Kerry, SOG and the war in Cambodia

The infamous MACV-SOG "get out of jail free" card

Six members of SOG, the secret special operation group of Vietnam War

The Swift Boat folks are trying to say that John Kerry is lying about being in Cambodia on Christmas, 1968. The odds are he is telling the truth.

Why?

Because of the history of SOG, the Study and Observations Group, really a small, black ops unit created independently of the Special Operations structure, but drawing people from their units.

Members of the Riverine Force often faced serious danger in combat, often working with Navy SEALS, Special Forces, and MACV-SOG.

Former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke served as a foreign service officer in Saigon and the Mekong Delta during the late 1960's, and described the danger on Wolf Blitzer Reports today:

BLITZER: All right, I just want to get you on the record on this whole issue of Vietnam, John Kerry's service in Vietnam.

You were a young American diplomat serving in Saigon during the Vietnam War. So this is a personal matter for you as well. When the Democratic candidate makes such a big issue of his Vietnam service during the war at the Democratic Convention and now other veterans opposed to him come out and say, effectively, he's lying about that, what do you do to make sure that this does not become a negative campaign issue for the man you want to be the next president of the United States?

HOLBROOKE: First of all, Wolf, I don't think that the Republicans are doing themselves any service by questioning the credentials of a man, John Kerry, who volunteered three times. First, only a handful of his classmates in college volunteered for military service at all.

Then he volunteered for Vietnam. And then when he was on a slow boat out in the South China Sea, he asked for the Riverine Force to command a swift boat. I was not just in Saigon, as you said. I spent three years in Vietnam and a year and a half of that in the Lower Mekong Delta, in the same area where John Kerry was. I was a civilian, but everyone was getting shot at down there.

I was not in as much danger as John Kerry, but I know those mangrove swamps very well. Danger and death lurked behind every single turn. And when the attack ads say that his wound was only a light wound, what are they talking about? The distance between a light wound and death is an inch. It's one aorta. It's one artery. It is unbelievable to me, given the danger that people in the Riverine Force faced, that any of them would go to town and be used this way 30 years later.

I'm embarrassed for the people who have done this ad. And I think that everyone should read what Jim Rassmann wrote in today's "Wall Street Journal," reaffirming how he owes his life to John Kerry. Rassmann is a Republican who was not recruited by the campaign, but just got angry about the earlier misrepresentation.

Anyone who served in Vietnam deserves the admiration of all Americans. We're not attacking. John Kerry, myself, we're not attacking those people who are attacking Kerry. They served. He served. He was wounded three times. He saved lives. And let the record speak for itself. As Senator Kerry himself says, let them attack. They're just advertising his heroic war record.

So what exactly was Kerry doing in vietnam?

Dramatic changes in the course of the war characterized 1968. The enemy's bloody country-wide Tet Offensive of February and March and the follow-up attacks during the spring influenced American decision-making in several important ways. The Johnson administration, convinced that the allied military struggle was faring badly and buffeted by growing domestic opposition to the American role in the war, ordered the gradual withdrawal of U.S. forces from Southeast Asia. At the same time, the administration began diplomatic talks in Paris with the Vietnamese Communist in hopes of achieving a negotiated settlement of the long conflict. U.S. leaders decided that their ability to deal from a position of strength depended on an enlargement and improvement of the South Vietnamese Armed Forces as U.S. forces departed the theater. This "Vietnamization" of the war became the cornerstone of American policy.

The SEALORDS Campaign
As U.S. forces prepared the South Vietnamese military to assume complete responsibility for the war, they also worked to keep pressure on the enemy. In fact, from 1968 to 1971, the allies exploited the Communists' staggering battlefield losses during the Tet attacks by pushing the enemy's large main force units out to the border areas, extending the government's presence into Viet Cong strongholds, and consolidating control over population centers.

The Navy in particular spearheaded a drive in the Mekong Delta to isolate and destroy the weakened Communist forces. The SEALORDS (Southeast Asia Lake, Ocean, River, and Delta Strategy) program was a determined effort by U.S. Navy, South Vietnamese Navy, and allied ground forces to cut enemy supply lines from Cambodia and disrupt operations at his base areas deep in the delta. It was developed by Vice Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr., appointed COMNAVFORV in September 1968.

