When I was informed at MACV HQ in Saigon that I had been assigned to Binh Dinh Province, I was told it was the least secure province in South Vietnam.

This was my second tour of duty in Vietnam. Earlier from June 1968 to May 1969, I was assigned to the staff of HQ IFForceV in Nha Trang as a plans and operations officer.

Mr. Dan Leatty was the Binh Dinh Province Senior Advisor. He was a foreign service officer in the grade equivalent to a brigadier general. I did not meet him during my first tour in Vietnam. But I did remember that during that tour I had seen his name listed as being a PSA in a province other than Binh Dinh at that time. And if I recall correctly, he was also the PSA in a second province before being assigned to the PSA position in Binh Dinh. So he had a wealth of experience under his belt.

Mr. John Paul Vann was the senior US official in II Corps in which Binh Dinh was one of 12 provinces. His belt also had a wealth of experience under it. I was familiar with II Corps because during my first tour I visited all twelve of the provinces and 51 of the 52 districts in II Corps. Some of those visits were at the direction of Lt. General William Ray Peers, the commander of First Field Force, Vietnam, (IFForceV) (a US army corps by another name, probably to avoid confusion with the South Vietnamese corps designations) at the time. I heard from others that General Peers during World War II had served overseas with an OSS (Office of Strategic Services) team. The first time I ever briefed him was during a regular morning briefing by his staff. My office was usually scheduled to brief him once a week. I was nervous to begin with. Waiting in the wings made matters worse. Two officers who preceded me must have felt shot at and hit. He was tall. You could tell that even when he was sitting in a chair with rollers on it, leaning back, and rolling a cigar from side to side in his mouth. I had stuttered about two sentences when he interrupted me. He said, "Brady relax, I am not going to bite you." He added, because he had already had breakfast by chewing on the two officers who had preceded me. General Peers had directed I visit every US commander and his staff in II Corps from division level through battalion level. I was to brief them as his personal representative on a particular matter. I do not exaggerate the last point, which General Peers himself made crystal clear to me while I was in his office in the Grand Hotel on Duy Tan Street in Nha Trang. It was late one evening before I was to depart on my first visit for him. At the time I had about two and a half years of total service with about six months in grade as a captain. I started that first tour as a first lieutenant. Before then, I was the counterintelligence Special Agent-in-Charge of the Honolulu Field Office of the 710th (formerly 401st) Military Intelligence Detachment. There is where I would have ended my obligatory two years of active duty service, except for one thing. I voluntarily requested a one-year extension. A 12-month extension, Vietnam tour is 12 months, you do the math. Let's just say I was not surprised when I heard my extension request was approved. Nor was I surprised when the Detachment CO, Lt. Colonel Daniel F. Resendes, informed me on February 7, 1968, that a succession of phone calls from HQ Department of the Army to US Army Pacific to US Army Hawaii, to the CO, had taken place earlier that morning for the purpose of alerting me that I was being assigned to Vietnam. The CO started by telling me, in a chewing out tone of voice, that he expected his officers to go through the chain of command when they volunteered for Vietnam (what became I first tour). As a way of breaking the news to me, it had a nice touch. But it could never top: "Everyone who thinks their mother is still alive take one step forward. Not so fast Private Jones." We were going over what I was going to say to his US commanders and their staffs. As part of this, he asked questions he anticipated I would be asked and I replied with my answers. To one question, I replied I would respond by saying, they "should" .... He exploded. He told me I was visiting his commanders as his personal representative and they were to take my words as being his words. That was why he was taking the time at that late hour to go over it with me. And "should" was not in his vocabulary. I choose not to put quotes around his remark, but it is real close to being verbatim. On my way back from one of those trips, the flight I was on was unexpectedly aborted at the last intermediate stop before Nha Trang. I got to a radio to let my office know what had happened. I was told to hang on. After a few minutes I was told to remain at the airfield because a plane would be arriving there later that same day and I would be able to get on it. There were no other details given and I did not ask any questions. I assumed it would be an Air America flight because they did not always run on a published schedule, And because we had some "connections" with them as far as getting a flight diverted for a last minute pickup or dropoff. I myself had arranged such diversions. I do not recall the circumstances that resulted in my meeting an Air Force major who said he was the airfield operations officer. But when I explained my situation to him, he stated emphatically and vehemently that no other aircraft would be landing on his airfield that day. When I said yes there would be, he took it as a personal affront. As an operations officer, he said he knew when planes would land at his airfield and he did not appreciate me implying otherwise. He left after saying I would be staying there all night if I did not take his advice to spend the night elsewhere. I did not tell him about my assumption that it was an Air America flight. To that assumption I added the assumption that if and when Air America wanted that operations officer to know about their flight, they would let him know. A little while later the operations officer returned to me, looking sheepish, obviously trying to get line-of-sight on my name tag, and with a very subdued demeanor. He did everything but salute me. He asked me if I was by any chance Captain Brady. I said yes, trying to figure out the reason for the very dramatic change. The operations officer said a plane had just touched down and the pilot radioed he was there to pick me up. As soon as I saw the plane, I knew why my relationship with the operations officer had changed. There was only one plane like it in II Corps. It did not have the three-star placard displayed, but every airfield operations officer in the II Corps area of operations would have immediately realized who "owned" it. When I got on board, there was no one else on it other than the pilot. He motioned for me to sit beside him in the cockpit. When I seated myself, the pilot told me, "the boss thought you would like to sleep in your own bed tonight."   Early in my tour in Tuy Phuoc, I heard an unfamiliar (to me) radio call sign. I went to Brady Senior and asked him who had that call sign. He replied, John Paul Vann, why? I answered, his chopper is inbound. In June 1972, while I was the acting District Senior Advisor (DSA) in Tuy Phuoc District, Mr. Vann was killed in a chopper crash while on a flight from Pleiku Province to Kontum Province during the enemy offensive I discuss later. The Binh Dinh Province Tactical Operations Center sent a coded radio message to all the DSA's in Binh Dinh informing us of the death of Mr. Vann. I remember decoding the message and sensing the full gist of it before I had completed decoding it.

