Modern American Snipers (37 page)

In 1964, the 5th Special Forces Group established Detachment B-52—Project Delta. The following year, it got a new commander in a hard-charging officer named Charlie Beckwith, who recruited men for his outfit with a flyer that proclaimed: “Project Delta. Will guarantee you a medal, a body bag, or both.”

Beckwith used Project Delta as a platform to test out his SAS concept with American forces—one he'd fully realize a decade later with the formation of 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta—Delta Force.

Project Delta undertook the most critical and perilous missions that existed in South Vietnam—long-range reconnaissance deep in enemy territory, hunter-killer missions, and direct action raids.

In 1966, two follow-up projects were established—Detachment B-50 (Project Omega) and Detachment B-52 (Project Sigma). 5th SFG initiated Project Omega and Project Sigma with the specific intent of conducting cross-border operations into Laos and Cambodia, but ultimately that mission became the exclusive domain of SOG.

SOG was a joint affair from its inception, drawing personnel from the CIA, Army Special Forces, Navy SEALs, USAF, and Marine Force Recon.

In an arrangement not entirely dissimilar to the one that would see SEAL Team Six operators assigned to the CIA to conduct cross-border operations three decades later, Project Omega transferred eight recon teams to SOG in the middle of 1967. Within months, they were running “Daniel Boone” operations—covert ops into Cambodia.

Given the highly sensitive nature of the mission, the recon teams were strictly limited in terms of size and equipment. Each recon team typically included two Americans and four or so indigenous soldiers and were instructed to take all possible precautions to remain completely invisible in “Indian country.”

Serial numbers were filed off weapons—that is, if AK-47s weren't being used, indigenous Bata boots were worn, and so on—basically anything that could be done to mask the border penetrations. (Or at least that was the idea. After a few ops, the recon teams became lax on some of the finer points of the regulations because “if we get caught, what's it matter to us what boots we're wearing?”)

Operations, which progressively went deeper and deeper into Cambodia, were to last four or five days. The recon teams would either infil or would “sneak and peak”—photograph anything of interest, count enemy forces, and generally assess the situation.

The mission set was not for the faint of heart, particularly for the men who went in at last light just as the jungle was coming to life around them. As a former SOG recon team leader explained, “When those helicopters left … You. Had. Nothing.
Nothing.
”

If enemy contact was made and the team was compromised, by rule they'd call for immediate extraction. “Immediate” is relative term, of course, especially when machine-gun fire erupts from multiple directions deep in high-canopied, bamboo jungle. It could take as long as an hour for the birds to get to the team's location, and despite the concerted intent to remain undetected, more ops ended early due to compromise than ran the scheduled distance.

As SOG collectively gained experience and confidence, it began to expand its mission set. Photographs and numbers were no longer viewed as the most desirable source of intelligence—SOG's leaders wanted a prisoner snatched from across the border to interrogate.

The risk factor for what some would have already considered the most dangerous job in the world just went up. To give the recon teams a bit of additional incentive to make it happen, a prize was dangled before them—a free vacation in Taichung, Taiwan.

The recon team of Sergeant First Class Shriver, RT BRACE (note that the recon team names existed more for record-keeping purposes and were not commonly referred to by the men on the ground themselves), came close in late October '67—although it's debatable if that's “close” to snatching a prisoner or “close” to getting obliterated.

Mad Dog attempted to pose as a North Vietnamese soldier and lure an enemy to him but another NVA troop saw through the ruse. The recon team raced through the jungle with a large force in pursuit, and Shriver was forced to direct multiple runs of danger-close air support from SOG's USAF 20th SOS “Green Hornet” UH-1P gunships to pull off the narrow escape.

Shriver earned himself another Bronze Star for valor that day but no trip to Taiwan.

There was another recon team with ambitions of earning that vacation: RT AWL.

It was led by Staff Sergeant Tim Kephart and was a bit of an outlier among the other eight teams that existed in Project Omega at the time.

While all of the other teams used Montagnards to form their Special Commando Unit (SCU) —the indigenous component of the recon teams—RT AWL had Chinese Nungs. The Montagnards, who were from the Central Highlands of Vietnam, were generally preferred because they were genuinely motivated and at home in the jungle. Meanwhile, the Nungs were straight-up mercenary soldiers.

