Echo9er

Via Blackanthem News

Still serving proudly

Blackanthem Military News, BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 13, 2006 12:53

Vietnam vets work hard in new war, new century

Guerrilla warfare then: In the deep undergrowth of a jungle path, it was a trip-wire attached to a grenade.

Guerilla warfare now: In an Iraqi city, it’s an improvised explosive device (IED) planted beside a busy highway and detonated by cell phone from a nearby roof.

Brutality then: In Kontum province in 1968, a village chieftain watched helplessly as his two young daughters were killed. Then he was beheaded.

Brutality now: Three construction workers enroute to work were stopped and pulled from their vehicle. Two were shot in the head, the third was beheaded.

Surprise attack then: In Saigon, a smoke-spewing motorbike wove through heavy traffic and the rider threw a grenade into an open jeep before darting away.

Surprise attack now: A new BMW with a trunk full of explosives rams a convoy of up-armored HMMWVs.

And some things never change: A midnight mortar or rocket attack sounded the same at a forward operating base in Phu Bai in 1967 as it does in North Babil in 2006. An AK-47 or rocket-propelled grenade does the same damage whether the gunner is Viet Cong or Iraqi.

Vietnam vets in Iraq

There are a number of people who have seen both wars — men who served in Vietnam and now work in Iraq. In just a few weeks, I found more than 80 of these veterans working throughout Iraq. From 1964 to 1971 they served in the Army, Air Force, Marines, and Navy from the Gulf of Tonkin to the DMZ. Their present ages range from 51 to 70.

The once hard-bodied young servicemen are a little paunchier now, a little grayer, a little slower. But they are no less committed to serving their country. In fact, 13 are still in uniform — three colonels, six lieutenant colonels, three master sergeants, and one warrant officer five.

The others are federal employees or contractors. Their tours of duty in Iraq range from six months to more than 18. They are today, as they were in Vietnam, a diverse lot.

“With” rather than “For”

These veterans say that of all our mistakes in Vietnam, the worst was doing so much for the South Vietnamese, both militarily and in the civil sector. In doing so, we made two major errors. First, we took their pride and self-sufficiency and gave them the impression that we felt ourselves to be superior, generous entities that would solve all their problems.

Second, we failed to educate them for when they would have to take care of themselves. We failed to heed the old parable “Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him to fish and he eats for the rest of his life.”

In 1967, Buddy Algood was a second lieutenant with E Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry of the 199th Infantry Brigade near Binh Chan. Following the loss of his lower right calf and foot and recuperation from his injuries, he was the first amputee to graduate from the Airborne School at Fort Benning, Ga. A month later he returned to Vietnam.

Thirty-eight years later, as a civilian, Algood came to Iraq with the Project and Contracting Office (PCO). He explained that, in Iraq, part of his early work was “identifying reconstruction projects in 10 strategic cities that would put Iraqis to work and make an immediate improvement in their quality of life.”

In the first seven weeks, 358 projects were identified, developed, prioritized, contracts solicited and awarded. Wherever possible, efforts were made to hire Iraqi contractors and workers. At one point, 21,000 Iraqis were employed on these projects.

Algood said that “We’re finally doing that often-used phrase in Southeast Asia…‘winning the hearts and minds’ of those we’re supposed to help.”

Then there’s Steve Budnick. In 1967, he was an enlisted man in Vietnam with the 1st Cavalry, 101st Airborne Division, and with a Special Forces team. Today, he is in the PCO’s Security and Justice Sector keeping track of more than 900 reconstruction projects. They include police stations, prisons, military bases, training academies, courthouses, border forts, ports of entry, and fire stations. These projects employ hundreds of Iraqis today, and will help make Iraq more secure in the future.

The enemy

These Vietnam veterans agree with Algood’s assessment that “winning the hearts and minds” is as important today as it was in Vietnam, even though the enemy is different.

Lt. Col. James Zucarelli is a member of the 42nd Infantry Division serving as liaison officer with the PCO. He was a Marine lieutenant in Vietnam 1968-69, and will leave Iraq at the age of 59.

Zucarelli says of ‘Nam, “There we were fighting a well-organized, structured, ideologically-driven force who shared a common objective. Today we are up against disparate, factionalized knots with an equally wide array of reasons for what they do.”

The insurgents in Iraq include:

A few Ba’athist Party members still loyal to Saddam Hussein.
Islamic extremists using religion to sanctify black marketeering, kidnapping, extortion, and other criminal activities.
Neighboring countries using the war as an excuse to settle lingering “debts” like the Iraq/Iran war, or generations-old tribal hatred and vendettas.
International terrorists like Zarqawi.
A multitude of ethnic, cultural, and racial groups who have moved their traditional hatreds into an international arena.
The unemployed. There are former Iraqi soldiers who will accept $25 dollars to take a potshot at a passing patrol, plant an IED by the road, or shoot a mortar from their backyard at night.

So this is clearly not our father’s war.

The threat

The techniques of guerrilla warfare have evolved since Vietnam. Combatants are no longer the primary targets. For the most part it is Iraqi civilians, those striving to rebuild their country and create a democracy, who take the brunt of the assaults. For example, last August seven Iraqi contractors, working for Gulf Region Division and PCO, were killed and 11 injured.

