Delta Force (7 page)

EIGHT

IT WAS SPRING
1964. I tried to be cautious at first. I knew B Company, so I looked at the three others, real slow. Then I welded together a plan which actually was a rehash of part of my SAS paper, the part on training—but with a wrinkle. I took it to Colonel Evans-Smith. I told him I thought the Group was not well trained, that he was failing in his responsibilities, that I was failing in mine if I didn't point this out, and that he ought to look at my proposal, which would enhance the training posture of his Group. I handed it to him, he skimmed the high points, screamed, threw it at me, and ordered me out of his office.

I then perceived that what Charlie Beckwith should do was go find himself a gray flannel suit and a briefcase and an insurance job. I'd just been promoted to major the week before, but now I figured I was finished. I went back up to the office and gathered around me the officers who worked for me and described what had taken place. They, too, thought it was all over. I remember that I got very little accomplished that day. That evening I had a couple of big drinks of bourbon and shared my troubles with Katherine.

I was in the office as usual the next morning around a quarter to six. We did our PT, and Colonel Evans-Smith was out there with us. “I'd like to see you in my office after this formation,” he said. I showered quickly and reported to him. Looking at me, he picked up my proposal. “Implement the damn thing. You're right.”

I was shocked.

What my proposal did was articulate the principle that before a Special Forces Green Beret soldier could become a good
un
conventional soldier he'd first have to be a good conventional one. He had to understand what a rifle squad was all about, what a rifle platoon was supposed to do, what a rifle company needed to know. To break the rules you need to know what the rules are. You can't be unconventional until you're conventional first. So to get down the road where we'd teach unconventional warfare, we needed to go back to blocking and tackling—the basics. Because I had commanded rifle and weapons companies, I was appalled on arriving in Special Forces to find officers who had never commanded conventional units.

Many people didn't support me. “Beckwith's reinventing the wheel. He thinks he's back in the 82nd Airborne.” Evans-Smith understood conventional soldiering. So when I laid out squad-platoon-company attack exercises, or night withdrawals, or delaying actions, he knew what I was talking about.

We ran rifle companies in the attack and we used live ammunition. Sergeants participating in the exercises would come up to me and say, “Sir, this is the best goddamn training we've ever done.” I felt great. We went through this conventional period for about three months, restructuring the training of the 7th Special Forces Group. From there we returned to unconventional training.

I got to know almost everyone in the 7th Group by his first name, and I learned what each could or could not do. I knew who the performers were. I knew who the duds were.

About this time Capt. George Chapman from 22 SAS came to Bragg as the exchange officer. George had been in D Squadron, and I knew him to be a switched-on officer. Some strings were pulled and George Chapman was assigned to B Company. It was comforting knowing an SAS officer was on post. Maybe the two of us could fight the battle.

The other officers in the operations office shared my feeling that we should set up an exercise back up in the Pisgah National Forest near Hickory, North Carolina. I got George Chapman
over to the house one night. We began to talk about going up to Pisgah and running some skill station training. In this case we'd run a mountain climbing station and a communications station. Additionally, we'd teach everyone sketch-map reading. Then we agreed as a grand finale we'd have an E and E (Evade and Escape) exercise. George and I almost talked in shorthand, because we'd done these things before.

We selected some very sharp officers and noncoms to go with us up to Pisgah; and while we were in the mountains, I received word that Colonel Evans-Smith was being replaced as CO of the 7th Group by Col. Ed Mayer. As soon as Colonel Mayer had settled into his new headquarters, he came up to Pisgah to see what we were up to. One morning he grabbed me. “Charlie, I want to see some more training. Just pick out something you want me to look over and let's go do it.”

That was fine. Grabbing two 12-foot sling ropes, I drove him over to Wilson Creek, high over which had been rigged a 1-man cable bridge. “Follow me, Colonel,” I said. I whipped on my Swiss seat, tied it around my waist, put the mountaineering snap link in, hooked it onto the cable, and pulled myself the full sixty feet across. I unbuckled and looked back to the other side at Colonel Mayer. He shouted over to me, “Hey, Charlie, come back over here.” “Yes, sir.” I put my rope back on and slid back across. “Now, let me tell you something,” Colonel Mayer said. “The name of the game is to train the soldiers. The name of the game is not to train the group commander, so don't play these kinds of tricks on me.” I burst out laughing, “You caught me.”

