The Vietnam Experience

The Vietnam Experience

The Vietnam War provides an excellent opportunity to study the combat experience of LRP units in an operating environment that in some ways resembles the current and predicted future operating environments. Even though Vietnam lacked the desert terrain that has characterized US Army combat operations since 1990, it was heavily populated with towns, agricultural areas, and rural villages. LRRP units operating in relatively open terrain along the coast, in the delta region, or near Saigon always were in danger of compromise by civilians, innocent or otherwise. Vietnam was laced with rivers and canals that the enemy used for movement of troops and supplies. Vietnam had vast regions of jungle and forested mountain areas, beyond which were international borders with concealed infiltration routes. In Vietnam, the insurgent enemy soldier frequently demanded support from or hid amid the peaceable population. The conventional enemy soldier was typically well trained, competently led, and heavily armed. LRRP soldiers fought them both.

Infantry division and separate brigade commanders adapted their LRRP-unit tactical operations to the mission, enemy, terrain, and troops available. LRRP teams were inserted and extracted largely, but not exclusively, by helicopter. Other common methods of reaching the mission area were stay-behind or drop-off from conventional infantry units, some use of walk-out insertion from remote firebases, and use of US Navy or indigenous craft in areas best served by waterborne insertion. The preponderance of divisional LRRP units were in some degree controlled by or dependent on a ground or air cavalry unit for administrative, logistic, and UCMJ support. Their combat missions were largely assigned by brigade, division, or higher G2 staffs, and in some cases by G3 staffs.

LRRP units, and later Rangers, performed most of the routine missions for a standard rifle platoon in Vietnam, along with their doctrinal missions of reconnaissance, surveillance, damage assessment, and target acquisition. As the LRP companies transitioned into Ranger units, the tactical pendulum tended to swing over from covert reconnaissance and surveillance (human intelligence or HUMINT activities) to the direct-action combat side. Late in the war, Ranger units were conducting platoon- and even company-size operations not directly related to reconnaissance (screens, raids, ambushes, et cetera). LRRP and Ranger-unit veterans criticize high-level commanders for this so-called misuse of a special capability. This criticism may fairly be applied to commanding generals who paid little attention to their LRRPs and Rangers or permitted them to be used for routine “palace guard” ambush patrols or extended LP/OP for fire-support bases or field tactical headquarters. However, those commanding generals who employed their LRRP or Ranger units for direct-action missions did so deliberately, each for his own reasons, and not necessarily out of ignorance of LRRP doctrine.

Whether organized as a company or platoon, most LRRP units functioned in six-man light teams or 12-man heavy teams, the latter most often employed when enemy contact was sought or anticipated. These teams were primarily but not exclusively led by young NCOs, with platoon leaders and platoon sergeants occasionally accompanying or leading teams. Some LRRP units maintained their own around-the-clock tactical operations centers with assigned communications personnel, while others relied on the units to which they were attached.

Vietnam-era LRRP soldiers trained both at their units and at the MACV Recondo School in Nha Trang. While the doctrine of both the 1965 and 1968 versions of FM 31-18 postulated that more than eight months were required to train a LRRP solider to proficiency, virtually no Vietnam-era LRRP soldiers were afforded that luxury. Early in the war many of them came to LRRP detachments with combat experience in conventional infantry units, but late in the war the bulk of LRRP soldiers were coming directly out of the replacement stream. They were introduced into combat after just weeks of training at the unit, with possible later attendance at MACV Recondo School for the select few.

LRRP soldiers went into combat equipped primarily with M16 rifle variants, but also were prone to carrying M60s, M79s, shotguns, standard sniper rifles, AK47s, and numerous other weapons. Their communications equipment was standard-issue PRC-25 and PRC-77 radios, with the occasional URC-10 in some units. They had access to night-vision devices of that period, primarily the AN-PVS2 Starlight Scope, but found it bulky, heavy, and impractical in many terrain situations. In their medical-kit bags they carried blood products or substitutes, morphine, and an assortment of performance-enhancing drugs that were issued, sometimes abused, and later turned in after each patrol.

One of the unstated objectives of this study was to determine whether LRRP units of the Vietnam War benefited from the experience gained by LRRP units in USAREUR and Italy in the preceding years. The most tangible evidence of this benefit should be the field manual itself, but very few LRRP soldiers in Vietnam ever saw FM 31-18.254 Two examples exist of officers with LRRP experience in Europe in command of LRRP units in Vietnam.255 A former acting first sergeant from the 3d Infantry Division LRRP Detachment served as the first sergeant of the Ranger unit of 173d Airborne Brigade several years later.256 And there are at least two isolated cases of USAREUR LRRP company enlisted men serving in LRRP units in Vietnam, both having volunteered for the duty.257 There does not appear to have been any official attempt by the Army personnel system to identify European LRRP-unit veterans for assignment to like units in Vietnam.

At higher levels of command, senior officers can be found in Vietnam who had some working knowledge of LRRP activities in Europe before the Vietnam War. Such a case is Major General Melvin Zais, Jr., who was a deputy commanding general of 1st Infantry Division in May-June 1966, later commanded 101st Airborne Division from July 1968 to late May 1969, and then XXIV Corps from June 1969 to June 1970. From July 1959 to May 1962, Colonel Melvin Zais was the G3 of Seventh Army in USAREUR, where he played a crucial role in the formation of the first provisional LRRP units in both V and VII Corps.258

General Creighton Abrams arrived in Vietnam in mid-1967, well after LRRP provisional units were authorized and were being formed. He was familiar with LRRP doctrine from his own command experience in 3d Armored Division (1960-62) and V Corps (1963-64). He was serving as Westmoreland's deputy when all the provisional LRRP units were designated LRP companies and detachments in December 1968, and was the Commanding General of MACV when all the LRP companies and detachments were re-designated as Ranger companies in early 1969. As Chief of Staff of the US Army after the war, and undoubtedly influenced by Ranger-unit performance in Vietnam, General Abrams authorized the creation of Ranger battalions.