Brady Senior was a member of the formal District Senior Advisor (DSA) Program. That meant he was on an 18-month tour. It was his third tour in Vietnam. During each of his previous two tours he was awarded the Purple Heart as well as other medals. I would mention the others but it is too important a matter to trust to my memory. As a member of the DSA program Brady Senior was entitled during his 18 months to take several trips outside the country of varying durations, which did not include incountry travel time between Tuy Phuoc, Qui Nhon, and Saigon. I was on a 12-month tour and had been selected for a special program which entitled me to two R&R's outside the country. So all in all that meant the 2-man advisory team would often be at 50% strength.

A MACV directive unambiguously prohibited US personnel being alone in a district. However in our case, the circumstances justified it, it worked, and it was by mutual agreement among Brady Senior, myself, and the Binh Dinh Province Senior Advisor (PSA). It also meant some folks took a special interest in looking out for us. One of them was "Ruthless Six" (Lt. Colonel Andy Anderson), CO of the 7th Air Cavalry at Lane Army Air Field. It was not uncommon for Ruthless Control to come up on our "push" (radio frequency) and inform us that "Snakes" (Cobra gunships) were on pad alert and that Ruthless Six was monitoring our transmissions in order to react quickly if we called for help. The normal US channel for making such requests was for a district to request help from the Province who would relay the request to II Corps HQ in Pleiku, who, if they approved the request, would in turn task Ruthless Six to respond. One thing for which I will forever be grateful: Thanksgiving Day occurred during the rainy season. All road access from Tuy Phuoc to Qui Nhon was cut off because the roads were flooded over. All administrative helicopter flights, such as mail runs to the districts, were suspended because of the weather. You know the weather was bad if mail flights were suspended. I was alone in the district. It was one of the times Brady Senior was out of the country. I received an unexpected radio call from a US helicopter (Huey) that it was inbound to the district chopper pad. I was asked to meet it. When I met the helicopter, I was presented with a tray covered with tin foil. It was my Thanksgiving Day dinner. I have often thought about what delivering that dinner to me by chopper must have cost the US taxpayers. But as far as the US taxpayers are concerned, they have been screwed worse. And I have never been more grateful to anybody, than I am to those who thought of providing me that dinner and the helicopter crew who delivered it, even though they had every right to decline the mission because such flights had been officially suspended. On another occasion, a US helicopter landed unexpectedly. When I met it, it had a dead wild boar on board. The story was it had been killed during gunnery practice, and the crew thought I would like to have it. I accepted it and turned it over to the Vietnamese to prepare it. We ate well.