The result has been a drain on funds. Significant money intended for new projects and rehabilitation projects are diverted for security. Rick Jervis of USA Today reported that “Security costs have chewed away at the $18.4 billion appropriated by Congress for reconstruction in Iraq. Last year, $5 billion of that was redirected to training and equipping Iraq’s security forces, a move that resulted in the cancellation of some projects and scaling back others.”

Our forces

As the threat has changed, so has our military.

“The make-up of fighting forces is markedly different than in Vietnam,” Master Sgt. Wreco Reese noted. “There are many Guard and Reserve folks here in Iraq.”

He is an excellent example. In 1970 he was a young Specialist Four operating a DC-7E caterpillar bulldozer with the 14th Engineer Battalion in Quan Tri Province.

Now, as a master sergeant, he serves with Gulf Region North in Ramadi. Before this, he was with the 416th Facility Engineers, an Army Reserve unit, in Kadahar, Afghanistan.

And those who do the day-to-day chores have changed as well. Today the majority of combat support and service work is done by government service professionals, civilian contractors, or local nationals. From meal preparation and KP to guard duty, convoy protection, and personal security details, all are now services contracted from the private sector.

This is a substantial change from Vietnam and has significantly altered way the military does business. From logistical support to environmental impacts to housing an Army with a significant number of women, the day-to-day work in Iraq greatly differs from Phu Bai circa 1968.

Popular support

Joe Berindelli earned his second Silver Star providing security for engineer units with C Troop, 1st Squadron of the 4th Cavalry of the 1st Infantry Division in 1968, somewhere between Phu Loi and Di An. Yet he most recalls how “Many of us returned to the U.S. after tours in Vietnam only to have anti-war protesters spit on us.

“The demonstrations against the war were the lead story on the nightly news and got front page coverage in most newspapers,” he said. “We believed we were serving our country, and came home to find a country that, at best, was divided. We had done our duty, and we were often treated as if we were the enemy.”

Some Vietnam veterans came to Iraq to exorcise those lingering, ugly memories and “to help end a war correctly, as we should have been allowed to do there,” said Master Sgt. Troy Porter.

Porter is another of the few still in uniform. In Vietnam, he was with C Company 2nd Battalion, of the 506th Airborne Infantry Regiment. A few years after leaving active duty he joined the Missouri National Guard. His unit is the Engineer Brigade of the 35th Infantry Division, which mobilized not long ago.

As a civilian, he works for the Directorate of Public Works at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. In Iraq his duties are similar as he works in Gulf Region Central’s Directorate of Public Works.

“Our commitment here needs to be until the job is done,” said Porter. “Look how long our presence was necessary in Germany and Japan after World War II, and in Korea after the Korean War. How can people expect Iraq to instantly have a modern country and fully functional democracy? Yet that appears to be what many Americans believe!”

The news media

The difference in the popular support of the Iraq war verses Vietnam probably relates to differences in the way the news media is covering the war in Iraq.

During Vietnam, Dan Bliznik was a Navy medic with 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines in I Corps. Today as the senior accountant for PCO he keeps tabs on the $12 billion dollars DoD has sent to help build Iraq.

“The embedded reporters during Operation Iraqi Freedom was a great idea,” Bliznik said. “It allowed a lot of print and broadcast folks who had little or no experience with the military to see the war firsthand. What’s that old, cliché’, ‘Walk a mile in my shoes’? I think anyone who writes about what Soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen during this conflict need to live it themselves. Attitudes about Vietnam would have been different if some of the ‘Saigon Warriors’ had left their hotels to go where the action took place. Too few came out where we were, and if they did it was briefly, with few ever staying overnight when it was often at its worst.”

In some ways, there are similarities between Iraq and Vietnam. In both countries, things are often not as they appear. The writer of this piece was a first lieutenant with the 1st Signal Corps in Vietnam 1967-68. Like in Vietnam, the longer I’m here, the more I realize how little I understand. The complexity of relationships, tribal loyalties, long-time hatreds, and vendettas that simmer under the surface cannot be ignored.

Yet there are big differences, too. Iraq has a history 7,500 years old. It is the land that invented paved roads, epic literature, law codes, banking, and even joint stock corporations. It is the culture that created cuneiform writing from which recordkeeping evolved. Even under Saddam Hussein, it was a modern land of teachers and engineers and petroleum businessmen.

“This is not a backward country of slouches,” said Henry Bunting, lead acquisition analyst in the Joint Contracting Command – Iraq/Afghanistan. Back in 1970 he was a staff sergeant in Vietnam with Company A, 75th Support Battalion, 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized). “The vast preponderance of the Iraqis with whom I deal are ready and eager to assume responsibility for their future. Many excellent Iraqi engineers and sub-contracting companies have successfully been part of the team completing hundreds of reconstruction efforts.”

In fact, presently more than two projects are being completed every day.

As an Army lieutenant in 1968-69, Mike Hatchett spent his tour in Southeast Asia at Kontum as a member of the Military Assistance Command – Special Operations Group. Today he is the supervisory auditor for the Defense Contracting Agency.

“The breadth and scope of work done with Iraqi help is mind-boggling,” Hatchett said. “As of March 10, 2,779 GRD/PCO projects have begun of the projected 3,109, including 364 funded by Development Fund for Iraq (DFI). GRD/PCO has completed 2,183 projects.. We’re doing ‘this one’ right.”

By Tom Clarkson
Gulf Region Division

For more information about Vietnam and Vietnam Veterans, visit Vietnam Veteran’s and Proud