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The Soldier at the Heart of the War: the Myth of the Green Beret in the Popular Culture of the Vietnam Era

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Alasdair Spark
Alasdair Spark
Affiliation:
Alasdair Spark is a research student in the Department of History and Centre for South-East Asian Studies, University of Hull, Hull, Humberside.
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Extract

If you kill for money you're a mercenary. If you kill for pleasure you're a sadist. If you kill for both you're a Green Beret. (Sign at a Special Forces Camp, Me Phuc Tay, Vietnam.) On 11 March 1983, at a provincial court at Nakhon Phanon in Thailand, Lieutenant-Colonel James Gritz, an ex-Green Beret and highly decorated Vietnam veteran, received a suspended one-year prison sentence for the illegal possession of a sophisticated radio transmitter. Gritz had been using the radio, in connection with a series of secret raids into Laos he had organized to search for some of the 2,500 American servicemen still unaccounted for at the end of the Vietnam War. Though Gritz found no trace, persistent rumour has it that some are still alive, held captive in communist prison camps in Laos, Kampuchea, and Vietnam.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , April 1984 , pp. 29 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

1 Quoted by Herr, Michael, Despatches (London: Pan, 1978), p. 205Google Scholar.

2 For an account of Gritz's activities in Vietnam see Westmoreland, William C., A Soldier Reports (New York: Doubleday, 1976), pp. 289–94Google Scholar. General Westmoreland was the Commander, US Forces, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, from 1964 to 1968.

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5 Cohen, Eliot, Commandos and Politicians (Centre for International Studies, Harvard University, 1978), p. 53Google Scholar.

6 Seven Special Forces groups were eventually established, the largest and most prominent being the Fifth S.F. Group, based in Vietnam. In addition to the Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg, other centres were established in Okinawa, Panama, West Germany, and Vietnam. For an account of the Special Forces and their promotion by President Kennedy see Blaufarb, Douglas, The Counter-Insurgency Era (New York: Free Press, 1977), pp. 52–88Google Scholar. Also, Betts, Richard, Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold War Crises (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977), pp. 129–34Google Scholar, and Simpson, Charles M. III, Inside the Green Berets: The US Army Special Forces (London: Arms and Armour Press, 1983)Google Scholar.

7 Moore, p. 16.

8 Ibid., p. 17.

9 Ibid., pp. 16–19.

10 Betts, p. 130. See also a special issue devoted to “Unconventional Warfare,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 05 1962Google Scholar.

11 West, Richard, Victory in Vietnam (London: Andre Deutsch, 1974), p. 91Google Scholar.

12 Sorenson, Theodore, Kennedy (London: Pan, 1966), p. 698Google Scholar. Smith, George E., P.O.W. (Berkeley: Ramparts Press, 1971)Google Scholar, recalls being taught torture techniques while being trained in “Counter-measures to Hostile Interrogation,” p. 73.

13 Halberstam, David, The Best and the Brightest (New York: Random House, 1972), p. 154Google Scholar. The Army believed that the Kennedy Administration was “oversold” on counter-insurgency (Betts, p. 130) and Chief of Staff George Decker told the President that “any good soldier can handle guerrillas” (Blaufarb, p. 80). In short, the army regarded counter-insurgency as simply another military skill to be taught through the Service schools, not a special mission calling for a special force, superior to the regular Army in prestige and popularity.

14 Wise, David, “Guerrillas growl for Kennedy,” New York Herald Tribune, 10 1961, p. 5Google Scholar. A participant in the display regarded it as deliberate self-promotion by the Special Forces; see Duncan, Donald, The New Legions (New York: Random House, 1967), p. 146Google Scholar. This swashbuckling image impressed many Army recruits: see Caputo, Philip, A Rumor of War (London: Macmillan, 1977), pp. 16–17Google Scholar.

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16 Moore, p. 9.

17 Green Beret slang for their distinctive headgear.

18 The Green Berets organized themselves into “A”, “B” and “C” teams, rather than the traditional squads, platoons, and companies of the regular Army.

