Boots on the Ground: The history of Project Delta

by Carpenter, Stephen

  As the war effort evolved in response to the ever changing tactical and political situations, the tactics and strategies employed by Project Delta reconnaissance teams also evolved. Trial and error was a big part of the learning curve. Team sizes and constituency varied over time and reflected the changes in the nature of missions, the availability of troops and advisors, improved communications and technology, availability of troop transports and even the whim of the current commander. By the time LTC Jack Warren relinquished his command in late 1966, Project Delta had assumed the basic form that would identify operations for the duration of its existence. This is not to assume that all things were set in stone and everyone knew everything about everything. Hardly the case, as the organization would continue to evolve and mature. The reconnaissance element had evolved to a point where certain procedures were developed and adhered to and standards had been set for operations.

  Recon men were of necessity a clannish bunch. Because each of their lives depended upon the reliability of the man next to him, it was a difficult fraternity to join. Each man who came to Project Delta Recon was a multiple volunteer. He had volunteered for service, volunteered for airborne status, volunteered for Special Forces training, volunteered for Vietnam and volunteered for Project Delta. If selected for a recon assignment he would continue to volunteer for every mission. If he decided it wasn’t for him, there was no shame in leaving. A reluctant recon man or a man without the requisite combination of balls and common sense would be a dangerous burden. Once interviewed by the SGM, the CO and the Recon NCOIC, a candidate was given a thumbs up or assigned elsewhere in the Project or 5th Group. After passing the initial interview a candidate who was well known to other members of the Project might be assigned to a recon team leader for orientation and preparation for a mission. An untested or unknown candidate would be put through a training course initially developed by Project Delta to train conventional reconnaissance troops. The course evolved into the MACV RECONDO school. Once through the training that included intense physical training, classroom instruction, live fire drills, and a live fire graduation mission conducted in hostile territory, the candidate would be assigned to a recon team leader for mentoring and preparation for his first Delta mission. It is important to bear in mind that all of these volunteers had completed intense qualifications at the Special Forces Training Group, Ranger School other Army specialty schools, or completed previous tours in Vietnam. They would now be exposed to a different set of conditions and operational guidelines and put into situations where they would have to improvise solutions to seemingly impossible situations. Once the candidate had passed all of the screening and prerequisite qualifications the seasoned recon team leaders would share the responsibility of teaching the new guys the way that business was conducted. One man would take responsibility for instructing the new guy on how to handle field communications with the available radios. He would teach the intricacies of the constantly changing communications code book: how to tether it to the field uniform, how to compose a SITREP and transmit it in a low whisper, how to construct an emergency antenna or change batteries, how to position the radio so that frequencies could be changed by reaching over the shoulder without seeing the dials, and what to do if the codes became compromised by being lost or captured. Once the training was complete the Team Leader would let the new guy digest it for a while and then show up unannounced for a practical demonstration which amounted to a closed book exam. If necessary, a critique would follow, corrections would be noted, and a follow up conducted. Nobody would be allowed in the field that didn’t have a grasp of the basics. Other Team Leaders would advise the new guy about call signs, introduce him to the FAC pilots, talk about Operational Security, run through mock operation orders and brief backs, explain the maps that were carried and what could be written on them and what could not, how to use the cameras on a mission, when and how to get a “fix” from the FAC, schedules for communications, and what uniforms and equipment to carry. The detailed information exchange continued until the man was deemed ready to join a team and go along on his first mission.