When Admiral Zumwalt launched SEALORDS in October 1968 with the blessing of the new COMUSMACV, General Creighton Abrams, allied naval forces in South Vietnam were at peak strength. The U.S. Navy's Coastal Surveillance Force operated 81 Swift boats, 24 Coast Guard WPBs, and 39 other vessels. The River Patrol Force deployed 258 patrol and minesweeping boats; the 3,700-man Riverine Assault Force counted 184 monitors, transports, and other armored craft; and Helicopter Attack Squadron Light (HAL) 3 flew 25 armed helicopters. This air component was soon augmented by the 15 fixed-wing OV-10 Bronco aircraft of Attack Squadron Light (VAL) 4, activated in April 1969. The lethal Bronco flown by the "Black Ponies" of VAL-4 carried 8 to 16 5- inch Zuni rockets, 19 2.75-inch rockets, 4 M-60 machine guns, and a 20-millimeter cannon. In addition, five SEAL platoons supported operations in the delta.

Complementing the American naval contingent were the Vietnamese Navy's 655 ships, assault craft, patrol boats, and other vessels. To focus the allied effort on the SEALORDS campaign, COMNAVFORV appointed his deputy the operational commander, or "First SEALORD," of the newly activated Task Force 194. Although continuing to function, the Game Warden, Market Time, and Riverine Assault Force operations were scaled down and their personnel and material resources increasingly devoted to SEALORDS. Task Force 115 PCFs mounted lightning raids into enemy- held coastal waterways and took over patrol responsibility for the delta's larger rivers. This freed the PBRs for operations along the previously uncontested smaller rivers and canals. These intrusions into former Viet Cong bastions were possible only with the on-call support of naval aircraft and the heavily armed riverine assault craft.

In the first phase of the SEALORDS campaign allied forces established patrol "barriers," often using electronic sensor devices, along the waterways paralleling the Cambodian border. In early November 1968, PBRs and riverine assault craft opened two canals between the Gulf of Siam at Rach Gia and the Bassac River at Long Xuyen. South Vietnamese paramilitary ground troops helped naval patrol units secure the transportation routes in this operational area, soon named Search Turn. Later in the month, Swift boats, PBRs, riverine assault craft, and Vietnamese naval vessels penetrated the Giang Thanh-Vinh Te canal system and established patrols along the waterway from Ha Tien on the gulf to Chau Doc on the upper Bassac. As a symbol of the Vietnamese contribution to the combined effort, the allied command changed the name of this operation from Foul Deck to Tran Hung Dao I. Then in December U.S. naval forces pushed up the Vam Co Dong and Vam Co Tay Rivers west of Saigon, against heavy enemy opposition, to cut infiltration routes from the "Parrot's Beak" area of Cambodia. The Giant Slingshot operation, so named for the configuration of the two rivers, severely hampered Communist resupply in the region near the capital and in the Plain of Reeds. Completing the first phase of the SEALORDS program, in January 1969 PBRs, assault support patrol boats (ASPB), and other river craft established patrol sectors along canals westward from the Vam Co Tay to the Mekong River in Operation Barrier Reef. Thus, by early 1969 a patrolled waterway interdiction barrier extended almost uninterrupted from Tay Ninh northwest of Saigon to the Gulf of Siam.

Allied Navies on the Offensive
The new year witnessed the strengthening of the border patrol barriers and the expansion of SEALORDS into three regions: I Corps, the area north of Saigon, and the remotest reaches of the Mekong Delta. In April, Task Force Clearwater's I Corps efforts were enhanced by Operation Sea Tiger in which Task Force 115 Swift boats, River Division 543 PBRs, Vietnamese Coastal Group 14 junks, and River Assault Group 32 units battled to secure the Cua Dai and Hoi An Rivers in Quang Nam Province. Soon afterward, in June, naval river forces began patrolling the vital Saigon River from Phu Cuong to Dau Tieng, the latter in the hotly contested Michelin Rubber Plantation. This operation, designated Ready Deck, tied in with the Giant Slingshot interdiction effort to the west.

