This thesis seeks to identify, describe, and analyze the tactics used by the 101st
Airborne Division in the pacification of the Republic of Vietnam's Thua Thien province
from 1968 to 1972. Despite the larger calamity of the Vietnam War, the 101st developed
an effective set of measures against the Vietnamese communist insurgency. These
measures depended largely on the ability of the division's lower-level units to attack the
Viet Cong political infrastructure, provide security for Thua Thien's population, and
build effective South Vietnamese territorial forces in their areas of operation following
the communist 1968 Tet offensive.
These findings are based on the official reports, orders, and records generated by
the division during its service in Vietnam and currently stored in the National Archives
in College Park, Maryland and U.S. Army's Military History Institute in Carlisle
Barracks, Pennsylvania. Additionally, the Military History Institute's "Company Command in Vietnam" series of interviews conducted from 1982 to 1984 with officers
who served in Vietnam provided valuable insight. This thesis looks at
counterinsurgency practices at the lowest levels where theory and policy are translated
into action. Operations Narrative: 3 September 1970. "At 0525 hours D Company, 3d
Platoon had two frag grenades tossed into its night defensive position. A member of the
platoon threw one of the grenades out of the position before it exploded. He jumped on
the other grenade and covered it with his body. The grenade did not explode due to the
fact that the safety had not been removed."1
I was inspired to undertake and complete this study by the courageous and
fortunate soldier in 3rd Platoon, D Company, 3-187th Infantry and the thousands of others
like him whose exploits I found in the footnotes of the Vietnam War. Their stories were
resting uneasily as antiseptic fragments in a hundred reports, giving single-sentence
snapshots of their part in a war many more clever people declared lost just as they began
their fight in 1968. Their names are forgotten to time and their efforts largely relegated
to obscurity by others who occupied a larger, grenade-free stage at much less personal
risk. Still, they are the men we all want alongside us in our night defensive position.
Their deeds are much easier to comment on than they were to perform.
1. Hq., 3-187 Infantry, "Combat After Action Report: Operation Texas Star, dated 20 September 1970," p. 5, Box 19, Command Reports, Assistant Chief of Staff Intelligence/Operations (S-2/3), 3d Battalion, 187th Infantry, Infantry Units, Record Group 472, National Archives and Records Administration II, College Park, MD.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/4411 |
| Date | 30 October 2006 |
| Creators | Werkheiser, Edwin Brooks, II |
| Contributors | Dawson, Joseph |
| Publisher | Texas A&M University |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Thesis, text |
| Format | 1721275 bytes, electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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