  A new man was sometimes taken out with others on a shakedown mission by a senior recon man or by the recon NCOIC himself. More often he would be assigned as the third American on a team and replace one of the Vietnamese team members. Each team leader had his own variation of Standard Operating Procedures for his team and mission preparation included rehearsing order of march, immediate action drills, overnight positions and precautions, prisoner snatches, insertion and exfiltration procedures, emergency escape and evasion procedures, and methods for signaling and communicating among the team members in silence. The existence of Project Delta and its mission were classified and the desire was to maintain its anonymity. To the extent possible, the missions were conducted as sterile. Uniforms bore no markings or insignia that showed their origin or the origins of the wearer to be the U.S. In the earlier days, the Delta men wore the uniforms that the Vietnamese wore, a mottled brown and green camouflage pattern that didn’t really do a good job. Tiger stripe fatigues in different fabric weights became the norm, but varied greatly in quality and durability depending on their source. Many men complained that the tiger stripes ran in the wrong direction and were great for concealment in a standing position but not laying down, or vice versa. Some said they were good for bamboo foliage or elephant grass, but not for deciduous environments. The newer all-purpose camouflaged jungle fatigues worn by other U.S. troops became popular but suffered the same inadequacies as regular jungle fatigues; they were too open at the top and between the shirt and pants, too loose fitting and outfitted with buttons instead of zippers which allowed land leeches access to sensitive body parts. Many recon men took a set of camouflaged jungle fatigues to the Indian tailor at the end of the Delta compound and were fitted with a tailored jump suit that was loose enough to allow freedom of movement, but was closed at the waist and had a continuous zipper up the front. There were pluses and minuses to all the available options, but it became a personal choice. Other variations included spray painting black patterns on olive drab fatigues. The tailor would also fashion camouflaged boonie hats for the men in whatever pattern they chose.

  Each team leader likewise had preferences for the equipment and munitions carried by the team as a whole. It was important to balance ease of movement, weight and firepower. Some team leaders preferred to carry one or more claymore mines, some preferred not to have a mini gun M-79 along, some chose to carry anti personnel mines or tear gas powder, some missions required the team to carry special equipment to test, or equipment for wire taps or night surveillance. Many factors were considered but generally the team leader carried the PRC 25 radio, the second man carried the extra batteries; the team leader specified the specific weapons and special equipment to be carried and divided the load; and the individual team members took responsibility for the rest. Every team member knew the location of each piece of equipment in each man’s load in case it became necessary to strip it from his body.

  Individual team members chose their personal weapon from a variety of weapons available to them. The Delta arsenal included Sten guns, AK 47s, shotguns, suppressed .22 handguns, .45s, .38s, 9 mm hand guns and machine guns, and the most often carried M-16 and its carbine variant CAR-15. The recon men soon experimented with the standard issue M-79 grenade launcher and discovered that the stocks could be cut down to make the grenade launcher into a mini pistol. The barrel length was ultimately determined to be a minimum length of around 11 inches in order for the projectile to arm itself. The holsters were fashioned from leather or canvas and equipped to hang from a fabricated shoulder rig. The mini pistols were almost always tethered to the carrier in case it had to be dropped quickly in favor of the CAR-15.

  Other weaponry included personal hand guns, a heavy combat knife of some sort, and an assortment of high explosives fragmentation grenades in the conventional oval shape, a baseball shape and a newer small round grenade called a cherry grenade. So
me grenades were attached to the front of the web gear with green duct tape for easy access, while a supply was placed in an ammo pouch or a canteen pouch on the web gear. The web gear was an over-both-shoulders suspended harness attached to a web belt around the waist. The heavy canvas unit distributed the weight of ammo pouches and canteens across the carriers’ shoulders. Each man chose the arrangement of pouches on his belt. Most men carried at least twenty 20 round magazines that he had personally loaded. Most loaded their magazines to a maximum 18 rounds so as not to stress the magazine spring and cause weak feeding. Some men alternated tracer rounds at some frequency, some made the last three rounds in each magazine tracer rounds and some men carried a full magazine of tracer rounds in case they needed to mark a target or use it for the FAC to locate them. The amount of water a person carried was dictated by his own conditioning, metabolism and experience as well as the availability of water in the AO. On average about six quarts would be carried for a five day mission. Each man would also carry smoke grenades of different colors for marking target locations and their own location. Most men opted to carry a white phosphorous grenade (Willy Peter) attached to their web gear. It was effective for breaking contact, especially at night when it would blind the enemy as well as cause serious burn damage. WP was also useful for destroying caches of food, munitions and enemy shelters.

  The front straps on the web gear were the standard place to attach a pressure bandage, a pill kit, and morphine syrettes. A pill kit was issued by the Delta medics and contained some combination of the following: An anti-malarial pill, dapsone, a small white pill taken daily; a weekly anti-malarial pill, Chloroquine/Primaquine, which was a large orange colored pill; several Lomotil tablets (a combination of atropine and diphenoxlate), which was used to treat diarrhea and also used to prevent bowel movements (no shit pills) as no one really wanted to be caught with their pants down in the VC/NVA back yard; polymagma, a pink pill for upset stomach and diarrhea; salt tablets; codeine tablets to control a cough; several aspirin for minor pain and/or fever; Dextroamphetamine sulfate, 15 mg capsules, which helped depress the appetite and could keep people awake and alert; Benadryl capsules for allergic reactions to insect bites or poisonous vegetation; iodine tablets to treat water; two ¼ grain morphine Syrettes for serious pain due to wounds or injury; some team members also carried a can of Albumin to be used for blood loss. Ranger advisors all carried a can of Albumin taped to their web gear. Inside of the olive drab colored metal can was a glass bottle of Serum Albumin, a rubber tube, and a large needle used to intravenously dispense the Serum Albumin.

