, the black communications expert, had likewise assembled all his radio equipment from foreign components. Master Sergeant Earlington Mattrick, the black team sergeant, supervised all phases of equipment withdrawal, taking care to see that Krak and their Bru tribesman, Manong, both of whom found it difficult to communicate, were completely outfitted.

  The weapons were also “international.” Only four U.S. weapons were issued—the M-1 and M-2 carbine and the 60- and 81-mm. mortars. So many had been captured or sold around the world that they were considered sterile for this operation.

  It was dark by the time Acbat was issued East German-made parachutes. They had a few hours to rest and then loaded up in the unmarked C-46.

  2

  Airman 1st Class Kunitski held up both hands, fingers outstretched. Ten minutes. Captain DePorta nodded and felt his stomach chum as he looked out the open door into blackness. The engines of the C-46 pounded their way back into his consciousness as he was torn back from momentary reverie. He knew fear but he was in complete control of himself and his men.

  DePorta looked down the stick of six men, hands folded over their emergency ’chutes, staring ahead or at the steel cable running the length of the plane above them. Very soon they’d stand up and hook the static lines of their parachutes onto it.

  From across the aisle Captain Brick Smith caught his commanding officer’s eye. He nodded. A slight smile touched his lips. The cold lump in DePorta’s stomach was slightly warmed by the feeling of confidence he felt in his XO.

  Acbat was a good team, DePorta knew. For six months he had trained them in everything he had learned about guerrilla warfare while fighting the Japanese in his native Philippine Islands from 1942 to 1945. And DePorta’s men had trained him also. Sergeant Rodriguez was a devastatingly clever demolitions man, as was Smith. Master Sergeant Mattrick was one of the finest hand-to-hand combat men in Special Forces, and he had taught his small commander how to kill an attacker twice his weight without a weapon. The Negro team sergeant was the fine administrative man DePorta also needed.

  Frenchy Pierrot had a well-deserved reputation as a combat medic more than once having operated on wounded men while tossing grenades and firing at an oncoming enemy. And there could be no more sophisticated a man with radio equipment than Sergeant Everett.

  Yes, DePorta knew he had a good team. And on this mission he, the American commander, was in complete operational control of the team. Although for years it had been apparent to the men in combat against the Communist Viet Cong guerrillas that it was better if the Vietnamese did not have final control of military operations, the United States continued to support this policy, to prove Americans were merely acting as advisers.

  But in the case of an operation as delicate as this one, which would be constantly on the verge of disaster, U.S. Military Assistance Command had politely but firmly insisted in talks with Vietnamese high command that if the U.S. were to be part of an unconventional warfare mission into Communist heartland, Americans must exercise command at all levels.

  Sergeant “Ski” swung up to the cockpit door, opened it and stepped inside. The U.S. Air Commando pilot flying the airship was regularly changing course in banking turns, right and left, as he flew a tactical course toward the drop zone. Enemy radar thus would be unable to plot the plane’s course as it flew at twelve thousand feet. Below, there was a ground station operated by a small detachment of Special Forces communications men in a montagnard-fortified village. The plane would home on this station and then, after flying over it, track out on the beam at 95 degrees. Twelve minutes later the plane would be over the DZ prepared by Major Luc and the Tai tribesmen.

  The most dangerous part of the mission, the time when the team members had no control over what might happen to them, was coming up. Everything depended upon the men on the ground. This jump had been simulated several times, but the real thing was never the same.

  The men of Acbat suddenly felt the plane descending rapidly. Drop altitude was one thousand feet. The pilots had barely time to descend and slow up for the drop before they would be over the DZ. DePorta, with only the glow of red lights to see by, kept his eyes on Ski in the dark cabin. The crew chief, with earphones and a microphone harnessed to his head, conversed with the pilots. He held up one hand. Five minutes.

  Brick Smith stared into the cold blackness crowding the door at his commanding officer’s right. Even on practice jumps there was something about the minutes before throwing himself out of an airplane that made his blood tingle and the tips of his fingers itch. With more than seventy jumps behind him he still knew the clutch of apprehension before a jump. Three hundred jumps could not stop the feeling that was, no matter how you disguised it in your mind, fear. Man just wasn’t psychologically cons
tructed to throw himself out of airplanes. But this time he wasn’t afraid. This time he just didn’t care what happened to him.

