Our Year of War Page 35

  14. Walter C. Jersey, director, A Time for Burning (San Francisco: Quest Productions, 1967).

  15. Michael Richardson, “George Wallace Rally in Omaha Triggered Riot After Demonstrators Were Beaten,” Examiner.com, March 12, 2011, at http://www .examiner.com/article/george-wallace-rally-omaha-triggered-riot-after-dem onstrators-were-beaten, accessed June 22, 2016.

  16. Ibid. David Rice later took the name Mondo we Langa.

  17. Associated Press, “Negro Youth Shot in Omaha Looting,” La Crosse Tribune, March 5, 1968. Some sources give Stevenson’s age as twenty-three. The FBI Omaha Field Office account listed him as sixteen years old. Officer Abbott was not charged.

  18. Erin Duffy, “1968 Visit by George Wallace, Riots, State Tourney Loss Left Lasting Marks on Central High,” Omaha.com, March 21, 2014, at http://www .omaha.com/news/visit-by-george-wallace-riots-state-tourney-loss-left-lasting/article_fbdf0f1f-f7a7-5b2e-bac1-7f7492bb3117.html, accessed June 22, 2016. Omaha Central High School lost to Lincoln Northeast High School 54–50.

  19. Associated Press, “Youth Slain as Wallace Visit Ignites Violence in Omaha.”

  20. The FBI memorandum is quoted in Richardson, “George Wallace Rally in Omaha Triggered Riot After Demonstrators Were Beaten.”

  21. Lyndon B. Johnson, The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963–1969 (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1971), 533.

  22. The Kerner Commission, Report of the National Advisory Committee on Civil Disorders (New York: Bantam, 1968), 1. The members were I. W. Abel of the United Steelworkers of America, Senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, Representative James Corman of California, Senator Fred Harris of Oklahoma, Atlanta police chief Herbert Turner Jenkins, Mayor John Lindsay of New York, Representative William McCullough of Ohio, Commerce Commissioner Katherine Graham Peden of Kentucky, Charles Thornton of Litton Industries, and Roy Wilkins of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

  23. King, “A Time to Break the Silence.”

  24. Tom Buckley, “Westmoreland Requests 206,000 More Men, Stirring Debate in Administration,” New York Times, March 10, 1968.

  25. Perlstein, Nixonland, 228–32.

  26. Ibid., 241.

  27. Dougan and Weiss, Nineteen Sixty-Eight, 69.

  28. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, 439.

  29. Sorley, Thunderbolt, 224–27.

  30. U.S., Office of the President, “President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s Address to the Nation Announcing Steps to Limit the War in Vietnam and Reporting His Decision Not to Seek Reelection,” March 31, 1968, at http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu /johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/680331.asp, accessed June 22,2016.

  31. Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield, 291.

  32. Gerald Posner, Killing the Dream: James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Mariner Books, 1999), 39–41, 93–95, 200. Ray served in the U.S. Army as part of the occupation forces in Germany from 1946 to 1948. A poor soldier, he committed minor offenses and received a general discharge. The U.S. Marine Corps often says once a marine, always a marine. Older veterans may merit the title former marines. There is but one ex-marine: Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President John F. Kennedy. James Earl Ray was an ex-soldier.

  33. Scheips, The Role of Federal Military Forces in Civil Disorders 1945–1992, 271. James Earl Ray confessed, then recanted. In later life, he spun imaginative tales of who really killed King. Although rumors continue, the weight of evidence has long implicated Ray.

  34. Ibid., 272, 287, 288–89, 308, 325, 329. The U.S. Army sent the 1st Armored Division and a brigade of the 5th Infantry Division into Chicago. The 82nd Airborne Division sent a brigade to Baltimore and another brigade to Washington, joining local marine and army ceremonial troops committed for security. When the 82nd needed another brigade in the District of Columbia, it came from the 5th Infantry Division. The 82nd’s third brigade had already left for Vietnam, one of the post-Tet reinforcements.

  35. Nebraska State Historical Society, We the People: Separate but Not Equal, at http://nebraskahistory.org/exhibits/we_the_people/separate_not_equal.htm, accessed June 23, 2016.

  36. Scheips, The Role of Federal Military Forces in Civil Disorders 1945–1992, 337, 440–41. Aside from the North Omaha riot of 1969, the only significant urban unrest over the next few decades occurred in the Liberty City neighborhood of Miami, Florida, (1980) and the disturbances in Los Angeles, California, (1992) in the wake of not-guilty verdicts for police officers accused of beating African American Rodney King. The 2014 racial confrontation in Ferguson, Missouri, also came after the death of an African American youth shot by a white police officer. This episode catalyzed the Black Lives Matter movement to highlight similar allegations across the country.

