Highway One: A Vietnam War Story
Introduction
There is a small village about halfway between the ancient city of Hue in
the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, where Highway One crosses the Song O Lau
River. There is nothing really special about this village, assuming it is still
there today, and there was nothing really special about the village when the
Americans were there.
The only thing you need to know about the village is that in 1968 this
small village served as the seat of the Phong Dien district government, in the
province of Thua Thien, in the sovereign state of South Vietnam. This meant that
the day-to-day affairs of the people of that little farming village were watched
over, regulated, and complicated by the local district government and its
American advisors.
If you recall, either from memory or history, during that American war martial law
was in effect throughout the country. The top administrator at the local levels
of government was the District Chief. He was usually not an elected official,
but an officer of the South Vietnamese Regular Army. He was often a wealthy,
educated man from Saigon, which was what Ho Chi Minh City was called back then,
and a man who looked upon his assignment as District Chief as an irritating, yet
required step in his military career.
In addition to looking after the civil affairs of the people, the
district chief was also the senior military commander of the local Popular
Forces, somewhat condescendingly nicknamed the Ruff Puffs by their
American Advisors. This paramilitary organization got this label from the
combination of the first letters from their official designation: Regional
Forces/Popular Forces. This force was started by the French and was known as the
People's Self-defense Force. The name was changed to “Regional Forces/Popular
Forces” by the Americans in one of the attempts to apply a “systems” approach to
the war, much like it was done at the Ford Motor Company.
This local militia force was usually made up of good, law-abiding
Vietnamese citizens, but often their ranks contained a fair number of petty
criminals and men who were too old for South Vietnam's military draft. This
local militia was also a relatively safe haven for local merchants and sons of
wealthy families that bought their way out of the draft for regular Army of
South Vietnam. By joining the local reserves, so to speak, these men could stay
close to home and avoid combat.
It was a
system not unlike the one in the United States at that time used by the
fortunate sons of the elite. A system where well-to-do white men, having used up
their college deferment in graduate and divinity schools, obtained coveted spots
in the National Guard and Reserves in order to avoid the draft and risk the
chance of being sent to Vietnam.
Since the Popular Forces were recruited from their own community, the
soldiers of the average Ruff Puff platoon would be representative of their
community's politics. So each platoon contained about the same percentage of
Viet Cong as the local population. In the district of Phong Dien, that was about
fifty percent.
The mission of the Ruff Puffs, in general, was to protect their own
district. The mission of the Ruff Puffs at Phong Dien, specifically, was to
protect the bridge over the Song O Lau River on Highway One. This bridge was at
the north end of the village and approximately halfway between Hue and Quang Tri
on Highway One. Therefore, it was a very important link in the supply line
between the two cities.
In those days, the wise District Chiefs who rotated in and out of Phong
Dien would seclude themselves in the yellow administration building inside the
military compound located at the southern edge of the village and try not to
make waves. Most believed their task was to run an efficient, do-nothing, local
government until some other luckless staff officer in Saigon screwed up and was
ordered from that beautiful city to become the new District Chief at Phong Dien.
However, the foolish District Chiefs, usually upon the urging of their
American advisors, would leave the sanctuary of the yellow administration
building and attempt to bring change to the district in accordance with some
plan or policy written thousands of miles away inside the Washington DC beltway.
These new plans and policies arrived with regularity, and were forced upon the
South Vietnamese District Chiefs as the right thing to do. All had something to
do with winning the hearts and minds of their own people.
It was always a variation of the same theme. District Chiefs would
receive orders to implement some grand plan to curb the influence of the Viet
Cong Infrastructure, or at least give the impression to the media of the Western
World that South Vietnam and its Southeast Treaty Organization allies were
winning the war. The wise District Chiefs ignored their American counterparts,
and politely stonewalled the ideas arriving almost daily from Washington. The
foolish District Chiefs listened to their American advisors. The foolish
District Chiefs always seemed to get people killed.
So the problem was, in this little village, at least, and perhaps
throughout the entire country of South Vietnam in those days, not so much the
Viet Cong and their guerilla war, but the American advisors and their advice.
These Americans weren't necessarily incompetent, although there were plenty of
incompetents involved in the war at all levels in those days, it was just that
the American advisors were almost always career military officers who were sent
to South Vietnam for only a one-year tour of duty. For these career officers,
this was a year that would determine their future in the military. This was a
year for them to demonstrate their capabilities to their superior officers. This
was a year for career officers to "punch their tickets", a term which
was never, ever, clearly defined.
In other words, the advisors and everyone else in the chain-of-command
had one short year to make a difference. But, by not understanding the
traditional Asian view of the relationship between time and war, the American
advisors always felt like they had to do something. And that was the problem.
