I thought of you yesterday as I watched the AKC National Championship dog show. The word “vermin” was invoked constantly, especially during the terrier segment. It seems that most terriers were “ratters”, that is, originally bred to hunt rats and other vermin.
In turn, the reference to vermin caused me to think about the long Covid thread. It didn’t go where I thought it would, and it provoked emotional reactions that, quite frankly, took me by surprise. Another NDN/PB denizen, friend of mine, described it all as “ferocity”.
At one point, you said you had no idea of what my service involved, and I thought to myself as I watched the Pekinese circle the judging area, why not describe it, in particular, because it involved my only foray into the world of medicine and public health. I gather that you are a physician, and it occurred to me that you might find it interesting. Your experience during Covid, no doubt soul-crushing, was a sustained thing. My intersections with the provision of medical care in Vietnam were fleeting—one involved being a patient in a field hospital—but there was some trauma. The story which unfolded during the period, April-June 1969, follows below:
I arrived in Saigon straight from completing a 12-week psyops/political warfare course at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. Ft. Bragg is home to the Army’s XVIII Airborne Corps, and it is also the hub of the Army’s special warfare community, including the Special Forces.
My classmates were a diverse lot. The class was dominated by US Army field-grade officers, but there was a sizeable ARVN contingent, a small group from the Royal Lao Armed Forces, all of whom were painfully shy, and two Thai Special Forces officers who were just the opposite. There were two Marines and one naval officer, me, the most junior officer in the class. The most senior officer and the class leader was a pompous British Army colonel. We had a light colonel from the Spanish Army whose sardonic humor enlivened our sessions. We also had a Mexican cavalry major who was a member of Mexico’s Olympic equestrian team. He was rather aloof, insisting that he was there only “to observe”.
We were taught US doctrine for unconventional warfare (counterinsurgency) including psychological warfare (psyops) and political warfare (polwar). The doctrine had been developed in the decades after World War II by the Army’s psywar division, but it had come to be strongly influenced by the French Army’s experience in Algeria. It is ironic that our doctrine would refer to strategies evolved during France’s losing effort and make scant mention of Britain’s success against the Communist insurgency in Malaya. The British colonel never tired of pointing out this anomaly.
My orders indicated that I would be assigned to the Naval Advisory Group (NAVADVGRU) as Assistant Psyops/Political Warfare Advisor to the South Vietnamese Navy (VNN). The offices of the Saigon-based NAVADVGRU staff were located in the VNN headquarters garrison in Saigon where I would be the third (and most junior) naval officer assigned to the psyops unit. We were joined by a USN chief petty officer and several translators.
Our office was tasked with assisting our VNN counterparts in devising psyops strategies to be carried out in conjunction with VNN pacification efforts. For the most part, the operations were medical civic action programs (medcaps) geared to provide rudimentary medical and dental treatment to local populations in coastal and riparian regions.
The South Vietnamese Navy operated two hospital ships: RVNS Hát Giang (HQ-400) and RVNS Hán Giang (HQ-401). Both ships were WWII-vintage LSI’s, ships designed to support amphibious landings in Sicily and Normandy. In 1955, the LSIs were acquired by the South Vietnamese Navy and subsequently converted to use as hospital ships. Air-conditioned vans, one for out-patient surgery and one for dental work, were fitted in the well deck of both ships. On medcap missions, the ships steamed up the river to a village designated as the target for the operation, the bow doors were opened, sampans tied up to the ramp, and people seeking treatment simply walked aboard. Occasionally, a troupe of Vietnamese singers and dancers joined the ship’s complement. The troupe performed traditional dances and sang patriotic songs for the folks waiting to see the doctors and dentists. The presence of these comely crewmembers enlivened the days at sea, and they were the reason a billet on these ships was sought after.
I deployed on three occasions with HQ-400. On the first voyage, we sailed from Saigon down the Saigon River to the sea, up the coast to Danang, and back down the coast making port calls in Nha Trang, Qui Nhon, Cam Ranh Bay, and Vung Tau. That trip was pleasant enough except for the fact that these ships were flat-bottomed and had a relatively shallow draught. I was often mildly seasick as we rolled along through the offshore swell. The next trip took us up the Bassac River to Long Xuyen via Can Tho, then back down the Mekong to the sea stopping in My Tho along the way. No seasickness or sea breeze this time—just hot, humid, and a vast expanse of brown water.
The third and final deployment was a one-way trip from Saigon to Sea Float in June 1969. A day or so after HQ-400 arrived at Sea Float, it sailed up the Cua Lon River on its first medcap mission. As the ship was preparing to anchor in the river, a B-40 rocket hit a piece of machinery on the foc’sle. The deck officer who was supervising the sea and anchor detail took the full brunt of the blast, and one of his legs was sheared off mid-thigh. I rushed to where he lay crumpled on the deck, fashioned a tourniquet around his thigh with my belt, and wrote the time on the front of his shirt. He was in deep shock, but he never made a peep except to ask for water at one point.
I might have been in shock as well. To this day, I don’t know how they got the kid to the medevac chopper—I’d gone below to wash off the gore. I heard later that he made it to a military hospital in Saigon where his leg was amputated (the damage to the limb was so extensive that the surgeons had to remove more of his leg); however, the wound became infected, and he died several days after the surgery. HQ-400 returned to Saigon for repairs.