True Faith and Allegiance: An American Paratrooper and the 1972 Battle for An Loc

By Mike McDermott

True Faith and Allegiance: An American Paratrooper and the 1972 Battle for An Loc is an intimate and compelling account of the most brutal infantry warfare and is also a critique of the mishandling of America’s departure from Indochina. An unintended consequence of Washington’s stampede to get out of Indochina was an upsurge in combat on a scale not seen before in Vietnam, peaking with the Easter Offensive of 1972.
The battle for An Loc, a key component in the North Vietnamese attempt to overwhelm the South, swept Mike McDermott, then the senior advisor to an elite South Vietnamese paratrooper battalion, into some of the most horrific close-quarters fighting of the war. His in-the-trenches account is augmented by detailed descriptions of a user’s perspective on the parachute resupply, tactical airpower, and B-52 strikes that allowed the An Loc garrison to survive.
True Faith and Allegiance is a riveting recounting of the prism through which a Vietnam veteran views the war as he continues to live with the aftereffects of life-altering experiences in the service of his country.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University Alabama Press
• Release date: Feb 2, 2012
• ISBN: 9780817385835

Book preview

1967

Preface and Acknowledgments

This story chronicles a two-part journey that has been more of an arduous, multi-decade slog than I initially intended. The first phase of the trip took place in Vietnam a long time ago when I committed to an American promise, a national pledge that eventually turned sour. That first lap was also a great personal adventure, a risky undertaking that ended in a sense of loss that continues to dog my steps. The second and much-longer leg of the journey has been years in the making, and it continues to develop. With the insight time allows I've come to realize how much my personal world rests on the foundations laid during those earlier, more-intense days. This book is an examination of some of the connective tissues binding my conflicted present to the formative past—it recognizes consequences.

Only soldiers who fought in those last but little-reported cataclysmic battles of America's war in Vietnam can tell this kind of story. The year 1972 was a confusing and stressful time when the United States was turning away from Indochina and abandoning millions of people who had put their trust in our promises. Despite this country's change of direction, a few American spear-carriers refused to walk away from long-standing commitments. We were the warriors who chose to continue the fight that was not over, even though it was being abandoned by America's leaders.¹

In those final days before the roof finally fell in on the non-communist peoples of Indochina, I and a few others of a like persuasion remained focused on giving the commissars from North Vietnam a bloody nose. We were the last American soldiers to fight in that war, and it was a historic moment when we and our South Vietnamese warrior brothers joined hands to defeat the invading enemy on an extremely lethal battlefield.

As I began the process of recalling those long-ago events, I first focused on a few vivid recollections that proved to be the tips of mental icebergs floating mostly beneath the surface. It took time and effort to tease long-suppressed memories and emotions into revealing themselves more clearly. Much like the proverbial onion that brings tears before eventually contributing to a savory outcome, writing this book has required peeling back the layers. At times discomforting, the process has also been restorative and rewarding.

Restorative in the sense I began to better remember a noble cause I once volunteered to serve. I'd forgotten how strongly I felt about joining the fight in Vietnam, how sure I was that it was the right thing to do. As the writing process unfolded I began to rediscover that idealistic young soldier, the one full of joyful energy and a thirst for adventure who answered an invitation to participate in a great crusade. The intervening years have taught many lessons, but prominent among them—I once had the courage to embrace a noble and worthy mission, a morally significant undertaking, a thrilling leap I would never be able to repeat.

While many of those rediscoveries have been rewarding, pulling up long-submerged memories has not been therapeutic in every instance. I've been reminded that the hard-boiled soldier of yesteryear is still there, lurking just out of sight, regardless of persistent efforts to sweeten him up under layers of social lipstick to get him house-broken. For the first time in years I got a good look at the rascal, peering out from the shadows as I worked to resurrect some of the most intimate and painful kinds of events a soldier can experience.

Those recollections sometimes caught me with an unexpected jolt. For a moment I would be that old self again, back in those desperate times when men were slipping through a portal just beyond my reach, a window that had suddenly opened, but only for those who were called. Somehow I had forgotten the feeling of terrible finality, the pain of wishing Godspeed to men who were leaving while I remained behind. How could I have forgotten those times when eternity beckoned through machine-gun fire? How did I become so careless that I let my most significant life experience lose its edge?

I didn't always expect to survive, but here I am, living with it. I must tell you, however, that I'm not trudging along as I once did, flying solo inside my own head. I'm connecting with others in healthful ways and much of that positive change has developed through the process of recovering that important part of my life, that first arduous lap.

