Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces sic-3 Read online

  That had to stop.

  Early on in his command, Yarborough took his officers — captain and higher — out into the pine woods on the base and told them straight what he expected of them. He was not gentle.

  The event was long remembered as Yarborough's "Talk in the Woods."

  "As long as I'm in charge of Special Forces," he told them, "the rules are going to change. There'll be a new start.

  "First, there will be no womanizing, no drunkenness, no wild parties, no adultery. There'll be no troublemakers. No wild men. From now on all that stuff is out — and there will be no deviations. There will be moral standards, there will be disciplinary standards, there will be appearance standards.

  "Second, all officers will go through the Q Course. No exceptions. No matter what his rank.

  "Third, everything I'm saying applies to all ranks. No exceptions. So you're going to make it all clear to every one of your NCOs.

  "Finally, if you don't like it, you can deal with it in two ways. You can end your career. Or you can come to my office and request to be transferred out. Otherwise, if you want to stay in this unit, there will be big changes."

  The worst got out. The best stayed. And Yarborough moved on to the real work that remained.

  Meanwhile, Special Forces officers and NCOs began to find promotions coming their way. If you got into Special Forces, and you could cut it, you could expect to get promoted very quickly and look forward to a long Army career, if you wanted it.

  So Special Forces stopped being the end of the road for wild men, misfits, and has-beens. It became the place you wanted to be. It was the place where the action was.

  Soon after the Kennedy administration had identified "counterinsurgency" as an official instrument of United States foreign policy, it became clear that some of the major weapon systems needed for counterinsurgency would have to be forged from among the resources specific to the behavioral and social sciences — psychology, anthropology, political science, economics, history, and international relations. The problem would be to integrate these disciplines with more direct military functions to produce an effective instrument in the murky environment of actual counterinsurgency campaigns.

  The Special Warfare Center had to explore this new field.

  Bill Yarborough was himself a scholar and an intellectual, and his experience in intelligence and counterintelligence had taught him a great deal about how to go about understanding ones adversaries (and one's friends). He knew where and how to look for sources of knowledge and inspiration.

  He went first to Roger Hilsman, who had already played a major role at the State Department and White House in promoting the concept of counterinsurgency and the convoluted world of irregular warfare. Hilsman came down to the Special Warfare Center on several occasions, and provided Yarborough and his staff and students with background information and insights.

  Yarborough and his staff also studied positive and negative examples: Positive in the case of the British, whose triumph in Malaya pointed the way toward a workable counterinsurgency doctrine — a combination of sophistication about native cultures and a willingness to be uncompromisingly brutal in infiltrating local insurgencies and then uprooting them from the people. Negative in the case of the French defeat in Indochina and their phony victory in Algeria.

  Others who regularly gave him counsel included experts like Charles M. Thayer, the head of the U.S. military mission to Yugoslavia during World War II and who later headed the Voice of America; Dr. Jay Zawodny, then professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, who had fought with the Polish underground in Warsaw during the Second World War and later authored numerous works on irregular warfare and psychological operations; and several others of equal expertise.

  Some of the sources consulted and studied were controversial. Yarborough was not afraid to shock his students. Conventional thinking was not going to get the job done.

  The left-leaning French soldier-writer Bernard Fall, for example, was a frequent lecturer at the Special Warfare School's irregular warfare classes. The author of the now classic history of the French war in Indochina, Street Without Joy, which was used as a text at the school, Fall was sharp-tongued, abrasive, and contemptuous of American efforts in Southeast Asia, and more often than not sparked heated reactions from his soldier audiences. "On his side,"Yarborough writes, "were facts, figures, history, and personal experience. On the students' side were usually emotional distress stemming from hurt pride and an inadequate database."

  Eventually, Fall's contempt for American policy in Vietnam brought his appearances at Fort Bragg to the attention of "those guys there in the Pentagon." This brought Yarborough a telephone call from Washington: "The Frenchman Bernard Fall is no longer welcome at the Special Warfare School," he was told. But when Yarborough demanded that this order be put in writing, the demand was withdrawn, and Fall's catalytic presence continued to shake up the young Green Berets at the school.

