The Men in the Green Berets

The U.S. last week repeated its pledges to stand by its friends in Southeast Asia. At his press conference, President Kennedy denied a rumor that the U.S. is considering "disengagement" from Laos, said that the U.S. is continuing to work for "a neutral and independent Laos"--which, although it is almost a contradiction in terms, is about the best the West can hope for. Even while inferentially criticizing it, Kennedy made clear that the U.S. is still solidly backing the government of South Viet Nam's President Diem. Said he: "We're prepared to offer every assistance we can in making that government a more effective instrument for the people."

"Situation Stabilized." To find out what more needs to be done to strengthen Diem's troops, already being advised and trained in counterguerrilla tactics by some 4,000 U.S. military personnel. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara flew to Hawaii last week for firsthand reports from his Pacific military leaders. After the conference, McNamara reported: "The situation now seems to be stabilized in so far as Communist advances are concerned.'' This in itself was a big improvement over the Communists' long record of village-by-village victory in South Viet Nam. Before going to Hawaii for the meeting, McNamara made a major policy speech in which he declared that the U.S. is determined to resist when ever the Communists wage such "wars of liberation," in which "the force of world Communism operates in the twilight zone between political subversion and quasi-military action" and the tactics are those of "the sniper, the ambush and the raid, terror, extortion and assassination." These tactics will be countered, he said, not with massive forces and nuclear weapons, but "with companies and squads and individual soldiers."

At McNamara's side, to and from Hawaii, was Major General William B. Rosson, recently named as boss of the sort of "individual soldiers" McNamara mainly had in mind: the men of the U.S. Army's Special Forces. The Special Forcemen are training all of South Viet Nam's Ranger companies, all of the loyalist troops in Laos, and five-man teams of South Vietnamese paratroopers for behind-the-lines raids. One of the Army's toughest combat soldiers, Rosson, at 43, is also its youngest major general, a Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Oregon, DSC from the Anzio beachhead, and a qualified paratrooper.

Twelve for 1,500. Kennedy's budget for this fiscal year will more than double the size of the Special Forces to 5,000 men, and plans are in the works to bring the total to 10,000. But these figures are misleadingly small, for U.S. guerrillas are trained primarily to teach, not to wage, unconventional warfare. A twelve-man Special Forces detachment is designed to instruct 1,500 guerrillas.

As a group, the U.S. guerrillas are the best combat troops in the Army. Their badge is their green beret, authorized by the President to set them apart as elite troops. All are volunteers. All are paratroopers. About 40% of the officers and 25% of the enlisted men have had commando-like Ranger training. Officers can speak at least one, and often two, foreign languages. Every enlisted man has one specialty and a grounding in two others, e.g., weapons, demolitions, medical care. The training is intensive: demolition experts can fashion explosives out of fertilizer; medics can amputate limbs and treat any kind of gunshot wound under field conditions. (One sergeant delivered 32 babies during a tour in Laos.)

Taboo. Since any guerrilla band must have the support of the local populace to survive, the Special Forces are sternly schooled in the techniques of staying out of trouble in foreign countries. Carousing, and consorting with native women are taboo. Says one veteran of South Viet Nam: "We haven't room for the man who wears his beret at a rakish angle, swaggers into a bar and starts telling everyone he's an American superman. That's when the job goes to hell."

Because the safety of an entire guerrilla outfit depends on the skill and dependability of each man, the Special Forces operate under a unique system of choosing personnel for combat. After a detachment has been through maneuvers, every member--officer and enlisted man alike--has the right to blackball any other member right out of the unit. Of the 100 men originally picked for a tour of duty in South Viet Nam, only 32 survived the screening and the blackballing. "There's nothing personal about the blackballing," says an officer. "Everyone understands the process. It's just that where we go, there is no margin for error."

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