  37. Perlstein, Nixonland, 267.

  38. Dougan and Lipsman, A Nation Divided, 78, 80; Burkett and Whitley, Stolen Valor, 54–55.

  39. Perry, “Interview with Senator Charles Hagel.”

  40. Richard Sisk, “Hagel Remembers Martin Luther King,” DoD Buzz, January 20, 2014, at http://www.dodbuzz.com/2014/01/20/defense-secretary-hagel -remembers-martin-luther-king/, accessed June 23, 2016. See also Bolger interview with Charles T. Hagel.

  41. Milam, Not a Gentleman’s War, 154. Ron Milam served as a junior officer in Vietnam. He quoted one African American soldier stating: “Black soldiers should not have to serve under the Confederate flag or with it. We are serving under the American flag and the American flag only.” For another example of the routine display of the Confederate flag, see Bunting, The Lionheads, 113. Bunting referred to the flag’s use on air-cushioned vehicles in the Mekong Delta. For racist epithets in Vietnam, see James William Gibson, The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1996), 217–18. Gibson’s book has a strong polemic slant, but his citations and cited evidence speak for themselves.

  42. For a typical example of the reliance on photographs of white soldiers in one of the army’s most widely distributed field manuals, see U.S. Department of the Army, FM 22-5 Drill and Ceremonies (Washington, DC: Department of the Army, August 1968). See also Samuel Lipsman and Edward Doyle, Fighting for Time, The Vietnam Experience (Boston: Boston Publishing, 1983), 101–102. James Marshall “Jimi” Hendrix served in the 101st Airborne Division before the Vietnam War.

  43. Milam, Not a Gentleman’s War, 27–28.

  44. Ibid., 28. In the U.S. Armed Forces as a whole in the Vietnam era, African American officers totaled 2 percent.

  45. Scheips, The Role of Federal Military Forces in Civil Disorders 1945–1992, 332.

  46. Perry, “Interview with Senator Charles Hagel”; Bolger interview with Thomas L. Hagel.

  47. David Martin, “Defense Secretary Hagel Finds Long-Lost ‘Brother.’” CBS News, February 17, 2014, at http://www.cbsnews.com/news/defense-secretary-hagel-finds-long-lost-brother/, accessed June 23, 2016; Bolger interview with Charles T. Hagel; Bolger interview with Thomas L. Hagel. Tom Hagel noted that Johnson was serving outside his assigned armor branch but did just fine.

  48. Claudette Roulo, “Hagel ‘Quintessentially American’ Obama says at Farewell Tribute,” DoD News, Defense Media Activity, January 28, 2015. President Barack H. Obama met both Jerome Johnson and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel in the Oval Office in 2014. In his farewell to Hagel, Obama quoted Johnson. Johnson’s comment about his personal order comes from Martin, “Defense Secretary Hagel Finds Long-Lost ‘Brother.’”

  49. Davidson, Vietnam at War, 486–87.

  50. With regard to the shortcomings of MACV’s body counting formula for victory, in Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest, 794, the author included a devastating exchange that occurred during the deliberation of LBJ’s wise men. U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Arthur Goldberg asked the military briefer the hostile strength as of February 1, 1968. The answer came back: 160,000 to 175,000. How many did we kill? Forty-five thousand. And for every NVA/VC death, how many were wounded? Three. At that, Goldberg did t
he mental arithmetic. He remarked that using MACV math, there were no enemy left in the field.

  51. 9th Infantry Division, Operational Report of 9th Infantry Division for Period Ending 30 April 1968, 12.

  CHAPTER 7. HEAT

  1. John Ellis, The Sharp End: The Fighting Man in World War II (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1980) 130. Private Stephen Bagnall served as an infantryman in the British army with Company C, 5th East Lancashire Regiment during the extended battle at Caen in Normandy in the summer of 1944. His 1947 novel, The Attack, drew from his experiences.

  2. Starry, Mounted Combat in Vietnam, 9–10. The northern part of South Vietnam experiences opposite seasons. So it was wet, foggy, and muddy up north near Khe Sanh and Hue during Tet and the following weeks, with consequent degradation of U.S. and ARVN operations.

  3. James A. Warren, Giap: The General Who Defeated America in Vietnam (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2013), 157. For the relationship between the one-slow, four-quick tactics and the Mao Zedong approach to guerrilla warfare, see Starry, Mounted Combat in Vietnam, 14.