To all who have honored me with their friendship and encouragement, please accept my sincere and heartfelt gratitude. I treasure the lift and fun you bring to living. It's also important for me to recognize Carl Brandt, Dan Ross, and Dan Waterman; their insightful and tempered guidance has been instrumental in bringing this project to fruition. Without their encouragement this book would have remained a frustrated manuscript hidden away on a closet shelf. But of paramount importance, first and last and with all my heart, I ask blessings for my loving and understanding Chulan. She is the one who gives me hope and purpose; she keeps me between the ditches.

1

An Introduction to the Past

Raised in a small town in rural South Dakota, the eldest of five kids who grew up in a secure and supportive family nest, I was ready to spread my wings when the time came. My mother and father were very decent and honorable people, devout and sincere. They loved each other and lived out their dream of how they thought being married and creating a family should be. They valued education and recognized achievement. They set limits and enforced the rules. They also understood slackers and gave whiney behavior short shrift.

Good friends to their neighbors, my folks had a sense of humor and enjoyed life despite the daily stresses and strains of keeping it all on track. Most of the big issues, the world-class perplexities, were presented as reassuringly straightforward and clear-cut. The answers tended toward black or white with little need for ambiguity. One of the many truths my brothers and sisters and I absorbed held that America's virtues were an inspiration to humankind everywhere. We knew deep in our bones that being an American was something special. We Americans held ourselves to a higher standard. Although our leaders might occasionally reveal a human foible, they were committed to correct directions, wonderfully selfless and true. The ideals I absorbed at my parents' dinner table reflected the confidence of a triumphant post-WWII America and my patriotism developed early. It took years for cracks to appear in the worldview of my youth.

I first arrived in South Vietnam in June 1967 and joined the 1st Brigade of the famous 101st Airborne Division. My appearance was something of a homecoming; I'd previously served in the division at Ft. Campbell as an enlisted paratrooper before finishing college. Returning to the 101st reunited me with old comrades who insisted on seeking me out. They thought it hilarious to salute a former sergeant who had reappeared wearing a new lieutenant's shiny gold bars. An infantry platoon leader's job and later a rifle company commander's responsibilities were something I understood and loved doing. Serving as a company grade infantry officer in combat was a terrific adventure, providing the most soul-testing challenges and deeply fulfilling satisfactions imaginable.

When the events described in this book took place I'd just completed three years in Vietnam with the 101st Airborne Division. Those tours entailed a lot of slogging through rice paddies and living in mountainous jungles for months at a time. I'd participated in a number of major battles to include Tet 1968 when my unit initially fought in the outskirts of Saigon before joining the battle to recapture Hue. That bloody affair was followed by a bruising campaign to clear the major road west from Hue to the A Shau Valley on the Laotian border. I was involved in other campaigns out on the Cambodian border as well as in the far northern parts of the country. In 1971 I was at Khe Sanh when the firebase and runway were reactivated for the South Vietnamese army's disastrous incursion into Laos.

During those years the harsh realities of combat were repeatedly reinforced by deadly encounters with the enemy that were always sobering and occasionally horrendous. Over time my sense of personal adventure matured and developed into a professionalism rooted in my service to the army and the nation.

I felt that my commitment, as well as the sacrifices made by many of my comrades, was validated by Washington's support for Indochina in general and South Vietnam in particular. The size and duration of this country's effort reinforced the political rhetoric; the assistance the United States provided over a series of administrations influenced my decision to commit to the long haul. As a result I found myself living out one of my mother's favorite dictums, which held that actions speak louder than words. But by late 1971, with my third tour completed, it had become crystal clear the Nixon administration was pulling the plug on Indochina. In fact America's departure had become a stampede for the exit, leaving mountains and oceans of materials for our erstwhile allies to absorb whether they were ready or able or not.

Even though the American army, to include the 101st Airborne Division, was pulling out, my fidelity to the mission remained as it had been. The purpose of the fight I'd embraced years before had not changed. A disinterested observer might have labeled me a romantic with an itch to stay in lock step with the last centurions, or just stubborn and brassbound, and perhaps there's a bit of truth to be found there. But in fact I gave my options a lot of serious thought, and after much soul searching decided that remaining involved was the right thing for me. So rather than quitting Vietnam and returning home with my unit, I volunteered to stay as an advisor with the Vietnamese Airborne Division.

Vietnamese paratroopers were justifiably recognized as elite professionals who had consistently fought the toughest battles since their creation during the earlier French Indochina War. American soldiers serving with the Vietnamese Airborne Division were members of Advisory Team 162, a small organization of dedicated professionals who fought alongside their tough and valiant Vietnamese comrades. I admired everything I knew about the Vietnamese Airborne as well as the American advisors serving with them, and I was honored to be counted among their number.