  Another controversial source of insight on irregular warfare was a larger-than-life Air Force colonel named Edward Lansdale — a real-world character who had seemingly leapt out of a spy novel. His story, in fact, inspired more than one novelist; he was the model for Graham Greene's The Quiet American and Lederer and Burdick's The Ugly American (their character also contains elements of Roger Hilsman). Though controversial — his conduct in Vietnam was questionable — his accomplishments were real. During the '50s, Lansdale was loaned to the CIA and assigned to the Philippines, where he gave the Agency its greatest victory against Communist insurgents there, called the Huks.

  He did this in several ways. First, he promoted an undeniably great man, Ramon Magsaysay, as an alternative to the Communists. Magsaysay, arguably the Washington and Lincoln of the Philippines, became president of that country, but was killed in an air crash after too short a time in office. Second, Lansdale had a kind of mad genius for the art of what later became known as "black" psychological operations — lies that damage an enemy. For example, he had the rumor spread in rural villages that men with evil in their hearts would be food for the local vampire. He then had his people drain the blood out of a dead Huk, punch holes in his neck, and leave him in the middle of a well-traveled road. Word got around very quickly that the Huks were vampire bait. But third, and most important for Bill Yarborough's delvings into the heart of irregular and political warfare, "Ed Lansdale made me understand," he writes, "the relationship between what we clumsily call Civic Action and the ability of a regular army to function among the people. This insight was responsible to a great degree for the effectiveness of the counterinsurgency operation in the Philippines. It made the people feel that the military were not oppressors. Rather, the man in uniform represented the government; and, if they were eager to assist and help the people, then the government must be of the same frame of mind." The good acts of the men in uniform argued to the benevolence, right intentions, and honor of the government.

  "Later on in my research, he continues, "I discovered that Ed Lansdale was not the author of this concept… but Mao Tse-tung. Mao was the greatest modern proponent of this philosophy.

  "In studying Mao's campaigns leading to the expulsion of Chiang Kai-shek from mainland China, I found that, in the beginning, the Nationalist armies were very much greater numerically than the Communist forces. But as Mao withdrew along the route of his long march, his soldiers treated people very generously and kindly, and with great respect. And so instead of fleeing to get out of the way of the Communists, in the normal way of civilians and armies, the people welcomed them.

  "This behavior goes back to Mao's Nine Rules of Conduct, which his Red Army troops were made to memorize (they were even set to music and sung daily). These rules were strictly enforced. A man who violated them was severely punished, perhaps executed."

  Here's a sample:

  • There shall be no confiscations whatever from the poor peasantry.

  • If you borrow anything, return it.

  �
� Replace all articles you damage.

  • Pay for everything that you purchase.

  • Be honest in all transactions with the peasants.

  • Be courteous and polite to the people and help them when you can.

  This meant practically, Yarborough continues, "that the ordinary rules soldiers were used to in the field did not apply. Civilians were not kicked out if they got in the way. A soldier was encouraged to share his last crust of bread with a peasant. If a door was taken off a house for a soldier to sleep on, the custom in China, it would be replaced before the troops left. The best place for a gun position might be in the center of a tomb. Even so, the Red Army would respect the people and place the gun somewhere else.

  "In consequence, the Red Army swelled, while Chiang Kai-shek's forces lost the confidence of ever greater numbers of people."

  Careful study of Mao, as well as other Communist authorities such as Che Guevara and the Vietnamese Vo Nguven Ciap and Truong Chinh, rounded out further the picture of multidimensional warfare. (It should be noted that such study was not exactly encouraged by "those guys at the Pentagon.") Their brand of irregular warfare, Yarborough's studies revealed, featured the following ingredients:

  Patience to withstand protracted conflict. "Time works for us. Time will be our best strategist.