19 Moore, pp. 143–66.

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32 For an account see Westmoreland, pp. 308–09.

33 West, p. 101. It is common for elite units to fill up with “rejects” from other units; see Betts, p. 133.

34 Smith, p. 35. Nevertheless, at the time (1962) the Green Berets failed a third of all volunteers.

35 Bruce Lawlor, quoted in Al Santoli, , Everything We Had: An Oral History of the Vietnam War (New York: Random House, 1981), p. 201Google Scholar.

36 An anonymous veteran, quoted in Polner, Murray, No Victory Parades (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1971), p. 112Google Scholar. As the Vietnam War intensified, and was fought more conventionally, the Green Berets' role became increasingly marginal, until they did little else but train Montagnard CIDGs. The Green Berets' relations with the Army did not improve; by 1971 all Special Forces had left Vietnam, and by the end of the decade there were fewer than 5,000 Green Berets remaining, from a peak strength of 12,000. Some were engaged in advisory programmes in Latin America. Conflict in that continent may yet bring about the resurgence of the Green Berets.

37 See Kelly p. 147; West, p. 102; Westmoreland, p. 368. At the time Rhealt commanded the Fifth Special Forces group, making him in effect the top Green Beret in Vietnam.

38 Adair, pp. 83–87. See also Smith, Julian, Looking Away (New York: Scribner, 1975)Google Scholar, and his article, “Between Vermont and Violence,” Film Quarterly, 26, 4 (1973), 10–17. Other films include The Angry Breed (1968), The Losers (1970), and The Hard Ride (1971).

39 Smith, , Film Quarterly, p. 15Google Scholar; Adair, p. 86–87.

40 Adair, pp. 94–97. Other films include Slaughter (1972) and Tom Laughlin's Billy Jack series, see Adair, pp. 88–89.

41 Morrell, David, First Blood (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1972)Google Scholar. See the film review by Milne, Tom, Monthly Film Bulletin, 50, 558 (01 83), 14Google Scholar. The term “killing machine” is Milne's.

42 Corder, E. M., The Deerbunter (London: Corgi, 1979)Google Scholar. The cover says of Michael “He had… steady nerves, the grace of a cat, and high mountain passes in his heart. He would need all of them to survive.”

43 Grenier, Richard, “A New Patriotism?”, Commentary, 67 (1979), 78–91Google Scholar.

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45 An authentic CIA expression.

46 Apocalypse Now, Elektra Records, K-62025.

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48 Pym, John, “An Errand Boy's Journey,” Sight and Sound, 49 (Winter 1979/1980), 9–11Google Scholar, makes a similar point; however, he does not discriminate between Willard and Kurtz in terms of the Green Berets.

49 Huntington, Samuel, The Soldier and the State (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1957), pp. 154–55Google Scholar. Large standing armies, general staffs, and military schools have historically been seen as threats to liberty and democracy.

50 From the remark, “It became necessary to destroy the town in order to save it,” said by an American officer after the destruction of Ben Tre by American firepower during the Tet'68 Communist offensive. During Apocalypse Now, Kurtz is heard to say on an intercepted radio broadcast: “We must kill them all, cow after cow, pig after pig, village after village…,” and, as in Heart of Darkness, he leaves a final testament to this effect. Glimpsed briefly in the film, it has scrawled across its pages the words, “Nuke them all.”

51 The Green Beret still serves as the traditional hero in contemporary “potboilers” about Vietnam, almost as if the war had not been lost. See, for instance, Hudson, James, Five Fingers (London: Corgi, 1979Google Scholar) and Teed, Jack Hamilton, Fireforce (London: Star, 1981)Google Scholar.

52 For background material on the origins of the series see Wyver, John, “Hearts, Minds, and TV Ratings,” The Listener, 16 06 1983, p. 8Google Scholar. The A-team is currently one of the most popular programmes shown by the British ITV network, averaging nine million viewers weekly. See Fiddick, Peter, “Audience Research,” The Listener, 25 08 1983 and subsequent weeksGoogle Scholar.