Meanwhile, the North Vietnamese enemy had been stalling the peace talks in Paris while they watched America slipping out the back door in Indochina, and they recognized a new and welcome opportunity when they saw one. In fact they were being presented with an opening hard to ignore. Having long predicted the United States didn't have the stomach to persevere, the enemy prepared a massive military invasion to be delivered on three fronts. They crafted a series of surprises intended to embarrass the weakened foreigners while possibly overwhelming the Saigon government, and their offensive arrived as a rude shock for both the Americans and the South Vietnamese.

But those battles were still to come. In January 1972 South Vietnam was enjoying a period of relative tranquility. The countryside was more secure and peaceful than it had been for years even though everyone there understood the war was not over. Unknown to me, North Vietnam was even then busily shifting large conventional forces to include artillery and armor units into their base areas along the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South. They were working equally hard to move the same kinds of forces down the Ho Chi Minh Trail and into their sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia, areas immediately adjacent to South Vietnam's western borders.

The lull in the war came to a sudden and dramatic end when the North Vietnamese launched their attacks during the last week of March 1972. They opened a spectacular new chapter in the war that proved to be a serious up-shift from previous levels of ground combat. Because of the timing, their campaign soon became known as the Easter Offensive and quickly developed into a series of full-blown and bloody slugging matches. The enemy managed to seize and hold some territory, but their larger strategic goal of ending the war by seizing Saigon¹ was frustrated by a South Vietnamese army that defended the strategic approaches to the capital with tenacity. A critically important element in the defender's equation was a cadre of American advisors backed up by a massive volume of American air power; that extraordinarily effective team made all the difference for South Vietnam.

As the full scope of the Easter Offensive began to unfold, the soldiers of the Vietnamese Airborne Division and their American advisors were ordered into the very eye of the typhoon. The Vietnamese paratroopers I served with seemed to initially view the developing battles as just another chapter in a long and drawn-out war with no foreseeable end. For many of the American advisors, particularly those veterans who had served multiple combat tours, the opening rounds of the offensive looked a bit like what Yogi Berra once described as deja vu all over again. Very quickly, however, the size, intensity, and lethality of those new battlefields promised combat on a dramatically elevated level. As the war was beginning to fade from televisions in the United States, the last American soldiers to fight in Vietnam were engulfed in a series of high-intensity battles exceeding anything previously experienced in that war.

My story of service with the Vietnamese Airborne is presented as a series of reminiscences, memories of happenings long ago that I offer on behalf of all who wore the tiger-striped uniform and the maroon beret. We who served with Advisory Team 162 will never forget our Vietnamese paratrooper brothers. They demonstrated a special kind of dedication and courage throughout the long years of a war that, for them, started in 1946 and ended in 1975. They were consistently tough and resilient no matter the odds they faced, the support they received, or their battlefield prospects.

I have included the names of several participants in these vignettes, men I became acquainted with during the battle for An Loc. Military ranks mentioned are as of the spring of 1972. While it was tempting to create conversations to dramatize and personalize some of the events described, I resisted the urge to put words in anyone's mouth. In fact I'm not at all sure what I might have said forty years ago either.

As I think back to those days of commitment and action it's hard to believe so much time has passed since I last saw Vietnam, the place where I pledged myself to a righteous cause and where I and so many others were betrayed by the American government. Over the years I've learned the ghosts may slumber, but they cannot die.

2

The Current State of Play

I can hear rain on the skylight. Not hard, but persistent, but that's not what woke me. I always come awake in our bedroom totally alert, every night, no fuzziness, no confusion. I know exactly where I am and what's around me even though it's dark. My wife, my delicately beautiful Chulan, is within easy reach under the covers. I can hear and feel her breathing. What a marvelous security I have found with her. A wondrous comfort, but it's 3:00 A.M. and it's time for me to move.

I need to patrol the perimeter. There was a time, not so long ago, when I would slip through the alley door and be out in the yard. I would find myself on the quiet nighttime sidewalks, standing beside a tree, scanning. But things have changed over the past couple of years, my patrols have narrowed. My Chulan has made me a gift of great value. She has introduced me to a new sense of wellness, slowly growing, becoming more solid, more complete. The rain has begun to pound and the yard is swimming, the patio and streets are alive with bouncing water. One of my current posts is at the side of the dining room window, another at the edge of the back door. Loaded with hollow points, my snub-nose pistol pulls at the pocket of my bathrobe, never needed but always ready. I'm standing right next to the rain, a foot from the downpour, dry and warm, not lying soaked and chilled in the jungle. I watch the shadows in the back yard, and although I wait, nothing