In the Mekong Delta proper, Swift boat, PBR, riverine assault craft, SEAL, and Vietnamese ground units struck at the Viet Cong in their former strongholds, which included the Ca Mau Peninsula, the U Minh Forest, and the islands of the broad Mekong River system. From 7 to 18 April, ground, air, and naval units from each of the American services, the Vietnamese Navy, and the Vietnamese Marine Corps conducted Silver Mace II, a strike operation in the Nam Can Forest on Ca Mau Peninsula. The enemy avoided heavy contact with the allied force, but his logistical system was disrupted. After raiding and harassing operations like Silver Mace II, the combined navies often deployed forces to secure a more permanent Vietnamese government presence in vital areas. In June 1969, for example, the U.S. Navy anchored a mobile pontoon base in the middle of the Ca Mau region's Cua Lon River. This operation, labelled Sea Float, was made difficult by heavy Viet Cong opposition, strong river currents, and the distance to logistic support facilities. Still, Sea Float denied the enemy a safe haven even in this isolated corner of the delta. The allies further threatened the Communist "rear" area in September when they set up patrols on the Ong Doc, a river bordering the dense and isolated U Minh area. Staging from an advance tactical support base at the river's mouth, U.S. and Vietnamese PBRs of Operation Breezy Cove repeatedly intercepted and destroyed enemy supply parties crossing the waterway.

By October 1969, one year after the start of the SEALORDS campaign, Communist military forces in the Mekong Delta were under heavy pressure. The successive border interdiction barriers delayed and disrupted the enemy's resupply and troop replacement from Cambodia. The raiding operations hit vulnerable base areas and the Sea Float deployment put allied forces deep into what had been a Viet Cong sanctuary. In addition, American and Vietnamese forces captured or destroyed over 500 tons of enemy weapons, ammunition, food, medicines, and other supplies. Furthermore, 3,000 Communist soldiers were killed and 300 were captured at a cost of 186 allied men killed and 1,451 wounded.

The mission of MACV-SOG was to penetrate the border areas of Vietnam and attack the NVA sanctuaries. A very dangerous, very risky kind of war, where SOG members could expect horrible deaths in combat. THE NVA had special teams which tracked them down and on one occassion burnt a team alive with flamethrowers.

Officially titled as the Military Assistance Command Vietnam Studies and Observation Group. The MACV SOG teams were normally US Army Special Forces teams that were hand selected to perform one of the most dangerous missions assigned to anyone in Southeast Asia. The SOG teams were assigned the area of Cambodia and Laos that became the main infiltration routes and storage areas for the North Vietnamese Army. These teams operated along the length of South Vietnam and into the adjacent Cambodia and Laos normally to a depth of about 18 miles. In this area of responsibility, there were over 100,000 North Vietnamese Army Regulars and Viet Cong.

The SOG teams were made up of American and indigenous personnel; i.e. Vietnamese, Cambodian, or Montagnard mercenaries. In 1972, as the American personnel were withdrawn, the team makeup was normally two Americans and four indigenous personnel.

The main mission of the SOG teams was to locate and observe the enemy, wire tap communications, relay information for air strikes, and do anything within their means to disrupt and destabilize the enemy. All without getting noticed or caught.

The U.S. Air Force Forward Air Controller (FAC) was their main daytime link to safety. At night, when the FAC's had returned to base, their radio link would be taken over by an orbiting command post or listening post high in the mountains of Laos. The FAC would have regular communications check in times with the team leader. Otherwise, the FAC would not fly close to the team, for fear of giving away the team position. The FAC may have several teams dispersed in his area of responsibility at the same time. The teams would try to find a safe place to bed down for the night at least two hours prior to dark. This would give the FAC and the alert helicopter crews enough time to return to base before dark. The FAC and helo crews would launch the next morning at dawn, the helo crews returning to alert locations near the appropriate borders and the FAC patrolling across the border to re-establish voice communications with the teams.

