My assignment in early 1967 was at the Dak To Special Forces camp, north of Kontum in the Central Highlands of Vietnam east of the Tri-Border area. My two interpreters from the Saigon area always were a source of security because I could rely upon their loyalty and our mutual anti-Communist commitment. On June 17, 1967 I was wounded in an enemy mortar attack, which caused the amputation of both my legs below the knees. The Vietnamese Special Forces camp commander was killed. Personalized stories of the Vietnam War by Americans from 1963-1977 were written by me and published in 2012 in Valor in Vietnam.
One of my subjects, Marine Marshall Carter, was complimentary of his Kit Carson Scouts, because they “were able to identify loyal villagers from the bad actors.” Another Marine David Pickett indicated after operations that “in many cases the detained villagers were valuable in revealing enemy plans, personnel, and locations.”
Civilian Ron Humphrey was with the United States Information Agency in the Delta and eventually fell in love with a Vietnamese woman, widowed with six children, when her Vietnamese Army husband was killed in action. She was invaluable to him in enemy interrogations. Miraculously she escaped in 1977 and married Humphrey. They live today in America. Humphrey commented, that the Vietnamese “were a proud race with a heritage a thousand years older than America’s. They already had culture, art, poetry, opera, music, and religion before Columbus stumbled upon America.”
Chris Russell (now deceased), was the son of Colonel Clyde R. Russell, the commanding officer of a unit that conducted raids on North Vietnam and the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Chris said, “Vietnamese women were the most beautiful in the Orient.” He fell in love with one, but, she was beaten by her brother and probably killed because he disapproved of her romance with Russell.
The story of Army doctor and POW Harold Kushner is gripping. West Point graduate Lewis Sorley said, “Those held prisoner either by the North Vietnamese or the Viet Cong suffered almost unimaginable hardship and deprivation, illness, malnutrition and, for many, systematic torture.”
George Petrie (now also deceased), a career Green Beret and close friend, who participated in the 1970 prison camp raid at Son Tay and was a key American overseeing the April 1975 evacuation of Saigon, related; “He believes individual Vietnamese soldiers and most junior officers , with whom he associated throughout the course of the war, were truly fine soldiers.” He does not hold in the same high regard many of the high-ranking officers and politicians.
In April 1975 Marine General Richard Carey oversaw the final evacuation of Saigon. He “is very complimentary of the loyalty, dedication, and valor to the end of many in the South Vietnamese military who fought to save their country.”
Allen Clark, a 1963 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and North Texas resident, has healed from his spiritual and emotional war wounds and walks very well on two artificial legs. His web site is www.combatfaith.com. He may be contacted at allenbclark@outlook.com
Allen B Clark
