Fight of the Phoenix: Order of the Delta Dragon

By LTC Roy E. Peterson

Fight of the Phoenix is a historical personal account of duties as an Advisor in the Delta of Vietnam in 1972. The author counters claims of other Advisors and Academics and sets the record straight on the vicious nature of the Communist insurgency that killed their own people and the spectacular success of the Phoenix Program throughout the country and especially in the Delta Region MR-4 in targeting and neutralizing the enemy Viet Cong insurgents.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 8, 2011
• ISBN: 9781463417710

LTC Roy E. Peterson

LTC Roy E. Peterson authored three books of poetry “Beyond Darkness and Light” (2011), “Guardian Angel” (2012), and “American Heartland Poetry, Wit, and Wisdom”. In recent years he authored six more books of fiction, nonfiction, relationships, and juvenile literature. LTC Peterson was born and raised in South Dakota, the American Heartland, and then moved with his family to Texas at the age of thirteen. His writings bear testimony to his diverse experiences both in growing to manhood and then becoming a Military Intelligence Officer and analyzing Soviet/Russian military and foreign policy. A graduate of Hardin-Simmons University (BA degree) in Abilene, Texas, LTC Peterson holds three Masters degrees in Business (University of Phoenix), International Relations (University of Southern California) and Political Science (University of Arizona). His first poem was published while at Hardin-Simmons University. LTC Peterson served in the Army as Commander, Portal Monitoring, of Soviet missiles under the INF Treaty for the On-Site Inspection Agency, Military Intelligence and Security Advisor to the Army Staff in the Pentagon, Commander of a Military Intelligence Company in Germany for the 66th MI Group, and Assistant Army Attaché in Moscow. Roy Peterson was selected by the US Department of Commerce as the First Foreign Commercial Officer in the Russian Far East at the newly opened US Consulate in Vladivostok, Russia and as a Visa Issuing Officer for the US Department of State. IBM offered and he accepted a position as the first IBM Regional Manager in the Russian Far East, a territory the size of the continental United States. More recently, Roy Peterson taught Elites in Government, American History Since 1945, Marketing, and Global Management for the University of Phoenix in San Diego and Southern California. He opened an international trade business and sold product to foreign countries.

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© 2012 LTC Roy E. Peterson US Army Military Intelligence Retired. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/29/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4634-1771-0 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-1772-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-1773-4 (sc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2001012345

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Prologue

Chapter 1 Jfk’s Own Uncertain Trumpet

Chapter 2 Icex, 1961 To 1967

Chapter 3 Phoenix Rising 1968-1972

Chapter 4 Phoenix/Phung Hoang Education And Training

Chapter 5 Phoenix Rising 1968-1972

Chapter 6 Anticipation

Chapter 7 Mr-4 Phoenix Team

Chapter 8 On The Job Training In Military Region 4

Chapter 9 Vietnamization,

January-February 1972

Chapter 10 Nva/Vci And The Easter Offensive,

March-April 1972

Chapter 11 Intelligence Collection:

Chapter 12 Where Have All The Soldiers Gone:

July to Mid-August 1972

Chapter 13 Alone And Loving It

August 1972

Chapter 14 Guns Along The Bassac

August and September 1972

Chapter 15 Advice Above And Beyond

October 1972

Chapter 16 Goodbye Vietnam

November 1972

Chapter 17 Final Tally

Appendices

Appendix I Vietnam Chronology 1972

Appendix 2 Phoenix Program Essay By Dale Kraken

The Phoenix Program: A Covert CIA Operation of the Vietnam War

Appendix 3 Training Materials

Military Assistance Security Advisor Course

Appendix 4 Delta Mr-4 Phoenix/Phung Hoang Program

Appendix 5 Delta Mr-4 Phoenix Neutralization Briefing Notes And G2 Incident Reports

Appendix 6 Delta Mr-4 G2 Intelligence Summary Enemy Activity

(April to December 1972)

Appendix 7 Vc Taxation (Extortion) Report

DEDICATION

Fight of the Phoenix: Order of the Delta Dragon is dedicated to the Officers and men of Project ICEX and Phoenix/Phung Hoang, which was the program for neutralization of the Viet Cong Infrastructure (VCI), the communist cadre who formed the shadow government in South Vietnam. Army instructors called Phoenix simply, The attack against and assassination of the Viet Cong Infrastructure. MACV Directive 10-20 was titled, Organization, Functions and Responsibility for Support to the Attack on the VC Infrastructure (U), Short Title: Phoenix.

