This is an alternate look into how things might have
Gone in Viet-Nam had a few changes in direction
1964 President Lyndon B Johnson seeing an increase in communist activity in Viet-Nam starts the ball rolling. Not trusting the CIA President Johnson makes the choice to consult with SecDef McNamara and experts in the RAND Corporation. It is estimated that the South Vietnamese Military with a few thousand advisors can stem the flow of communist from the north by doing the following:
·Bring the rural population into the fight by convincing them that it’s in their best interest to support the corrupt government of
Ngo Dinh Diem who promises free elections after the communist threat is resolved
·Destabilize the communist regime in the north by promoting change, supporting local dissidents, and funding covert operations towards the location and assassination of H[FONT="]ồ[/FONT] Chí Minh, and his inner circle.
August 1964 A memo is brought to the oval office by Sec McNamara stating that the public will not have the stomach for the United States being openly involved in such an operation therefore it is wise to use special operations forces in the advisor roll during the first few months of operations with the South Vietnamese regulars.
Fort Benning Georgia: General John W Striker is tasked with operation Tack-Charger. Tack-Charger will send two battalions from detachment Alpha and Bravo with the intent of schooling the South Vietnamese regulars in the art of counter insurgency, and behind the lines operations. Orders are cut and eight hundred plus green berets board transports for the long flight to Okinawa Japan then on to Saigon South Vietnam.
October 1964 the first groups from operation Tack-Charger begin hands on training South Vietnamese regulars in forward operations, as well as Intel gathering. Capt Vincent Gianni is tasked with field operations for detachment Alpha while Major Chris kristopherson (Yes Chris Kristopherson was in the US army as a Captain in the Airborne Rangers) is tasked with detachment Bravo which work with insertion of airborne ops and requisition of sanitized weapons from Warsaw pact nations as not to bring attention to the presence of American forces.
November 1964 Hoi An This area has become a communist stronghold due to the lack of basic needs being provided to the local villagers. This is a perfect test for group Alpha. South Vietnamese troops along with Group alpha are airlifted to the outskirts of Hoi an and they set up field headquarters before going into the field to gain a sense of the situation on the ground.
0630 a platoon of Vietnamese regulars enter the village and reconnoiter around probing to see what forces appear in the area
Lt Voc Ran Ram is leading a separate platoon on the north side of the village when they come under small arms fire. They have walked into an ambush and are working hard to gain a foothold. A support team from group alpha uses a pincer maneuver and out flanks the lightly armed communist guerillas. After several hours of tracking the remnants of the guerilla group they disengage and return to town to report on the first skirmish in what will become the Vietnam war. Captain Gianni is working the south east end of the village when he and his Vietnamese troops come under heavy fire. They have stumbled upon a weapons cache being guarded by two platoons of NVA troops along with regular guerillas. The fire fight last over two hours. Mortar fire and small arms fire are exchanged and the NVA supported group fades into the jungle. Capt. Gianni and parts of group bravo search the area and find crates of AK-47’s RPKs and a few RPGs. The dead that are left behind confirm the fact that NVA regulars are involved in the area and that there may be more arms hidden in the hills and the valleys surrounding Hoi An. As the year ends more incident like this occur and it’s seen that a larger contingent of advisors will be needed to train and hand over more responsibilities to SVA troops.
Washington DC January 1965. JBJ is beginning to see reports that indicate that more is needed in terms of troops and support of the South Vietnamese; however congress has placed tight restrictions on how many advisers can be sent to Vietnam. Sec McNamara suggests that definite evidence is needed to send at least four thousand advisers to Vietnam.
Charley Blakely is a recent graduate from UCLA with a BA in military science. He is a bright star with a future at RAND. Blakely comes up with a plan that simple and to the point. Show Heavy weapons captured from the field to the senate house committee on foreign affairs and Intel giving them a picture that communist forces are heavily involved in insurgency operations from the north. The committees see the cooked reports and agree to send a full brigade plus support staff to Vietnam to start mass training of SVA troops and their officers.
