1st ID Lessons Learned 1 May - 31 July 1966
1st Infantry Division Operational Report-Lessons Learned (1 May - 31 July 1966)
Quote:
During the period covered by the previous Operational Report-Lessons Learned (1 Jan - 30 Apr 66), the 1st Infantry Division began to conduct major operations outside the assigned tactical areas of responsibility (TAOR) to extend U.S. and GVI influence into previously uncontested areas. The period covered by this report was marked by even deeper penetrations into areas considered as VC dominated territory. Operations were characterized by rapid reaction to Intelligence information and deployment of the bulk of division forces over vast areas of the ll Corps Tactical Zone. There has been a significant increase in the integration of ARVN combat forces into 1st Infantry Division operations. The division initiated its first major pacification operation and results to date have been very encouraging. Operations wore also conducted within base camp TAORs to locate and destroy remaining VC forces aad installations. Three main Force Viet Corg regiments were engaged in five major battles and in each the enemy forces wore decisively defeated. The elite 272d VC Regiment was engaged in battle on two separate occasions, one of which occurred on the 49th Anniversary of the formation of the Big Red One, 3 July 1917.....
MACV Combat Experiences 5-69
MACV Combat Experiences 5-69, 5 Jan 70
Quote:
This particular issue deals with experiences of Regional and Popular Forces (RF/PF). As part of its territorial security and pacification mission, the RF/PF play an important role in the preemption of enemy preparations for major attacks. In preparing for battle, the enemy customarily uses reconnaissance parties and small groups who prepare food and ammunition caches and build or dig command posts, aid stations and similar installations. During the battle he employs couriers, aid men and ammunition and food resupply porters. During withdrawals he employs other small groups to link and support his major units. His dependence on these techniques of employment of individuals and small groups makes him vulnerable to a programmed coverage of the countryside by RF and PF units. This can be done by the RF becoming heavily engaged in aggressive patrolling and night ambushes. Such actions can preempt surpris- attacks on populated areas and installations. Because of their knowledge of the people and the local area, the PF can be an invaluable asset in preventing acts of terrorism and sabotage by identifying infiltrators into populated areas and by simply being alert to and reporting unusual incidents. MACV Combat Experiences 5-69 highlights a few problems of the RF/PF, describes their great worth in the effort to curb aggression and hopefully will better prepare all recipients of this document to assist the RF/PF in performing their extremely valuable functions.
Winning hearts and minds in Vietnam
While the BBC's pre-existing bias is well-documented, this is still worth reading.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7698055.stm
The singer and soldier Hershel Gober returned to Vietnam in 1969 as a company commander, and knew even then that the war was lost.
He told his men that he did not want any John Waynes in his outfit. He was wounded and sent home.
Many years later, he became acting secretary for veterans' affairs in the Clinton administration. He changed his mind about this war and others; he opposed the war in Iraq.
He believes that in Vietnam the Americans lost not only the war but the opportunity to learn from it.
"Sometimes I think we didn't learn a damn thing from Vietnam," he says, "We didn't learn enough".
Winning hearts and minds anywhere is a myth...
That's the myth that needs to be dispelled and that's a lesson we did not learn in Viet Nam. People will act in their perceived self interest and they will follow their heart -- but they will not let you win that heart. Nor do you need to...
The reason he thinks we didn't learn a thing or enough is 'cause we have foolishly allowed DoD simply because of the money they get and the global presence they have (both of which are necessary but not wisely employed) to assume the de facto lead in our foreign policy. That transcends Viet Nam which was simply a symptom, not the problem.
Congress is mostly to blame; they, after all, are the ones that overfund (for campaign contribution and vote reasons) and micromanage (because they're ignorant) DoD and underfund and do not adequately supervise State (or the Intel community, another story. Both again due to ignorance...).
Gobel, by the way, was slow, took him until '69 to get real. I -- and others -- were saying in '66 that we were going to spend $50B, get 100K US troops killed and give Uncle Ho ten airfields. In the event, we reversed the math, Ho died and the number of airfields rose to 15 or 16...
Winning hearts and minds is a myth
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ken White
That's the myth that needs to be dispelled and that's a lesson we did not learn in Viet Nam. .