PREFACE

Symbolically Phoenix is about rebirth and regeneration. The mythical Phoenix bird burns its own nest, is reduced to ashes, and experiences a glorious rise in beauty and majesty from the flames and resulting debris. Throughout Europe, Asia, and Southeast Asia the symbolism of Phoenix is a powerful vision of enduring redemption and reincarnation.

Begun by the Central Intelligence Agency, Phoenix, as the alter ego of the ICEX program, was extended to the U.S. Army due to the sheer numbers of agents needed in the Vietnam War. Detractors of the Phoenix program focus on what they consider to be the less than humanitarian actions and fail to understand either the symbol or the accomplishment.

Fight of the Phoenix: Order of the Delta Dragon, is all about achievement. My only apology is that I waited 40 years to write my personal account of participation in the Phoenix Program. Phoenix was essential to the victory America achieved in Vietnam despite protests to the contrary either about victory or achievement. Somewhere in the archives is a 1971 (before it was over) study on Lessons Learned in the Vietnam War. I know. I was a contributor and editor on behalf of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence (ACSI), General McChristian. If I had access to that product and the opportunity to rewrite portions, I would do so, because my work on the special report was done in 1971, just before my assignment to Phoenix and Vietnam.

Phoenix is a paradigm for all future political engagement, whether military, paramilitary, or civil affairs and certainly pertains to operating in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2011, and to all other countries where direct involvement in nation building is part of the battle. The paradigm needs improvement in terms of authority establishment, chain of command, civil/military coordination, operational imperatives and constraints, and neutralization targeting and decision making, but it is more than rudimentary, it is as lethal as needed.

I checked the Internet with absolute satisfaction that my name has never been associated with the Phoenix Program, not because I do not want to be associated with it, but because my activities remained in the shadows as they should have. I am about to change that, but now it does not matter.

I was privileged to be selected by U.S. Army Military Intelligence to become a Phoenix Advisor in Vietnam. I have read some disparaging works about Vietnam and the Phoenix Program that use the terms horror, terrible, secret, and the like to describe the program. They are wrong. Phoenix was none of those. I hope this book corrects corrupted thinking by the few that cannot visualize how to win a war with intelligence sources and methods, those who were too timid to cause assassinations of a vicious enemy, and those who sat on the sidelines in the United States and criticized without understanding. May they all join the assassinated VCI in perdition.

PROLOGUE

Flexible Response

1 Corinthians 14:8

For if the trumpet shall give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? (Bible--KJV)

Senator John F, Kennedy campaigning for the Presidency in 1960 found the ideal source to attack Republican defense policy, which was predicated on conventional military attacks and defense structures on one hand and how to handle threats of nuclear cataclysm on the other. A book authored by General Maxwell Taylor, titled Uncertain Trumpet, set out a new paradigm of communist aggression in third world countries and the need for military operations at the full spectrum of conflict from guerrilla war to nuclear holocaust.

Senator and later President John F. Kennedy who read the book and was briefed by General Taylor adopted the term flexible response to describe the defense policy he intended to implement as a counter to the heavy reliance on nuclear deterrence and brinkmanship. Flexible response was intended to beef up the conventional forces and of greater importance, develop and expand unconventional warfare strategies and tactics, doctrinal support, and train Special Forces component units.

U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School

After the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 and during the Vietnam War, the new military educational institution at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, designed for development of unconventional warfare and training was named the JFK Special Warfare Center and School. Associated with the JFK Center were the Green Berets, Delta Force, the 82nd Airborne Division, Psychological Operations (PsyOps)/Psychological Warfare (PsyWar), Civil Affairs, and Project Phoenix. Language training in Vietnamese was integral to the Phoenix program along with unconventional military tactics training, South Vietnam economic and political training, intelligence collection and processing principles, and counterinsurgency methodology.

Selection criteria is rigorous for any program at the JFK Center and is based on past performance of duties, education, existing skill sets such as the capability to learn a language, and psychological evaluation. As I came to understand, I was selected by the U.S. Army Personnel Center and placed in the elite of elite programs, Phoenix. I was an anomaly as one of the only Officers that had not been to Vietnam already and astonished the instructors by being the number one Honor Graduate of the course. I still have the desk set with military insignia awarded to me.

Although I do not remember from my time of training in 1971, Special Operations Forces (SOF) training operates under present (2011) doctrine that is summarized by what are now termed four SOF Truths:

• Humans are more important than Hardware.