  — Truong Chinh.

  • Political awareness on the part of all ranks.

  • Intensive wooing of all the "little people" to the side of the insurgent.

  • The weakening of the enemy's morale by constant propaganda and terrorist harassment.

  • Constant offensive action against enemy personnel and sensitive points, but only when tactical advantage is on the side of the irregulars.

  • The avoidance of pitched battles with equal or superior forces.

  • Defense only when it is essential to survival or to aid another element to withdraw.

  • The consideration of the enemy's supply system as your own — making him haul the materiel to dumps, then seizing it from him.

  • Constant striving to grow undercover forces into regular forces, ones capable of meeting the enemy on his own ground when the time and circumstances make victory certain.

  With these studies as a guide, the new direction of Special Forces became clear.

  If their job was to teach armed forces of a threatened nation how to combat a local insurgency, then their first task there was to demonstrate carefully thought out and executed military and nonmilitary actions that would allow those forces to win and maintain the support of the people. All of this would require the highest level of discipline on the part of not only the Green Berets but also the local forces. Such discipline would ensure a high level of conduct and moral behavior among the people in politically sensitive areas.

  Though conventional soldiers don't normally concern themselves with the civilians who find themselves caught up in the tides of war, when it became obvious that the political and psychological fallout from this lack of concern could negate a brilliant battlefield victory, military leaders had to seriously adjust their thinking. In the U.S. Army, the Special Forces were the first to be taught this lesson officially and put it into practice as a principle of war.

  Before long, Green Berets, using an American version of Mao's "Rules for Conduct," began to have a powerful impact on the lives of "little people" in Third World nations living in remote, often jungle, areas. Previously, such people did not much figure in the overall scheme of military maneuver. And for their part, the "little people tended to be suspicious of foreign soldiers in their midst. However, a combination of personal qualities and soldier skills soon began to increase cooperation and mutual trust, and these came to grow into admiration and friendship.

  The Green Berets paid attention to all kinds of little things that other soldiers rarely cared about. For example, they helped a villager increase his water supplies by showing him a simple well-digging technique. They worked side by side with him to build a log bridge that would save a half-mile trudge around a swamp to reach his primitive patch of farmland. They showed him how to dig an irrigation ditch. They gave him seeds that grew into better vegetables than he had ever imagined possible. But strangest — and most heartwarming — of all, they paid attention to the villager as an individual. They could speak to him in his own dialect — maybe not fluently, but enough. And they shared the lives of the village people. They ate their food and drank their drink; they sat around their fires in the evening and chatted with them; they slept in huts like theirs.

  Once friendship had been established, the military task of defending the village began. Green Berets traced village fortification outlines, and villagers placed row on row of sharpened stakes in the ground, angled toward approach routes. With Green Beret help, they dug protective shelters inside the village perimeters. They set up an alarm system, using an old tire rim or an empty artillery shell case, to warn of attack. During all this time, Green Berets worked alongside the villagers, and when attack came, they fought side by side with them.

  Green Beret A-Detachments have always featured medical expertise — two highly trained medical specialists, with each of the remaining eight troopers cross-trained in medical skills.

  The justification for this expertise came out of the original Special Forces mission, which was to organize and train guerrilla and insurgent forces. During their early days, guerrillas are exceedingly vulnerable. To protect themselves while they grow in strength, they must hide in difficult-to-reach areas such as jungles, swamps, or rugged mountains. Under such conditions, day-to-day survival is often a triumph in itself. If a guerrilla is sick or wounded, he has no outside help on which to rely.

  Here is where Green Beret medical skills enter the picture. Green Beret medics could provide the medical knowledge to keep guerrillas going as functioning fighters.

  Those skills were put to similar use in the villages, which were scarcely less isolated than the guerrilla bases, and provided even more reason for friendship and trust. Often for the first time, villagers had access to basic dental care, prenatal care, antibiotics, vaccinations, and nutrition and disease-prevention advice.