The grandiose final exercise, following the skills training, was an E and E maneuver. We'd gotten the 82nd to burp up a rifle company that was going to act as aggressor and try to round up the Green Berets. We figured if these escaping groups did some real humping they ought to make the final RV in two days, but we also felt we needed to add something else to slow up the exercise and give the Green Berets some problems. So George and I decided we'd make them hit an RV between Blowing Rock and Linville Gorge. There we formed them into 4-man groups and introduced them to footlockers
containing sandbags. Of course the men were told they were carrying important equipment. These teams then had to move their footlockers on over to Linville Gorge.

I gotta tell you, when four guys have to get a heavy box from one point to another in a day and a half, going up and down mountains, it causes a lot of problems. We wanted to see how it affected their unity and their fitness. It was a stress test and we wanted to evaluate those men on how well they handled it. Everyone got to the other end. But at the debriefing for this phase of the course, George Chapman and I were highly criticized. The men who participated were tired and very angry. They hadn't liked being put through a physical and mental wringer. Colonel Kelty, whose A Company had gone through the course first, was just livid over the exercise. He felt his men had been mishandled and abused. This kind of criticism didn't bother me a goddamn bit.

Before the exercise ended and I had returned to Fort Bragg, I received orders to report to the U.S. Army's Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, on a permanent change of station. A few months later, about halfway through the course work at the Staff College, I began to receive letters from Vietnam from noncoms who had gone through the Pisgah exercise. “All the time up there we thought you were crazy. I cussed you at the time, but now I realize what we trained for.”

NINE

NO SURPRISE—I
wasn't a good student at the University of Georgia and I wasn't one in Staff College. The course I was in was nine months long and its aim was to teach the officer how to be a staff officer within an infantry or armor division. I wasn't interested in logistics, not at that level, and I wasn't interested in being any kind of a staff officer. I muddled through.

One of the requirements at Leavenworth was to write a term paper. I dug into my trunk, dusted off the old report, brought it up to date, and had Katherine type it for me. I also changed the name: “The Need to Organize in the United States Army—A Special Operations Force.” I figured I should stop beating the name Special Air Service to death, so I gave the unit a shiny new name. There were two grades given on this paper. One was for the concept, the other was how well you could verbalize your argument, and this grade had nothing to do with the concept. I got a good grade in public speaking, but only an average mark on my paper. The Army still wasn't listening.

I learned more, actually, from my peers than I did from the faculty. I sat next to an old boy who knew a lot about artillery. I used to ask him questions. Then I talked to several armor officers about tanks and how they should be used. I learned a lot but finished near the bottom of my class.

The biggest thing in Kansas—it worried everyone—was where we were going to go when we got out of school. I
volunteered for Vietnam. I was afraid the war would be over before I got there.

The Personnel Assignment folks from Washington came out and spent a couple of days talking to us about our new assignments. I had orders to go to Vietnam all right, but I was going as a sector advisor, which meant I was being assigned to a village where I would work with the local Vietnamese people. I thought I was better than that and told them, “With all this Special Operations experience I have, there's gotta be a place for me. I know there's a Special Forces Group in 'Nam.” I was angry, mad. Again.

I immediately sat down and wrote some letters. One of them went to Irwin Jacobs, a close friend who was then adjutant of the 5th Special Forces Group in South Vietnam. “Here is a copy of my orders. I'm being assigned as a sector advisor and, damn it, I want to go to the 5th Group. If there's going to be a Special Forces Group in Vietnam, then Charlie Beckwith is going to be a member of it.”

Time went by. I got a letter back from Irwin, “There's a good chance your orders will be changed.” Three weeks before graduation from Staff College I received a call from Washington telling me I was going to Nha Trang, where the 5th Special Forces Group had its base. It was like coming back from England all over again. I kept telling myself, I gotta get over to Vietnam. They need me over there. I'd been shot at in Laos while on duty there in 1960, but I hadn't really come to grips with a WAR. I was hungry. The whole Army was lying at my feet.