The ideal SOG team mission would entail being inserted by helo into a cold landing zone (LZ). A cold LZ that was one that was not watched by an enemy LZ watcher, this would allow the team to be inserted without being discovered. Many LZ’s had troops stationed at the LZ to fire warning shots if the LZ was used as an insertion point. If the insertion was successful, the team would recon to their objective, gather intelligence, and recon to a pickup point to be whisked safely away by the helo crews. Several days later, they would do it again.

But the North Vietnamese were not a backward Army and they had been fighting this type of jungle warfare for many years. The North Vietnamese knew that a good army would have recon teams probing their areas. They had prepared a network of LZ watchers that were stationed at almost every LZ large enough to fit a helicopter. They had special trained trackers dispersed along the border. Many trackers had tracking dogs to help track the teams through thick jungle. They had communications tracking equipment that they would use to try and pin- point the teams location, when the team used their radio to communicate with the FAC. When the general location of the team was known, the North Vietnamese would truck in as many troops as possible to join the hunt for the team. Their goal was to get the team surrounded and, if possible, use them for bait to draw the Green Hornet crews into a trap during a rescue. It was a big deal for them to capture or kill a SOG team or Green Hornet crew.

A team on the run had nothing to lose. They did not wear the uniform of an American or South Vietnamese Army soldier and they normally carried communist block weapons (ammunition was easier to find behind the lines if you ran out), and they didn’t carry US identification cards (remember we weren’t there). If captured, chances were very high that they would be treated as spies and killed on the spot. It takes a special breed to do this job and survive to do it again.

But SOG would and could use ANY means to get to and from their misions, including Swift Boats and PBR's( smaller, four person craft designed expressly for riverine warfare. To those familar with Apocalypse Now, it's the patrol boat Willard trvaels upriver on) . There were three major divisions of SOG, CCN, CCC and CCS. Each stood for Command and Control, in this case, North, Central and South. Kerry would have been assisting missions run by CCS, which had a large mix of Navy SEALS attached to it.

Command and Control South, MACV-SOG (CCS)
Arrived Vietnam: November 1967 Departed Vietnam., March 1971

Location: Ban Me Thuot

Command and Control South (CCS) was a new field command created by MACV-SOG when permission was granted to conduct cross-border missions into Cambodia. Commanded by a Major, and later a LtCol., CCS was the smallest of the MACV-SOG field commands and was engaged in classified special unconventional warfare missions inside VC-dominated South Vietnam and throughout Cambodia. Its organization was similar to that of CCC. It contained Spike recon teams (RT), Hatchet forces, and four SLAM companies. Cross-border operations had been conducted into northeastern Cambodia since May 1967 under Project DANIEL BOONE, later known as SALEM HOUSE. In 1971 the name was changed to THOT NOT. CCS folded in March 1971 when MACV-SOG created Task Force I Advisory Element at Da Nang.

A SOG team usually had two Americans, usually ranking sargeants from a Special Operations unit, usually Special Forces, but sometimes Navy SEALS, and in CCN, Marine Recon. People didn't join MACV SOG, they were asked to join and could leave any time. Ususally, these were young SF soldiers who had proven themselves in of SF's operations, like Project Delta, which ran commando missions within Vietnam, or with A Teams working witn Montanyards or Nungs. Occasionally, a Long Range Reconnaisance Patrol (LRRP) Team member would be asked to join.

LRPPS did short range tactical recon for US Army divisions, while Marine Recon did the same for the two Marine divisions. In 1969, the Army turned the LRRP companies into Ranger companies.

But the main mission of SOG was to do illegal cross border operations. The Camboidans complained frequently about violations of their borders by US planes and troops and boats.

Here's a simple tautology: SOG teams often infiltrated Cambodia using water borne craft, sometimes sampans, sometimes, Swift Boats and PBR's. Often, teams would be dropped by helicopter, and then make their way back to a Swift Boat or PBR.

This is a map of the Mekong Delta from the South China Sea to Phnom Penh

The Mekong Delta

So it's hardly like Kerry is saying he flew missions to rescue POW's or some of the horseshit stories fakers tell.

Just looking at maps and the evidence, I think Kerry is likely to be telling the truth and this is yet another shameful lie told by people with no dignity or honor.

posted by Steve @ 1:41:00 AM