I was very fortunate that Brady Senior was my boss during this tour. I have been ever thankful.  When he completed his third tour in Vietnam, the Army assigned Brady Senior to law school full time to become a JAG (Judge Advocate General) officer. Also I was fortunate that my 12-month tour coincided with the last 12 months of his 18-month tour. Everything that I did right during his absence was because of what he taught me during his presence. I once visited Brady Senior and his family at his home while he was in law school. But I did not attempt to stay in touch and lost track of him. I suppose partly because at the time I wanted to put Vietnam behind me. And later after almost 9 years on active duty, I wanted to put the Army behind me (for reasons that are not germane to this page) and I requested release from active duty. Because of the Army's reduced manpower requirements after the Vietnam cease fire, the Army was even more anxious to approve my request for release from active duty than it was to approve my earlier request for an extension on active duty. I am hoping that Brady Senior will see or hear of this web site and contact me.

The DSA as the senior US officer "on the ground" could declare a "tactical emergency" or "TAC-E" for short. The justification for declaring a "TAC-E" was the DSA's judgment that friendly troops were in danger of being overrun. It was also significant to indicate in the declaration whether a US advisor was with the endangered troops. It did make a difference although this was not officially acknowledged. "Uniform Sierra (US) in trouble" were magic words to get immediate air support (both rotary and fixed wing). The South Vietnamese troops knew this. The word among them was that if you are going to get in trouble, it was best to have a "Uniform Sierra" with you in your time of need. As an example one evening just as it was getting dark the District Chief hailed me and asked me to get in his jeep. He was driving. I did not have a chance to inform Brady Senior that I was going. I got in. He did not have any security force accompanying us as we left the district compound. It was just the two of us. So I thought we would not be going far. As it turned out, we visited every place in the district where his forces were expected to be located based on the district's operational plan for that night. They were all surprised by his sudden and completely unexpected appearance on the scene after dark. That was why he had not informed his security force. He did not want advance word of his visit to leak out. I and the jeep's radio were his security. The rule of thumb for a TAC-E was that air support had to arrive within 20 minutes. That implied that if the air support did not arrive within 20 minutes and the troops on the ground had not been overrun, the TAC-E declaration was not justified. Those cases were not forgotten. It is called "crying wolf," and resulted in second-guessing of subsequent declarations by the same DSA.

During that offensive, 4 districts in Binh Dinh fell to the enemy.

Brady Senior had left the district just before the long anticipated offensive hit the fan. A resulting joke among some province personnel was that between the two of us, Brady Senior was the better intelligence officer. Before he left, Brady Senior told me I had the choice: I could be in charge or I could have company (i.e., somebody senior to me would be placed in charge). There was no available officer junior to me to put in the district temporarily. I chose to be in charge and alone.

Prior to his departure from the district, Brady Senior passed along to me from "province" one point of "constructive criticism." Namely, I had never declared a TAC-E. Although things had always turned out well, it was felt there had been previous occasions that had warranted me declaring a TAC-E. My reply for Brady Senior to pass back to province was: I was ever mindful of the second-guessing that took place after a DSA called what was judged after the fact to be an unjustified TAC-E. I wanted everyone up the line to know that if I ever declared a TAC-E, they could bet it was justified. And I could not afford a slow reaction due to any second-guessing. Subsequent events, described below, led me to believe they got my message. Those same subsequent events lead me to believe that I got their message.