General Striker is given orders to task half of his division to Vietnam ASAP and to set up training areas in and around Saigon. The orders are cut and in the following months groups of two thousand special forces troops ship out and set up housing, forward air bases and logistical support needed to run insurgency, counter insurgency, and long range patrol missions toward north Vietnam.
March 1965 More communist troops and supplies are intercepted along the ho chi min trail and along the Cambodian border. Things have changed in the four months since Alpha and Bravo teams touched down. Village elders in the field give the feeling that the South Vietnamese government under
Ngo Dinh Diem is going backwards not forward.
President Johnson is a strong anti communist foe and wants to ramp things up to the point that full scale operations can proceed without objection from the senate house committee on foreign affairs. The opportunity arises in the Gulf of Tonkin. Two US navy cruisers tasked with gathering SIGINT information come under what is thought to be attack from multiple Torpedo boats. It later turns out that only two lightly armed patrol boats are involved however in the pentagon situation room the captain of one of the cruisers is heard to say that torpedoes have been fired from the attackers. The USS Ticonderoga is tasked to the area and President Johnson authorizes a limited strike package to hit tactical targets near and around Hanoi. Ho chi Min responds by mobilizing thirteen divisions of the NVA and open hostilities occur south of the seventeenth Parallel.
April 10th 1965 the first of what will be One-Hundred and twenty two thousand troops. 101st Airborne Division along with the 82nd airborne division ship out to Saigon, Cam Ranh, and Danang while MACV (Military Assistance Command Vietnam) prepare for joint Special Forces operations in support of the South Vietnamese army. The 4th armored Division, 12th armored Division, and the 3rd Battalion, 6th infantry Regiment are activated for activity in South Vietnam. The Marine Corps Send in the 3rd Marine Division along with the 1st, The US Air force is tasked with heavy bombardment of Haiphong harbor; trying to stem the flow of weapons from China and the USSR while targeting upper the echelon of the NVA by targeting leadership bunkers and SAM sites all around the city. General William Westmoreland, Creighton Abrams, along with Earle Wheeler, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt all are tasked with operations in South Vietnam. The Goal is to cut the nation in half at the 17th parallel and secure the borders along Cambodia and Laos, by building up the South Vietnamese army into a self sufficient force while bringing into creation a border guard and a brown water navy capable of defending the nation against the NVA all in a ten year time frame
June 13th 1965 General Striker is recalled to Washington DC for a face to face meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and tasked with coming up with a plan on how to train and equip both a lean SVA army while bringing into reality a border force totaling three hundred thousand troops and one hundred thousand frontier troops. Gen Striker has an idea that may ruin his career or make him one of the greatest tacticians of the 20th century. During his time in the Korean War as a Lt Colonel working with I-Corp he meets with high level member of the South Korean Government, and is told that one day the ROK (Republic of Korea) Would come to the aid of the US for their help in stemming the tide of the north Korean and Chinese army. He thinks aloud wondering if it would be possible to garner combat troops in any significant numbers for shoring up the 17th parallel along with training a border corp. along the Laos/Cambodian border. This is a long shot as the south Koran government may not be up for a fight of this magnitude that far away from home, but it may be worth a call to the Joint Chiefs to see what can be done through the state department and the White House.
August 1st 1965 President Johnson and Sec Defense McNamara along with Sec of state
David Dean Rusk sit down with the South Korean president to talk over tea on how the south Korean government can help their old friends. To the surprise of Sec Def McNamara south Korea is willing to send at the most seventy thousand troops on a rotation of twenty thousand a year for six years. In his Texas drawl LBJ says it’s a deal and they go over the details of the timeframe for South Korea to start sending troops and equipment.
This is the first of a two part what if as to how the Vietnam war could have gone under different circumstances. What do you think?