  Smith patted the Czech-made submachine gun hanging under his left arm. If the Viet Cong were waiting on the DZ he’d have an honorable death fighting them to the end. If they only wounded him so he could no longer fight there was the poison pill disguised as a wart cemented on the back of his left wrist.

  He’d tried to convince himself that his wife wasn’t the only one who’d taken another man while her husband was on the other side of the world. But it hurt.

  Smith almost felt sorry for the rest of Acbat. They were normal men doing a job they wanted to live through. Jesse DePorta had a devoted wife, a Mexican girl, who had no idea what he was doing. But DePorta knew he was an American uniquely qualified for the job ahead and had volunteered for it.

  All the men of Acbat stood an excellent chance of being dead in a few minutes—or worse, beginning a living death, lost and hurt in the VC-infested jungle. Smith felt a sense of exhilaration. No matter what happened, it was highly unlikely he would come back alive. He ached for the moment he would plunge into the black prop blast and be lost in the vicious jungle war that had become his life.

  He had loved Kathy. She had been his life, his anchor. And then on his last tour in Vietnam it had happened. His wife had betrayed him with a captain—a straight-leg captain at that—and did not even bother to deny it when he faced her with the truth.

  Smith was aware of DePorta standing and of Ski giving them three fingers. The plane had levelled out at one thousand feet. Time to get the bundles in the door. He reached both hands for the bundle to the rear of the door, wrestling it to the kick-out position.

  DePorta hooked his static line into the cable. The rest of Acbat did the same. Captain Smith and Sergeant Pierrot at the right door and DePorta and Sergeant Mattrick at the other balanced the heavy bundles containing their equipment. The red light came on beside the doors. DePorta stuck his head out the door. The blast of rushing air distorted the flesh on his face. Less than two minutes from the DZ, on correct heading and altitude at exactly the correct time. If all was well below he should see the lights. He strained his eyes, trying to pick out the inverted L on the ground.

  “One minute!” Ski shouted. Suddenly the lights winked from the blackness of the ground ahead. There was the L—the long side running the length of the DZ. Just as they came over the light forming the small leg of the L they would push the bundles out and jump. Ski was checking equipment. DePorta felt himself slapped in the rear as Mattrick cried “Two, OK.”

  “One, OK!” DePorta shouted back, ready to jump. They were almost over the L now. The red light changed to green beside the door. DePorta threw his weight at the bundles, which toppled into the night, and made a vigorous exit after them. Holding a tight body position—his chin tightly in his chest, arms pressed to his sides, hands clutching the emergency chute—he was blown back into the tearing prop blast. He looked down at his legs, straight out and pressed together. Then came the slight opening shock of the ’chute and immediately DePorta looked up to make sure his canopy was open. It was. He found he was facing the rear of the disappearing plane. He watched the other ’chutes open against the sky.

  There was absolute silence now. The lights were off again below. Even the roar of the plane’s engines had ceased. The transport plane would fly for another five minutes on the same track so as not to give away the DZ location in case enemy radar was following its course. So far so good. Now it was all up to the reception committee. The recognition code number was seven. Not that it would do them much good, DePorta thought grimly, if there weren’t friendlies waiting for them.

  The ground came up. Knees bent, toes extended, DePorta relaxed his legs and body to the point where he could still maintain control. He hit, rolled into some bush, and jumped to his feet. He had hardly started to gather in his parachute when three montagnards were on him. DePorta held up four fingers. The lead tribesman held up three. DePorta breathed a sigh of relief. He heard muffled thumps as the rest of Acbat hit.

  The guides led DePorta off the DZ to a slight knoll rising above the open area. Standing on top of it was a Vietnamese in black pajamas taller by a few inches than DePorta.

  “We are glad you are here, Captain DePorta,” the Vietnamese said.

  “I am glad to see you again, Major Luc. Very good DZ you marked for us.”

  “The Tai people will bring all your men and bundles to this spot,” Luc said. “Then you will have a hard march ahead of you. We have many, many Tai carriers so you and your men will not have to carry your packs.” This rarely occurred except in behind-the-lines missions.

  “We’re all in shape for anything, Major.” DePorta’s enthusiasm pleased Major Luc.