One evening the district was receiving mortar and small arms fire. Ruthless Control came on my radio frequency and informed me that Snakes were on pad alert and Ruthless Six was monitoring my transmissions to province. They repeatedly asked me if I had targets. I kept saying no because the fire was coming from inhabited hamlets adjacent to two sides of the district compound. They were only separated from the compound by the width of a narrow two-lane road. On the other hand if I waited until the enemy began to rush the compound there would be no time to react. And this was after the 4 other districts in the province had fallen. Under the US rules of engagement the following was required for US aircraft to open fire: As the senior US officer on the ground I had to relay South Vietnamese political and military clearance to fire (which the District Chief could give me because he was both the political and military head of the district) and I had to provide the US clearance to fire. (Concern for the safety of US personnel was not a big issue, since I was the only US person in the area.) I refused to give US clearance to fire on the hamlets. In response, the US province tactical operations center (TOC) told me the South Vietnamese had given military and political clearances for the US to fire on the hamlets. I replied, yes because it would mean that the headlines on the day after would say that US aircraft, not South Vietnamese aircraft, had strafed the hamlets. I added the South Vietnamese did not require my permission for their aircraft to fire on the hamlets. I should make something clear. Nobody was eager to fire on those hamlets. And I never ruled out giving US clearance to fire on them. The only difference of opinion was whether the point had been reached that made it necessary to do so. And, I might add, there was the issue of who would take the heat for doing it, US or the South Vietnamese. More than once I have heard it said here in American that Asians consider life to be cheap. All I know is I never heard Asians say it, and I have seen them cry. As in real estate, location in war can be everything, even more so. It affects the perspective of those making the decision. This applies to differences in locations in the hierarchy as well geographical. I could have been overruled by my superiors, but I was not. Nevertheless things did get testy for a short period during some exchanges between me and the TOC. I had once again been advised that the South Vietnamese had given all their necessary clearances for US aircraft to open fire on the hamlets. So I was asked if I was willing yet to give the US clearance for them to fire. I replied, "not yet." In a heated tone, I was asked when would I grant the clearance. Replying in the same tone, I said when I was g-- d--- ready, and not before. With an easily detected rise in heat, I was informed I could be overruled. And in a tone to match, I said that when that occurred they could consider the DSA job at Tuy Phuoc to be immediately open and they would need to find someone to fill it. That ended the intramural war and we all went back to devoting our full attention to the real war at hand. Both Binh Dinh and Kontum Provinces were under heavy pressure during the offensive. Binh Dinh was bordered on the east by the South China Sea, and on the west by Kontum. In turn, Kontum was bordered on the west by Cambodia. If both provinces were to fall to the enemy, South Vietnam would have been severed in two. Half of the districts in Binh Dinh had already fallen. Phu Cat district was taking a pounding. Qui Nhon City, the province capital, was a ghost town because the civilian populace had headed south. The threat that Tuy Phuoc could be overrun was a serious matter, and could not help but weigh heavily on evaluating the necessity of firing on the hamlets. What the exact situation was in Kontum, I do not think I ever knew. But I do know this. The situation there was serious. The situation in Kontum heated up before it did in Binh Dinh. The Kontum PSA at that time had been the Deputy PSA in Binh Dinh when I arrived in that province. The Kontum PSA had asked for volunteers from Binh Dinh (and perhaps elsewhere) who were experienced ground forward air controllers (FACs) to help out in Kontum. As for the effect of this request on me, Brady Senior preempted the situation by reminding the Binh Dinh PSA that he, Brady Senior, would be departing in a few days to go on leave. Thus making me unavailable for duty in