  4. Ewell and Hunt, Sharpening the Combat Edge, 15–16.

  5. U.S. Department of the Army, Headquarters, 9th Infantry Division, Ground Force Commander’s Situation Report 22001H to 222400H April (Camp Martin Cox, Bearcat, Republic of Vietnam: Headquarters, 9th Infantry Division), April 23, 1968, 1.

  6. Perry, “Interview with Senator Charles Hagel.”

  7. For Tom Hagel’s description, see Penner, “Interview with Charles Timothy Hagel and Thomas Leo Hagel, Part 14 of 21.” For details of the chemical defoliation program, see Committee to Review the Health Effects in Vietnam Veterans of Exposure to Herbicides, Veterans and Agent Orange, 89–90. The three principal defoliants were Agent Orange (dichlorophenoxyacetic and trichlorophenoxyacetic acid, 11,261,429 gallons), White (picloram, 5,246,502 gallons), and Blue (cacodylic acid, an arsenic derivative, 1,124,307 gallons). Orange wiped out broad-leaf forests. White lasted longest and proved useful around base camps, including Bear Cat. Blue worked well on rice crops. Prior to 1964, compounds known as Purple, Pink, and Green were also used, but the total amounted to less than a quarter million gallons. When Chuck Hagel served as an official with the Veterans Administration in 1981–82, he tabbed brother Tom to assist in the study of the long-term effects of Agent Orange on those who served in Vietnam.

  8. Penner, “Interview with Charles Timothy Hagel and Thomas Leo Hagel, Part 14 of 21.”

  9. For an example of a cordon and search using mechanized infantry, see Starry, Mounted Combat in Vietnam, 103–6.

  10. Although often done in Vietnam, carrying exposed linked machine gun ammunition “bandit style” can be a problem. If the gunner goes prone, dirt usually encrusts the ammunition, leading directly to stoppages. Experienced soldiers prefer to carry the ammunition coiled in a slung pouch. A gas mask carrier (minus the mask) works well. By the time of the Afghanistan (2001–14) and Iraq (2003–11) campaigns, the military issued pouches to carry belts of linked machine gun rounds.

  11. Penner, “Interview with Charles Timothy Hagel and Thomas Leo Hagel, Part 14 of 21.”

  12. Ibid.

  13. Bergerud, Red Thunder, Tropic Lightning, 188–93.

  14. Penner, “Interview with Charles Timothy Hagel and Thomas Leo Hagel, Part 14 of 21.”

  15. 9th Infantry Division, Operational Report of 9th Infantry Division for Period Ending 30 April 1968, 13, 43.

  16. Perry, “Interview with Senator Charles Hagel.”

  17. U.S. Department of the Army, Technical Manual 9-2350-261-10 Operator’s Manual for Carrier, Full-Tracked, Armored M-113A2 (Washington, DC: Headquarters, Department of the Army, August 2005), section 028.00. Although the manual is new, the basic driving method for an M113 has not changed.

  18. Brad Penner, producer, writer, reporter, “Interview with Charles Timothy Hagel and Thomas Leo Hagel, Part 2 of 21,” Nebraska Educational Television, August 14, 1999 at http://memory.loc.gov/diglib/vhp/story/loc.natlib.afc2001 001.88134/, accessed June 29, 2016.

  19. Bolger interview with Thomas L. Hagel.

  20. Brad Penner, producer, writer, reporter, “Interview with Charles Timothy Hagel and Thomas Leo Hagel, Part 5 of 21,” Nebraska Educational Television, August 14, 1999, at http://memory.loc.gov/diglib/vhp/story/loc.natlib.afc2001 001.88134/, accessed June 29, 2016.

  21. Ibid.; Hagel, America: Our Next Chapter, 155–56; Berens, Chuck Hagel, 42; Bolger interview with Thomas L. Hagel; Bolger interview with Charles T. Hagel.

  22. U.S. Department of Defense, Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, “TBI & the Military” (Washington, DC: Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, 2016) at http://dvbic.dcoe.mil/about/tbi-military, accessed June 29, 2016.

  23. Penner, “Interview with Charles Timothy Hagel and Thomas Leo Hagel, Part 2 of 21.”

  24. 9th Infantry Division, Operational Report of 9th Infantry Division for Period Ending 30 April 1968, 34; Keith W. Nolan, House to House: Playing the Enemy’s Game in Saigon, May 1968 (St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 2006), 216.

  25. Nolan, House to House, 210.

  26. For participating enemy units, see 9th Infantry Division, Operational Report of 9th Infantry Division for Period Ending 30 April 1968, 7–11. Sorley, Thunderbolt, 230, summarized Mini-Tet’s bombardment, including 450 attacks by 122mm and 107mm rockets and various mortars directed at targets across Saigon’s eight districts.

