G R E E N B E R E T S 9 INTRODUCTION Captain Roger Donlon and his detachment of Army Special Forces more popularly known as Green Berets arrived in South Vietnam in late May 1964 Along with about 300 South Vietnamese soldiers Donlon’s 12-man team quickly established a small fortified camp called Nam Dong near the border with Laos Eventually more than 200 simi lar camps would dot the countryside strategically located to attack enemy supply routes These attacks were thorns in the side of the Viet Cong and later North Vietnamese who worked to eliminate the source of such assaults At about 2 25 a m on July 6 Nam Dong was attacked by a force of nearly 1,000 Viet Cong who had surrounded the camp and fired mortars grenades and automatic weapons During the savage firefight Conlon was wounded in his stomach his shoulder his leg and his face Flying shrapnel opened cuts all over his body Despite his wounds Donlon continued to direct the camp’s defenses as the Green Berets and South Vietnamese fought off wave after wave of attackers He even administered first aid to some of the other wounded American reinforcements finally arrived at about 7 00 a m The attackers melted back into the jungle According to estimates they had lost more than 200 men Fifty-five South Vietnamese had also perished along with two members of Donlon’s detachment and an Australian special forces soldier Later that year Donlon was awarded the Medal of Honor the nation’s highest military decoration for his actions It was the first Medal of Honor awarded during the Vietnam War ZzZ U S soldiers had to adapt quickly to Vietnam’s wild ter rain and jungle conditions
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G R E E N B E R E T S 11 WEARING THE GREEN United States special operations forces SOFs are highly trained units in all military branches that perform un conventional warfare missions Many people think of SOFs as men who blow up stuff and seek to destroy their enemies in close quarters combat CQC using weapons such as car bines pistols and grenades In the popular imagination these forces sneak into enemy territory do their damage and then get out as fast as they can Such a scenario was typical of some ancestors of the Green Berets During the French and Indian War 1754 63 for example a group of Americans known as Rogers Rangers named after their leader Major Robert Rogers fought on the British side The operating in structions Rogers gave his men were simple Let the enemy come till he’s almost close enough to touch then let him have it and jump out and finish him up with your hatchet Besides this tradition of aggressive warfare Green Berets also draw on a heritage of blending in with their surroundings and attracting indigenous support During the Revolutionary War 1775 83 South Carolina planter Francis Marion was nicknamed the Swamp Fox by frustrated British troops who couldn’t successfully trail him and his men into their swampy hiding place Marion was credited with inspiring the locals to resist British plans to split the colonies in half as well as with The Swamp Fox’s militia rescued prisoners and raided British camps be fore vanishing again