Kontum. I was not unhappy that the decision regarding Kontum had been taken out of my hands. It also never occurred to me at the time to appreciate the significance of the fact that the Binh Dinh PSA did not exercise his prerogative to cancel Brady Senior's leave. I have an interesting story to tell about the day Brady Senior returned from that leave late in the day before he was expected. That will have to wait until another time. I will say now that that day was truly a "long and hard day at the office." However that exchange between me and the province, together with the repeated queries from Ruthless Control asking me if I had targets, reminded me of Rudyard Kipling's remark that staying calm was a sign of not realizing the seriousness of the situation. That led me to think that if I was ever to declare a TAC-E, that night could well be the time to do it. So I told the province TOC to be prepared in the event I declared a TAC-E, but I was not doing so at that time. A few minutes later I was told aircraft were on strip alert "down south" meaning Tan Son Nhut. At the time I mentally noted the approximate 30-minute flying time to Tuy Phuoc and compared it with the expected 20- minute response to a TAC-E. What seemed like only a few minutes later, but obviously had to be at least 25 minutes, I received a radio call from an aircraft (you can tell by the vibrating sound), we are four "Fox 4's (F-4 Phantom aircraft) about 5 mike (minutes) away. He asked me if I had any targets. I gave him a "wait out," and told the TOC I had not declared a TAC-E. The TOC replied: They understood I had not declared a TAC-E. But "they" had discussed the situation and considered that: The flying time from Tan Son Nhut was 30 minutes, which was 10 minutes over the 20- minute rule of thumb for a TAC-E. And based on my track record, they believed I would give them no slack timewise if and when I declared a TAC-E. So the decision had been made to solve the time issue by providing me with continuous air cover. All preplanned air missions from Tan Son Nhut that night were being rerouted over me. I had first call on their ordnance if I wanted it. If not, the aircraft would proceed to their original targets. New missions were planned to fill the gaps between the preplanned missions to provide continuity of coverage. I told the TOC to have the Vietnamese TOC to transmit several times in the clear exactly what the US TOC had told me. The US TOC told me the enemy would hear it. I replied that was exactly what I wanted. The enemy probably heard and understood the English transmission. But in this case I wanted to make sure they got the word. Then I replied to the Fox 4 leader. I told him I had no cleared targets. I asked him to have his aircraft fly as low as possible, without undue risk, over the area and make as much noise as possible. I added I wanted both friends and enemy to know I had "friends in high places!" Also by this time, Ruthless Six had his "snakes" circling overhead and ready to strike if and when he was given the clearance to do so. I wanted the enemy commander to realize that if he stormed the compound, it would become a bull's-eye. Bottom line, there was no possible better response to my request "to be prepared in the event I declared a TAC-E." The situation was resolved by the enemy withdrawing from the hamlets. Remaining in the hamlets was untenable. Rushing the compound, as noted above, would have placed his force on a bull's-eye. Eliminating the issue of firing on the hamlets. We came to believe that the enemy force that had occupied the hamlets had split up. During the following week on three successive days, Tuy Phuoc district forces successfully engaged what were believed to be elements of the force that had been in the hamlets. The third of those three days was the "long and hard day at the office" I alluded to above. It was also the day a Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF) chopper crew made me "eat crow" and say, "you bet your *** I am scared." But once we settled that, we got down to serious and successful business. The VNAF chopper was serving as the District command and control ship and well as providing fire, along with other VNAF gunships, in support of district ground troops. The Deputy District Chief was the senior South Vietnamese Officer on board. I was the US advisor on board. At day's end, the Binh Dinh Province Chief flew by chopper to Tuy Phuoc and awarded me the Cross of Gallantry. More about this day later.