  It was the custom of some to place an individual battle dressing in the bottom of their ammo pouches (canteen covers were also used as ammo pouches as they held more magazines) for two reasons; to raise the magazines for easier access, and to have more dressings in case of need.

  Each man also carried a combination of signal devices to indicate his location to aircraft. It was critical that the FAC and gunships knew the exact location of a team or team members before expending ordnance. Devices included fluorescent panels, a strobe light, signal mirror and pen flare. The panels, like the smoke grenades, came in multiple colors, the panels being pink on one side and orange on the other. The VC and NVA were quick to understand many of the extraction and emergency procedures employed by the teams and would attempt to mimic them in hopes of drawing helicopters in close enough to shoot down. The team would flash a panel or pop a smoke grenade and ask the FAC or gunship to identify the marker. If the answer was a good one then the extraction or gun run would continue. In the shirt pockets designated by the team SOP went the communications code book, the map of the AO and any notes taken by a team member. They would be attached by a lanyard and be easily located and accessible if they needed to be removed from his body.

  An emergency radio was also carried. Called an URC 10, it was small in size and transmitted on a single frequency that was monitored by multiple services.

  Strobe Light & Case

  After equipment was designated for each team member, it was prepared for the mission. It was important to silence everything to keep it from rattling during a mission. All moving parts on weapons, such as sling swivels, dust covers, lanyards and ammunition were immobilized with green duct tape or other means. The dust covers on the CAR 15s would have a cigarette filter taped to them so that they were silenced if they fell open during movement. Magazines were loaded tightly together; hard items were wrapped in soft items; the muzzles of weapons were taped to prevent being obstructed by debris; weapons were cleaned, assembled and test fired.

  The remainder of a recon man’s load consisted of his rations and personal comfort items. Army issue ponchos were useful items back at the FOB when it rained, but were far too cumbersome and noisy for use in an environment where stealth was the rule. Many recon men took their ponchos to the Indian tailor and had a rain jacket fashioned complete with a couple of side pockets. Most also had the inside lined with the quilted camouflage nylon poncho liners that provided some additional warmth. Some recon men carried an olive drab nylon jungle sweater to wear at night. Even in the warmest weather the temperature could drop forty or fifty degrees at night. A man who had humped sixty to a hundred pounds of weapons, web gear and rucksack through the jungle all day would be sweat soaked from dawn until dusk. The wet uniform combined with the dropping temperatures could cause severe discomfort and hypothermia, even though the temperatures might not drop below seventy degrees. Most men carried a pair of dry socks, although some wore no socks at all. Many found that underwear would become soaked and would ball up or chafe during the mission and chose not to wear any. Extra clothing represented extra weight and was kept to an absolute minimum. On a mission it was standard procedure to keep the same clothing on for the duration and to remove rucksacks and web gear as a last resort. Most men slept in a semi-recumbent position leaning back against their rucksacks so that they never took them off. Tom Carpenter recalls that in one after-mission discussion in the FOB beer tent, one of the recon men suggested that a man could remove his web gear and wear it backwards to reduce the discomfort from leaning on the ammo pouches and canteens attached all the way around it. If the team was compromised during the night the man could still become instantly mobile with easy access to his necessities.

  Recon missions were normally planned to last for five days. Many, if not most, lasted less than that, but some also lasted for seven to ten days depending on a variety of factors. A recon man’s menu for an operation was not so much planned as it was strategized. The strategy actually began days and weeks before a mission. A man’s diet influences the scent of his breath, the odor of his body, the frequency and consistency of his bodily excretions and the odor of his urine and feces. Many a recon mission has been salvaged because an American advisor detected the distinctive odor of an enemy soldier, his waste, his cigarette smoke or his food. Likewise, I am sure a good number of Americans compromised themselves in the same fashion. Most recon men chose to abandon mess hall cooking while at the FOB. While many showed up for a breakfast of eggs and coffee, most other meals were prepared in the recon tents over a small hot fire of C-4 explosive. Some men would indulge in the dehydrated LRRP rations or heat up some C Rations, but many relied on cooking indigenous noodles or rice with vegetables and some form of local meat.

