SPECIAL FORCES"
[How are the Americans with special training in antiguerrilla warfare doing in Vietnam? A report by Max Clos in the April 27 issue of the Paris daily Le Figaro provides a good indication. He visited several outposts on the fighting front where it was possible for him to make first-hand observations. His report of the situation at Souy Da, where a Captain Ekman is in charge, is particularly illuminating. We have translated the following extracts. ]
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The training center of the special forces is at Fort Bragg in the United States. The idea is to provide the men who are to engage in teamwork with advanced technical training in various military specialties, while they are at the same time taught to serve in a definite geographical area, They learn the language and study courses in the civilization of the countries in which they are to serve, Captain Ekman told me:.
“Our mission is to be parachuted into a country that we know well. There we recruit and organize troops to make up a maquis. We now have enough men trained to make up 300 battalions and we are able to work in any country in the world, in France or Russia or Africa,"
Vietnam is evidently considered to be a marvelous training ground for the special forces. All the members of this service must take a turn there whatever their geographical specialty. I have met men there who spoke Arabic, Russian and even Swahili perfectly.
But in Vietnam the experiment has ended in almost complete failure. Wherever the special forces have their cantonments the
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population complains about their exactions. Recently. the community leaders of Nhatrang sent the Saigon government a memorandum asking for closer surveillance of the comportment of “certain troops from abroad.” At Souy Da, Captain Ekman observed with some sadness that his balance sheet was a modest one, He said:
< "Twelve of us Americans make up an 'E! team. Normally our base should expand into a certain number of 'F! teams that keep on. leap-frogging. But each time I send out any 'F' teams more than a dozen kilometers, you never hear of them again. I dontt know what becomes of them, /
There are a number of reasons for this of which the main one is from all evidence political. The formula for the "maquis" created by the Americans, but commanded by nationals, assumes a strong will to fight among these partisans and solid support by the population. It is clear that in the Tayninh region, as almost everywhere else, it is not the special forces that "swim like a fish in water" but rather the Vietcong. The Vietnamese who join the special forces are not patriots fighting for an idea but mercenaries who wear a uniform to earn a living.
There is something else. Revolutionary war is based on close ties among the fighters. Concerning this, my visit to Souy Da was not without surprises, It began with latrines divided into two groups -- American and Vietnamese, Next, blockhouses’had been con= structed at each point of the star-shaped post. Each night four men were stationed in them with two automatic arms. The arms were chained to the wall and the only door to each blockhouse was barred from the outside, "That way they can't turn their guns against us and they have the choice of fighting or being killed like rats," Finally, the post was divided into two zones. When you enter the camp you go through a network of barbed wire sown with mines. Within this first network the Vietnamese have their huts. Next, still moving toward the center, you go through a second network of barbed wire behind which are the‘ammunition dump, the radio installations, a central concrete redoubt where the Americans can find refuge in case the post is overwhelmed, and the huts. The Vietnam ese have no right to enter there without being invited. "Precautions must be taken against treason," the captain explained.