  Training for these missions was intense, difficult, and as realistic as possible. Green Berets returning from foreign missions were sucked dry of information, and they helped train the men replacing them. Replicas of villages were constructed, accurate to the finest detail. In order to prepare for a mission, the Berets lived exactly as they expected to live in the field — food, shelter, work, language, everything.

  As a training aid, Yarborough had a portion of a Vietnamese guerrilla village constructed at Fort Bragg, complete with artifacts, livestock, and escape tunnels. On one of his later trips to Vietnam, Yarborough was both amused and gratified to find a replica of his replica village being used by the Vietnamese army at their Infantry Training Center.

  Bill Yarborough's devotion to intense Special Forces preparation also included uncommon (for the Army) attention to specialized personal equipment, such as clothing, medical kits, and rations. Predictably, the "big" Army monolith had a hard time handling this.

  Bill Yarborough takes the story from here:

  I have always felt that equipment for a Special Forces soldier was primarily for the purpose of keeping him alive and it had little to do with weaponry. The health of the soldier was what counted, and we could best take care of this by making sure he had the best clothing, field medical gear, and rations. As a matter of fact, I felt that if the American had a superior weapon when he was out among indigenous forces who had to make do wath something more basic, his own credibility suffered. I was not convinced, for instance, that the M-16 should be a Special Forces weapon; a survival weapon was more the kind of thing an SF soldier wanted. Or else, if he didn't have the right weapon for particular conditions, he'd take it from the enemy or improvise.To this end, the training system at Fort Bragg included an extraordinarily wide variety of weapons collected from worldwide sources. A Special Force
s soldier mas expected to be familiar with all of them and be able to assemble and use them.I didn't see the Special Forces soldier as a direct combat instrument. I saw him as a catalyst who could gather around him those whom he could then train and lend help to lead, and what weapon he carried was secondary.So I put an enormous amount of time in personal equipment and special uniforms, even though such things were not looked on kindly by the Quartermaster Corps and others, who looked at such views as overly romantic, and that in the Army, the essential thing is to give a soldier a good weapon, enough ammunition, clothes on his back, shoes on his feet, and transportation.In 1961, I went to the Quartermaster Depot at Natick, Massachusetts, to see what kind of tropical gear we had in stock for the guys who were going to Southeast Asia. When I got there, I was in for a shock. They didn't have anything suitable for jungle action. All the World War II experience fighting in the jungle and the tropics was apparently down the drain.I did find in the Quartermaster Museum what they called "tropical fatigues." But these had the same imagination as ordinary dung shovelers' fatigues. No utility whatever. There was a shirt and pants. The shirt had two small breast pockets and no lower pockets. The pants had ordinary pockets, no cargo pockets. The cloth, though, was okay. It was the kind of cloth that was close-woven enough to make it impervious to mosquito bites.So I said, "Well, let's see. The cloth is good. We can start with that. "And I went from there. "Send me one of those down," I told them, "and we'll doctor it up a bit and see what we can do about making it a little more worthy for combat. " So I took what they were calling "tropical fatigues" and put cargo pockets on the trousers and two large pockets with bellows pleats on the shirt. I angled the upper pockets on the shirt to allow easier access when web equipment was worn, added epaulets, and also buttoned tabs at the waist to allow the blouse to be gathered. The sleeves were designed to be rolled up, if there were no mosquitoes around and weather permitted.Little by little, with our help, the Quartermaster had a jungle uniform for Vietnam — even though they never admitted they had a requirement for one.Yet making it happen was a hard thing. The paperwork alone for the issue of the jungle uniform weighed many pounds. And with the first batch of uniforms came orders that they would only be worn in the field, and only by Special Forces.That of course changed.It was most fortunate for the United States Army, he concludes with masterful understatement, that when U. S. troops were eventually sent to Vietnam in huge numbers, the tropical field uniform we designed for Special Forces was available for general use.