  27. Davidson, Vietnam at War, 487, claimed MACV intelligence derived “almost complete knowledge of the details of the enemy’s plans” for the May 1968 Mini-Tet offensive. For the name of the offensive, see Starry, Mounted Combat in Vietnam, 129.

  28. John A. Cash, “Gunship Mission” in John A. Cash, John Albright, and Allan W. Sandstrum, Seven Firefights in Vietnam (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1970), 139–52. During a major engagement near the Phu Tho Racetrack, the 120th Aviation Company flew attack missions on May 5, 1968, in support of the 30th Ranger Battalion.

  29. 9th Infantry Division, Operational Report of 9th Infantry Division for Period Ending 30 April 1968, 19–21.

  30. Ibid., 20; Nolan, House to House, 215–16; Brad Penner, producer, writer, reporter, “Interview with Charles Timothy Hagel and Thomas Leo Hagel, Part 6 of 21,” Nebraska Educational Television, August 14, 1999, at http://memory.loc .gov/diglib/vhp/story/loc.natlib.afc2001001.88134/, accessed June 29, 2016.

  31. Bolger interview with Thomas L. Hagel.

  32. 31st Infantry Association, “Chapter 18: 6th Battalion, Fort Lewis and Vietnam, 1967–1970” in America’s Foreign Legion, 11–12 at http://www.31stinfantry .org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Chapter-18.pdf, accessed July 1, 2016. The 6-31st Infantry history provides an excellent overview of the entire engagements at Xom Ong Doi and Xom Cau Mat. See also Nolan, House to House, 216–17.

  33. Penner, “Interview with Charles Timothy Hagel and Thomas Leo Hagel, Part 6 of 21”; Perry, “Interview with Senator Charles Hagel”; Bolger interview with Thomas L. Hagel.

  34. Nolan, House to House, 216–17.

  35. Argabright, The 9th Infantry Division “The Old Reliables” Those Who Gave Their Lives in Southeast Asia 1966–1970, 17, 21.

  36. Ibid.

  37. Penner, “Interview with Charles Timothy Hagel and Thomas Leo Hagel, Part 6 of 21.”

  38. Nolan, House to House, 218–19.

  39. Bolger interview with Charles T. Hagel; Bolger interview with Thomas L. Hagel.

  40. 31st Infantry Association, “Chapter 18: 6th Battalion, Fort Lewis and Vietnam, 1967–1970,” 11–13.

  41. Nolan, House to House, 221.

  42. 31st Infantry Association, “Chapter 18: 6th Battalion, Fort Lewis and Vietnam, 1967–1970,” 15; Nolan, House to House, 225.

  43. Sorley, A Better War, 27–28. Both Hagels were aware of these restrictions and commented on their effects on the ground. See Penner, “Interview with Charles Timothy Hagel and Thomas Leo Hagel, Part 6 of 21.”

  44. 31st
Infantry Association, “Chapter 18: 6th Battalion, Fort Lewis and Vietnam, 1967–1970,” 11–13.

  45. Nolan, House to House, 225–29.

  46. 31st Infantry Association, “Chapter 18: 6th Battalion, Fort Lewis and Vietnam, 1967–1970,” 11, 13–14; Nolan, House to House, 238–39.

  47. Bolger interview with Thomas L. Hagel; “Penner, “Interview with Charles Timothy Hagel and Thomas Leo Hagel, Part 6 of 21.” For the tendency to call all hostile marksmen snipers, see Bergerud, Red Thunder, Tropic Lightning, 252–58.

  48. John Morocco, Thunder from Above, The Vietnam Experience (Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984), 46–47, 66, 79. The Mark 81 250-pound Snakeye had a set of big tail brakes that slowed its descent and allowed for on-target drops near troops. The Mark 47 500-pound napalm canister mixed gelling aluminum salts and petroleum. It exploded in a nasty fireball and stuck to people and things. The F-4D Phantoms carried their 20mm rotary cannon in an attached gun pod.

  49. Nolan, House to House, 230–31; Argabright, 9th Infantry Division “The Old Reliables” Those Who Gave Their Lives in Southeast Asia 1966–1970, 49.

  50. 9th Infantry Division, Operational Report of 9th Infantry Division for Period Ending 30 April 1968, 19–22; 31st Infantry Association, “Chapter 18: 6th Battalion, Fort Lewis and Vietnam, 1967–1970,” 14; Nolan, House to House, 242–43. Of note, the single VC prisoner stated that his female unit commander took his weapon for her own use.

  51. 9th Infantry Division, Operational Report of 9th Infantry Division for Period Ending 30 April 1968, 21.