  “This is a very great day.”

  “We’ll do our best.” DePorta saw Captain Smith come up beside him. Luc welcomed the XO. When Acbat was completely assembled on the knoll and the four bundles broken down and distributed among the Tai tribesmen, along with the men’s personal packs, Major Luc ordered them to get started.

  “I will stay here with some of the Tai people,” he explained to DePorta. “At first light of dawn I will personally inspect to be sure the DZ is sterilized. Remember the teaching at Fort Bragg? The smallest thing left on the ground could compromise our whole mission.”

  Krak, the Tai asset, after conversing in low tones with his people and Major Luc took his place beside Captain DePorta as the montagnards and Acbat started to penetrate the jungle. Acbat had hit the DZ at midnight as planned. They now had a four-hour hike to their first operating base.

  As the file of montagnard bearers wound through the jungle trails DePorta and Smith checked their direction frequently by compass. Landmarks were nonexistent in the jungle. They were proceeding in roughly a southeasterly direction from the DZ. After the first hour the march was entirely uphill. At the end of two hours they had walked, by DePorta’s estimate, six thousand meters, and a rest was called. They must have been well up in the mountains, DePorta felt, as the air was cool, almost cold. The montagnards stood and the men of Acbat followed. Although all of DePorta’s men were in top physical condition for this mission they were glad that this once the Tai men were carrying the equipment.

  Finally, the long, exhausting march terminated in a flat area close to the top of a mountain. In the faint glow of false dawn DePorta could make out the outline of a typical montagnard village. The longhouses were on stilts, and clusters of storage cribs, also on stilts, stood near the houses. As they entered the village Krak left his commander’s side and supervised the stockpiling of the supplies under one of the long raised houses.

  In the red glow from a dying fire in front of one of the houses, DePorta saw a gnarled old man in a loincloth, holding his arms to his body under a shawl to combat the cold of dawn, rise and walk toward them. Krak suddenly appeared at the tribesman’s side and escorted him to where DePorta and Smith, the rest of Acbat around them, were standing.

  Krak, in French, introduced the chief of this Tai village to DePorta. Muk Thon, also speaking in French, welcomed DePorta and his team to the village. Proudly, Muk Thon told them that he had fought with the French in 1952. In fact, he said, in their village, a small team of French soldiers had lived for many, many months.

  Krak supplied the information that some Tais like Muk Thon’s group had frequently moved their villages in the past ten years to avoid the Communist government troops. Nevertheless, the DRVN still tried to track down the wandering Tai tribes and put them under some form of direct government supervision.

  Muk Thon gestured at the bamboo house on stilts under which the supplies had been placed. “This will be the house for your men,” he said.

  DePorta thanked the chief and told Smith to get the men settled in the longhouse. Smith and Sergeant Mattrick led the tired men of Acbat to their new quarters.

  At Krak’s suggestion DePorta accompanied Muk Thon back to his hut. There they sa
t before the fire, the chief reaching out to its warmth with his hands.

  Although the Vietnamese, in common with most Orientals, usually avoided coming to the point in important matters, the montagnards are blunt people who mistrust talking around subjects. Therefore DePorta immediately began a partial briefing of Acbat’s mission in slow French.

  “We will train and arm all your men to fight the Viet Cong lowlanders,” DePorta began.

  “We hate the Viet Cong,” Muk Thon said vigorously. “They steal our poppy, they try to make our young men join their Army, and they make us pay taxes.”

  “We will change all that,” DePorta declared. “But first we must be strong. We will find a training ground far from this village and begin to make soldiers of your men.”

  Muk Thon shook his head. “No. The men know how to fight. They get guns, they fight. They have no time to train. They must work in the fields, grow our rice, manioc and care for the poppy.”

  “But they must be trained.”

  “I was in the French Army. I know how to fight. My men will follow me. You give us guns.”

  “But the men have to learn how to use them.”

  “In one day, here, without leaving the village, they learn,” Muk Thon insisted. “Men must work in fields.”

  DePorta employed the tactic he had been saving. Shifting from French to the Tai language he said, “I and my men came up here to help you fight the Viet Cong lowlanders. We will give you guns, equipment, and money to pay the fighting men. But your men must be trained well by my men.”