Irwin Jacobs met me in Nha Trang at the end of June 1965. Earlier in the week, I'd gotten Katherine and the girls settled in Birmingham, Michigan, near her parents. I'd cut my leave short. I'd had a whole year in Fort Leavenworth with my family. I figured if I was dumb enough to get to 'Nam early, the Army would be dumb enough to get me in sooner. I was in a hurry to get my whistle wet.

Irwin took me in to meet Col. Bill McKean, the CO of the 5th Special Forces Group. Like Evans-Smith, he'd never been in Special Forces, not one day. In spite of having a face that
looked liked a clenched fist, McKean, I was to learn, had a heart big enough to fill a bucket. Colonel McKean told me they were going to give me the DELTA Project, Detachment B-52. “Yes, that's fine. Yes, sir.” I didn't know what Detachment B-52 was, nor did I know what the DELTA Project was.

Irwin had briefed me from the airport to the colonel's office: “I've been politicking to get this for you. It's the best job in the Special Forces. But these guys need some help and the Group needs help.” I heard I was taking my command over on Monday. I decided to spend the weekend around the Special Forces Headquarters, sort of looking things over. I ran a few miles up and down the beach, which was quite beautiful, swam back and forth, making sure I still had my perk there. Then I went back to headquarters, drew my gear, test-fired my weapon, and saw some old friends. That killed Saturday.

Sunday I got up and looked around. Nobody was about. A few officers but not many were in camp. I went over to Group Headquarters. “Anybody here?” I shouted. McKean, who had only been in country one week longer than I, spoke up from back in his office, “Yeah, I'm here. What the hell's going on out here?” “I'm not sure,” I said, “but I don't think there's anybody here except you and me.”

Through the discussions I'd had the night before, I got the impression that there was a lot of shacking up downtown; a lot of people were getting their asses hauled by the Vietnamese gals.

“Colonel,” I said, “I suspect most of the headquarters' personnel are down in Nha Trang proper. Let's get a jeep and ride in.” This was about 1300 hours. We drove in the town and saw all kinds of things. We saw officers who'd been living down there all weekend. We were waved at out of windows by some of the officers, gals under their arms. I said, “What kind of goddamn war are we fighting over here?” “I don't know,” he said, “but it ain't gonna be like this no more. On Monday I intend to stop all this bullshit cold. We're gonna start manning the store.”

I began to think more of Col. Bill McKean. He thought, as I did, that we should be in the compound, not shacking up or
soaking up rays on the beach or being fitted out by the local tailors for new rags. I figured we went to Vietnam to kill the enemy. What I saw was a lot of guys going native. “Hell,” I thought, “this ain't no way to run a railroad.”

On Monday morning I went looking for my new command. I found them down by the beach. They were living in Nha Trang at the Jockey Club, which looked to me like a small, dirty hotel. There were girl bartenders and the usual number of whores hanging around. Some guys were obviously living here. I got hold of the senior sergeant, named Dougherty. He didn't know me and I didn't know him. I asked him if he would assemble all my people back at the compound, because I wanted to speak to them. He was a little put out and suggested we do it right there over a couple of drinks and that afterward, if I wanted, he'd arrange to procure some companionship for me. I made it very clear to him that I didn't come to Vietnam to go to bed. I'd come to get on with the war. I knew right then I was going to fire Sergeant Dougherty as soon as he got to the compound.

A short time later all thirty members of the DELTA Project, Detachment B-52, stood in front of me. Sergeant Dougherty began our meeting by explaining to me the economics of the Jockey Club. “When we're off on an operation, sir, other people move in, but we get to keep the profits.”

I became livid. “You don't understand. You're not over here to make money. You're here to kill the enemy!” I told them that the Jockey Club was off limits and they would be living from now on in the 5th Special Forces Group compound. “And,” I added, “if you fucking well don't like it you can pack your bags and go somewhere else.”

Dougherty spoke up, “I think this is the wrong thing to do.” I said, “Sergeant Dougherty, you have been here too long, and you are to be the first one to get your hat and go.” Most of his entourage decided they would go with him. Then their mistake became apparent. There really wasn't anywhere else to go except to some godforsaken Special Forces camp way out in the boondocks. That afternoon Project DELTA went from a force of thirty to a force of seven.

