In-Country Advisory Unit
Ran a MAT in Vietnam.
My call sign as a MAT leader was 50B hence the tag line.
In that 8 months 2 of the 5 MATs in our province were overrun, one wiped out, one all shot up. My team was the only one in the win column. Operated north of Phan Thiet, south of Phan Rang. Disagreement with the PSA got me sent to Corp in Nha Trang. Once I spoke to them, they put me in as a District Senior Advisor for Van Ninh District, north of Nha Trang. Our District was in the 9th ROK AO and aside from us MACV types we had no assets there so I mainly refereed between the ARVN, the Militia and the ROKs. As the "senior" US officer, I worked with the 9th ROK CO when necessary.
Left all this behind when I came stateside. Got out because, although I loved the profession (and was decent at it) I thought the Army at that time was shot through with dry rot that started about O5 and got worse the further up the food chain you got.
Worst period in my life was when we cut and ran. I left friends there. Some were Vietnamese. I never want to see another Huey pushed off a carrier deck. We lost the effing war because we didn't snap to what we needed to do till Abrams showed up. From my viewpoint it seemed as if all the senior guys wanted to fight the big set piece battles ala Korea and buff their resumes and us down chain pukes were just there to fill in their fantasies.
But I got out and got past it, mostly. The two things happened:
My son decided to go to a service academy and I told him anywhere but USMA. You guessed it. He graduates this coming May.
So then we go into Iraq and everyone seems to have forgotten (again) that you don't control territory by driving over it. You control it by setting your feet on it and hunting the bastards that made this necessary. That ain't possible from an APC or any other vehicle except a boot.
So now I have some skin in the game again and have been worried about the outcome in Iraq (more worried earlier than now) because I don't want us to run again and because I don't want some inflexible dip #### dropping my kid in the kind of cluster duck that was Vietnam.
I have a piece I have written (and re-written several times) about an advisory formation that I'd like to share and get some CONSTRUCTIVE criticism on. General or specific. Most of it attached as a zip file that should produce rtf and jpgs
Just please minimise the acronyms since I was never career and probably would spend the better part of the night decoding...and at my age I need my rest ;-)
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