I heard through the grapevine that several people were asking why, in a province under heavy enemy attack, was a Military Intelligence captain serving not only as a District Senior Advisor, but also was alone in the district. One day the Province Senior Advisor visited me in the district (this was the only time he contacted me during the offensive). He was straight forward in telling me he had no problem with my performance. But the reality was I was a captain, non-combat arms, and alone in the district contrary to MACV direction. If I was killed and/or the district fell to the enemy, he would have hell to pay on several counts. He had put off the issue by saying I was familiar with the area and the augmentees at the province were not. But that argument no longer held water because he had four district senior advisors from the fallen districts biding their time at province HQ. So he had chosen Major Chuck Clark, who had been the DSA in Tam Quan District, to be the interim District Senior Advisor in Tuy Phuoc. Major Clark on an earlier tour had been a company commander with the 25th Infantry Division. His mentor was General Fred Weyand who had commanded the 25th at the time and later succeeded General Creighton Abrams as Commander of MACV. I consider myself to be as fortunate to have worked for Major Clark as I was to have worked for Brady Junior. Not long afterward, Major Clark received word to report to the Province Senior Advisor in Qui Nhon. When Major Clark returned to the district he said Major John Rosemond, DSA in Phu Cat District, had been given an early date for return to the US. Earlier, Major Rosemond had been wounded in action and evacuated to Japan, and subsequently returned to duty in Phu Cat. Soon after his return to Binh Dinh after being wounded in action, I had a chance meeting with Major Rosemond. At that time he paid me one of the best compliments I have ever been given. He noticed the Military Intelligence insignia on the collar of my uniform and said it meant he had lost a ten dollar bet with another DSA. (It was not the first time we had met while I was in uniform.) He explained that another DSA had told him I was a Military Intelligence officer. Major Rosemond had not believed him and in response had bet the other officer that I was a combat arms officer. I say that this was a compliment because there is nothing that Major Rosemond could have said to me that could have more clearly stated that I had gained the respect of this combat arms officer who was superior in grade to me and who had served under fire. Moreover, he had judged me in terms of the performance standards for his branch and found me to have met them. As far as I could tell, Military Intelligence officers were not generally held in high regard by combat arms officers. Some MI officers provided ample reasons for this. I have met some of them. They would complain that their proper place and role were not understood by combat arms officers. I got the full dose of the other side of the story from Colonel William Esplin, the Deputy PSA, when I had the customary meeting with him when I first arrived in Binh Dinh. Colonel Esplin acknowledged I was an MI officer and on paper I was being officially assigned to a district in an MI "slot" (position). He said other districts had in addition to the DSA, a combat arms officer as an Assistant District Senior Advisor, an MI officer who focused on intelligence duties, and other assorted personnel. But, he said, in my case I was going to a district in which I would be the only other advisor besides the DSA. So as far as he saw it, my "real" job was the same as every other Assistant District Senior Advisor in the province. He concluded by telling me he never wanted to hear from me any of this s--- that I am MI and therefore it is not my job. He got me off on the right foot in Binh Dinh. By the way Colonel Esplin is the one I mentioned who became the PSA in Kontum. As the saying goes, a few bad apples spoil the reputation of the whole barrel. But I am proud to be a Military Intelligence Officer and of my service while a member of that branch. I was commissioned as an MI officer and I still hold a reserve commission in that branch. When I was commissioned, every new MI officer's first duty assignment was to The Student Brigade, US Army Infantry School, Fort Benning, GA, to complete the Infantry Officer Basic Course and be awarded the Military Occupational Speciality 1542, Infantry Unit Commander. When I attended the course, the Infantry School called it the Combat Platoon Leader's Course to indicate what was emphasized in the course of instruction. No training has been more valuable to me, even in regard to my "MI duties."   Another DSA, Major Gavin Pilton, had been killed in action in the same engagement that Major Rosemond had been wounded in Acton. The helicopter on which both were riding was swept by enemy ground fire as the chopper was landing to pickup a wounded South Vietnamese soldier and evacuate him for treatment. The South Vietnamese had declared that the landing area was secure. I think I should point out here that the helicopter in this case was a legitimate target for the enemy to fire on. I heard the entire event while monitoring the province radio frequency, including hearing someone on the chopper screaming "taking fire, taking fire." Major Clark said he would be departing Tuy Phuoc the next day to replace Major Rosemond as the DSA in Phu Cat, with a one-day overlap. He said nothing further, so I asked the question that begged to be asked. Who was going to replace him at Tuy Phuoc? Major Clark said he and the PSA had discussed that issue. As a result the PSA had decided I would be the acting DSA in Tuy Phuoc until one of two events occurred: the eventual return of Brady Junior to the district, or I was killed in action. I made a mental note that my being only wounded in action was not mentioned as a forseen possibility.

I want to develop this web page on the advisory effort in Binh Dinh Province. To do this, I need your help. If what you have read so far seems "Tuy Phuoc centric," you are obviously correct. It is due to the fact that my minding the farm, so to speak, in Tuy Phuoc did not afford me much opportunity to be aware of what occurred at the province level or in other districts in Binh Dinh. When I was alone in the district, my absence from it meant zero US presence. So I had to stay there. When Brady Senior was present, it was appropriate for him to do the schmoozing at province while I minded the farm for him. As for my personal experiences before my tour in Tuy Phuoc, well they had a great impact on preparing me for my experiences during my tour in Tuy Phuoc. So, again, I seek the help of those who are aware of what went on elsewhere in the province. I also ask that all who served in Binh Dinh reply to my request for a commo check.

Editorial Comment I was in Vietnam for a total of 24 months, from June 1968 - May 1969 and from September 1971 - September 1972. I never saw anyone do anything that would have warranted me going before the Congress of the United States of America and testifying that I saw everyone there commit atrocities and other war crimes!!! Of course I was not there the whole time, nor was I everywhere, nor did I see everybody. Perhaps my vision would have been better and I would have seen more if I had been there only 4 months and had expectations of being elected a United States Senator, at the least.