• Quality is better than Quantity.

• Special Operations Forces cannot be mass produced.

• Competent Special Operations Forces cannot be created after emergencies occur.

[Source: http://www.soc.mil/USASOC_Headquarters/SOF_Truths.html retrieved January 14, 2011.]

While I subscribe wholeheartedly to the first three truths, I modify the fourth and add my own fifth truth from experience. I modify the fourth point because in Vietnam, the emergency dictated the need. Highly competent Special Operations Forces were developed after the emergency in Vietnam, although a few were in place from initial insertion prior to American direct involvement. The fifth truth is native instructors are essential for language training and area orientation, while military personnel previously experienced in the Area of Operations (AO) are essential for strategic direction and tactical training.

Humans Over Hardware

The premise of Humans over Hardware is paramount in operating in an unconventional warfare environment. Only humans can decipher the situation, contact internal friendly elements, and find ways to win the hearts and minds of other humans. Living and working together develops the bond of trust and loyalty. Indoctrinating the indigenous population in the principles of democracy and a free market economy can be performed only by a professional elite that conduct themselves above reproach. Collecting intelligence on the human level often beats collection by National Technical Means (NTM). Having the best available specialized arms, communications devices and hardware; however, does not hurt.

Quality Over Quantity

The Phoenix Program deployed trained professional soldiers and officers within its units and directorates at the JFK Center to teach and train a variety of subjects in the classroom and in field exercises. Military instructors successfully completed at least one combat tour in Vietnam and infused the students with a sense of purpose, duty, survivability, commitment, and confidence. Some of the instructors were scheduled to return to Vietnam the same time as the students in order to maintain operational skills and readiness in their chosen fields and because of the shortened turnarounds of assignments that typically in the Army would have been a three year cycle.

Continuity and stability in the instructor corps was maintained by civilian instructors and staff with field experience and special skill sets to support training, develop doctrine, and publish materials related to the entire range of subjects taught.

I was taught by the elite to be an elite. To say that I did not achieve that status would be to denigrate their efforts and dishonor them. Rigorous selection standards, rigorous training exercises, and intensive classroom presentations insure even the ordinary can become an elite with the proper motivation and training. I owe the instructor corps a debt.

Matching Over Massing

A mass approach to training for an elite program would produce a far inferior human vector. Missing would be the one on one instruction, the hands on training, and the drop in comprehension inherent in such an approach. Matching capabilities and skills, however, takes an already projected leader and shapes those capabilities and skills into a sharpened intellectual and physical human tool.

Existing Over Expanding

Military Intelligence personnel jackets were perused by personnel management experts for language learning potential or in existence for the country of assignment, leadership qualities that had been demonstrated and characterized on annual efficiency reports, commitment to achievement, and character in their professional career and observed behavior. The product of Phoenix education and training produced prepared professionals confident of not only achievement, but mission success.

Native Over New

Native instructors were perhaps most valuable in language training. Co Anh, my Vietnamese born classroom language teacher was married to a Special Forces Officer and insisted on proper pronunciation of the flat tone and the additional five diacritical markings for each vowel of the Vietnamese language for a total of six ways to pronounce one word. Each pronunciation means something totally different.

Brief History of Unconventional Warfare in American Armed Forces

My purpose is not to provide a comprehensive history of American Armed Forces Unconventional Warfare and Special Forces operations. Rather it is to prepare the stage for the Phoenix Program as the next iteration of doctrine and tactics.

Taking a brief look back, American Revolutionary forces fought an unconventional war against the British by firing from behind trees in a guerrilla strategy that confused and befuddled the Redcoats. During the Revolutionary War the tactics of the Swamp Fox, Francis Marion, and his raiders was legendary for the use of unconventional warfare tactics in American history.

Eighty years later "John Singleton Mosby (December 6, 1833 – May 30, 1916), nicknamed the "Gray Ghost", was a Confederate cavalry battalion commander in the American Civil War. His command, the 43rd Battalion, 1st Virginia Cavalry, known as Mosby’s Rangers or Mosby’s Raiders, was a partisan ranger unit noted for its lightning quick raids and its ability to elude Union Army pursuers and disappear, blending in with local farmers and townsmen. The area of northern central Virginia in which Mosby operated with impunity was known during the war and ever since as Mosby’s Confederacy."

As with more recent Special Forces Operations, Mosby’s Rangers not only were a quck strike behind the lines operating force using unconventional tactics, especially speed, maneuverability and surprise, but they were an intelligence collection unit