  Dried fish, indigenous sausage, squid from Korean rations, crawfish from the local market, and, yes, mystery meat from some small village might go into the soup pot. Recon men had a variety of soup pots and usually made a batch that was big enough for several people. It would be a soup like affair liberally seasoned with local hot peppers. Some men professed a taste for the infamous nuoc mam sauce derived from the fermented parts of fish. Most recognized that it was not as important to smell like the enemy as it was to not smell distinctively American and chose to forego the fish sauce. The change in diet would also help to make bowel movements less frequent and less voluminous, a sad testament to American indulgence. It also helped
to substantially change the odor and appearance of any bowel movement that might be discovered in the jungle. The object was not to be put in that particular compromising position if at all possible, thus the liberal dispensing of “no shit” pills before a mission. Some men preferred to take dried LRRP rations into the hole with them. These could be quickly hydrated and had a very high caloric value. Some men carried the cans of fruit from C Rations into the hole because they were a pleasant variation from the norm and because they contained extra liquid. Again, weight was an issue as was the issue of empty containers. It was a solid rule that no empty containers, cans, bags or otherwise, were to be left behind, buried or not. When they were carried out they had the potential to be noisy and retain odors. Most found the answer to be simple. They would mix a simple ration of prepared indigenous rice, dried fish, and raisins in a single quart size plastic bag, add a spoon and slip it into the cargo pocket on the pant leg of their uniform. It was easily accessible, filling, quiet and stayed as fresh as it would ever be for five days. It made it possible to have several small meals every day and still maintain a reasonable energy level. If for some reason a man became separated from his pack he still had some food to sustain him on the run for his life.

  Recon missions didn’t just come about randomly. Each recon mission was derived from a combination of factors. The overall tactical situation was monitored closely by the Military Assistance Command Vietnam – MACV-in Saigon. Virtually all conventional and unconventional units reported their activities routinely through this centralized command. These reports contained bits and pieces of information gained from clandestine cross border missions (SOG), from conventional unit operations, from agents among the populace, from aerial over flights, from electronic communications intercepts and a variety of other sources. Intelligence officers put as much of this information together quickly and continuously as they could. Having this much information inevitably led to the knowledge that there were huge gaps in intelligence about enemy units and certain denied or unexploited areas in the country. Invariably a conventional unit would be tasked with conducting an operation with little knowledge of what was in the area. Without having a physical presence in the area they had neither the resources nor the skill set required to conduct a meaningful assessment. This was precisely what Project Delta was tasked with doing. Delta would be attached through 5th Group as Operational Contingent (OPCON) to a conventional unit or to the Commander of the Corps area in question. The assignment would come in the form of a classified Operations Order (OPORD) addressed to the Project Delta commander. The OPORD would detail the support groups that would be attached or assigned to participate in the operation. It would detail air assets available to provide combat air support. It would specify the nature of the overall mission; for example, it might say to locate enemy base camps, identify the unit and its strength and destroy them with tactical air. The OPORD would contain the known intelligence gathered to date and might outline what the intelligence staff speculated was going on in the way of troop buildups and material transportation and storage. The OPORD would detail the boundaries of the Area of Operations (AO), describe the general terrain and weather patterns and request that features such as streams, roads, trails and potential LZs be mapped. Project Delta’s commanding officer would assemble his staff and depart for a meeting with the commanding officer of the unit the Project would be OPCON to. After a detailed briefing by the unit commander the location of the FOB was decided and the logistics required to move the Project and its assets arranged. Most operations were expected to begin within days in order to preserve Operational Security (OPSEC) as much as possible. Many times the Delta operators did not know their destination until they were headed for the airstrip. The Delta commander and his operations (S-2) and intelligence (S-3) officers would precede the main party by a few days and coordinate any Mission Support Site (MSS) that needed to be established away from the FOB. In concert with the Recon NCOIC they would conduct a pre-operation over flight to familiarize themselves with the AO.