Major Charlie “Tommy” Thompson, my second in command, gave me some advice about some of the men who had chosen to leave. “Major, you might look at this one twice. He's good. We should keep him.” I said, “You go get those that you think we should keep. I'm going to lay the axe on the rest of them.”

For what I had in mind, this was just the beginning. I went over to see Colonel McKean and told him what I'd done, but I added, “I can't expect my men to live in the mud out here in the compound. I want your permission to build a camp here. I want it to be nice. I'm gonna spend some money.” The tents the men were expected to live in were in poor shape, with no floors; in the monsoon season the mud was knee deep. No question, the living conditions had been better down at the Jockey Club.

That night I really got sparked. I wrote a little flyer. It said, “WANTED: Volunteers for Project DELTA. Will guarantee you a medal, a body bag, or both.” I took it to Irwin Jacobs. “Shit, this is good, Charlie. You'll rally a lot of people around you with this. The best will come.” I listed the qualifications the man had to have for him to see me. He had to volunteer; he had to be in country at least six months; he had to have a CIB (Combat Infantryman's Badge); and he had to be a sergeant—otherwise, don't even come talk to me.

McKean said, “You won't get a swinging dick. But go ahead, what have you got to lose?” I stuffed fifteen or twenty flyers into each of the mail sacks that went out to the ninety or so detachments of Green Berets spread all over the country. The next week my problem was turning people away. I was inundated with replies. Commanders in the field screamed, “My best guys are trying to get to go to work for Beckwith in DELTA.” Damn, they howled. I would have, too. Their best men were leaving.

This was my first real opportunity to test the SAS concept. I began by assessing this huge group of volunteers and trying to select the right men. There was a good-size island across the channel from Nha Trang. I knew it was a tough sonovabitch, because I'd already walked all over it looking for a place
to do IADs (Immediate Action Drills). I sent an E-6 by the name of Walter Shumate there to set up a mini-selection course that we could run the volunteers over. When we got them there we made them move from one point to another, fast. No high trees, but tough scrub country, very difficult terrain. And they had the heat leaning on them, because there was no canopy keeping the sun out. Many collapsed from exhaustion. Then we learned if they could read a map. The third test was when they fired their rifles; could they hit what they fired at? The last thing was whether they could follow concise, clear orders. It was that simple.

Those who busted out were sent back to their original detachments with a nice letter. Those who didn't bust out I looked at again. I didn't do much psychological testing, because I didn't have the time. I needed people. Certainly DELTA got some duds, but I was in a hurry. I began to build from the original seven men and within three weeks had twenty-five. Then I went up to forty. I organized them into 4-man patrols. Didn't call them Troops. Called them Recon Teams.

The mission of Project DELTA was to conduct with the Vietnamese Special Forces (LLDB) long-range reconnaissances inside South Vietnam. We were tasked to go ahead of large operations—division or two-brigade-size operations—and test the water. We were to go in a week or ten days before and look the country over. If we were discovered and got into a heavy firefight, we'd know we were in a hot area. Then, it was up to MACV in Saigon to decide what the big operation did. DELTA also did bomb damage assessment, hunter-killer missions, and special-purpose raids. Our job was hairy. A guy could get killed.

In addition, Project DELTA had the job of working with four companies from the 91st South Vietnamese Airborne Ranger Battalion. The recon elements were to go out and if they found an enemy target of opportunity, they'd call back and we could slam in the Rangers. The concept looked good, but the Vietnamese didn't belong to me. They belonged to General Quang who was based down in Nha Trang City.

I also had to supply American advisors to Vietnamese patrols and this was a hard role. I learned Charlie Beckwith made a very poor advisor. My Vietnamese counterpart in the LLDB was Major Tut, a nice guy I felt sorry for. I must have been the third or fourth guy he had to put up with. I tried to be as prudent as I could. This Vietnamese Special Forces unit had lots of equipment, lots of money, and the troops looked smart. On paper things looked good. But I didn't know what they could do in a crunch.