Dam straight. We need to drop this Hearts and Minds BS once and for all. Templer said that the conflict in Malaya would be won in the "hearts and minds" or the Malayan people. Eventually enough people felt in their hearts and knew in their minds, they could never eject the British by military means. Same deal in Northern Ireland.
Personally, I think anyone who bands about the the words hearts and minds, has the credibility of someone who says "Cho Cho train" when discussing public transport. We need to stop using these words. They are no longer useful.
Semantics is the root of all evil - again
as I said on another thread.:eek:
What do we call this kind of war - LIC, OOTW, COIN, SASO, MOOTW, CT, or the other hundred names? Each has its partisans and its critics and both have good reasons for their positions. Templar coined a phrase that had real utility at the time but was more simplistic than what the Brits actually did. In fact, they won the hearts and minds of the Malay majority by promising and granting independence, which allowed them to to go after the Chinese insurgents. One might argue that the Brits followed a pop centric strategy toward the non-insurgent population (including many if not most of the Chinese) with the necessary enemy centric components against the insurgents. Thus, perhaps, the term to replace "hearts and minds" when describing a Small Wars or COIN strategy might be Pop Centric. Of course, its critics will attack it on semantic grounds as well.:wry:
Cheers
JohnT
Replace "Hearts & Minds" with?
I'd suggest, on a quick thought, that loyalty is a suitable replacement word.
"Hearts & Minds" creeps into UK CT, sometimes in official documents and is quite inappropriate.
davidbfpo
Not only semantics but misperceptions...
Actually, in Malaya the British -- correctly -- first went after the CTs and removed their ability to terrorize minds; then they terrorized the Malays and the Chinese civilians not playing CT by virtually eliminating Civil Rights and moving the majority of them into 'New Villages.' There was no winning of hearts and the minds involved were coerced, not coaxed.
The 'hearts and minds' tag line was introduced but the iron fist behind that velvet glove was what 'won' the COIN war. About 40K Commonwealth Troops and over half that number of British and Malay Police plus the concentration camps that were the New Villages fighting a max of 6-8K CTs and killing well over half of them from 1951 until late 1956 swung it -- hearts and minds were little if any involved.
The Malays were the people who wanted independence. Yet they were not involved in the insurgency to almost any extent. The Chinese were making money so mostly, they weren't big on independence. Few of them followed the CT line.
Chin Peng just used 'independence' as an excuse and in an attempt to replace impending, promised and on schedule independent but majority Malay rule with a Communist government headed by Chinese. Thus to say that the British won Malay hearts and minds when the Chinese were the insurgents is an obvious misnomer
The British and Malays then offered an amnesty to the CTs -- and a pretty sweeping one at that --and by late '56, the insurgency was pretty well whipped. Independence, proposed and effectively promised in 1948 at the formation of the Federation of Malaya and to be effective in 10 years finally came on 31 Aug 57, a year early but Malaysia as it exists today wasn't really formed until 1963.
I said it before and I'll say it again:
""Winning hearts and minds anywhere is a myth...That's the myth that needs to be dispelled and that's a lesson we did not learn in Viet Nam.""
""People will act in their perceived self interest and they will follow their heart -- but they will not let you win that heart. Nor do you need to...""
That opinion by me does not of course preclude others from using whatever terminology they wish. Even if they are wrong. ;) Nor does that opinion obviate COIN techniques as espoused by most; it merely suggests that the effort be viewed realistically and not through idealistic prisms that can distort actions. That's the semantics part of it...
Words are important.
Interdicting Ho Chi Minh trail Vietnam
Around 1968 the US stopped trying to deter the North Vietnamese from infiltrating the south by bombing the north. Instead they implemented a plan where they dropped thousands and thousands of sensors on the Ho Chi Minh trail in order to detect when the North Vietnamese were sending supplies and personnel south along the trail. When movement was detected this information was sent to patrolling F-4s who bombed the heck out of the area where the movement was detected. Ultimately the whole plan was a failure as it didn't do a whole lot to prevent the NV from infiltrating the south. Instead of providing a specific alternative possibility wherein the US could have better interdicted the movement south along the trail, I'm curious if anyone can provide a scenario where the US could have better interdicted the movement south. Could the sensor-shooter loop have been better implemented? Could some other plan have better worked? Was McNamara just too enthusiastic about throwing something hi-tech at the problem? Any thoughts? What are the implications of this situation for today?