However, as the other recon teams transitioned to Montagnards, Kephart picked out the best of the lot who were displaced, assembling an all-star crew of Nungs.

Meanwhile, his assistant team leader was a bit different from most of the SOG SF guys as well. The Iowan was far younger than the others and had taken an atypical path to becoming a recon man.

Don Martin turned up at Long Binh Junction in Vietnam in August of '66 for processing as a member of the 101st Airborne facing his first combat deployment. After seeing a sign in the mess hall asking for Special Forces recruits, the young soldier sailed through the physical and written exam and was one of the thirty or so soldiers selected.

They weren't looking for recon recruits, though. They were looking for guys to work in the warehouse or cook the food, to free up the SF types so they could get out and do SF-type work.

Martin flew to the 5th SFG's in-country HQ, Nha Trang, and was assigned to B-50 Project Omega just as it was being put together—literally, as the camp was still under construction.

They put him behind a typewriter and it did not go well.

“This ain't gonna work, is it?”

“Naaah…”

“You don't wanna do this anyway, do you?”

“Naaah…”

Next, they moved him to the supply room. He had some carpentry skills and was able to help build counters that would be used to issue equipment.

He got to know some of the recon guys that way and soon wrangled his way into a position training the new Montagnard recruits as they got jump qualified. He was only a “five jump” guy himself at the time, so he gained some more experience, taking part in “Hollywood” (noncombat) jumps.

Around then the recon teams started running ops—basically training missions for what was to come. Martin next finagled his way onto the “Mike Force”—a largely Montagnard-manned force used to run patrols near camp and serve as a QRF. He then learned to fire the M29 81mm mortar, volunteering to take part in HIF (harassment interdiction fire) at night, which basically sent out random mortars just to make anything think twice about trying to sneak up on the camp.

Meanwhile, Kephart's teammate was leaving Vietnam and heading back to the States. Apparently he was impressed by the younger soldier's motivation and maturity and he invited him onto RT AWL, despite not having come up through the conventional path.

And, as Martin said, “Everyone else let it happen. But it wasn't really rocket science. You just had to have the guts to do it, you know?”

It was baptism by fire; Martin proved himself worthy of the position in a firefight that broke out in his very first mission with RT AWL. And the experience only stacked from there.

RT AWL was among the very first recon teams to go into Cambodia, and by the time SOG was hoping to snatch a prisoner in late '67, Staff Sergeant Kephart and Sergeant Martin were both highly decorated Green Berets—Kephart had earned a Silver Star and Martin two Silver Stars and a Purple Heart during their run as teammates.

Back at camp, they always had beds and mattresses while the other guys slept on cots. And, their lockers were stocked up with all sorts of off-the-book weapons, as was the norm with SOG, including some taken off enemy soldiers. Martin's locker had a half dozen AK-47s, one of (if not) the first CAR-15 XM177E2 Commandos issued, a suppressed Sten 9mm, a suppressed Swedish K submachine gun, and a couple Browning 9mms.

They bent the rules in the field, but they did so in order to operate how they determined best. For example, they ran the ridges even though they weren't supposed to. That's where the Viet Cong were, but that was also the quietest—and easiest—way to maneuver.

They used that resourcefulness to brainstorm a scheme to capture that prisoner. They located the perfect spot. During the night, they sat twenty feet away from a path and saw a large number of NVA troops pass right by their location.

“We had this big plan,” Martin said with a laugh. “We were cowboys.
Big plan
. And we did it. We practiced it. We saw all these guys.… We sat there and watched like five hundred people walk by. They usually traveled at night. It would be quiet all day and then all of a sudden the jungle would come alive at night. They were smoking cigarettes and yakking and carrying big bags of rice and weapons and all kinds of stuff.”

The idea was to string up a line of explosives. On either end there were grenades that had been taken apart and fixed with an electric cap so they could be set out with a detonator. And in the middle were concussion charges.

Martin explained, “We were going to sit there and wait until we saw someone who looked like an officer or someone who was really important. We were going to detonate this and get this guy with the concussion charge and not kill him, hopefully.”

Everyone who happened to be flanked to either side of the officer, meanwhile, would meet a less fortunate fate. At least, that's how they figured they'd be able to complete the capture.

After the activity of the night had ended, the Green Berets went out to set their trap so they could carry out their plan the following night.

Martin was working one end of the trap while Kephart was down on his hands and knees at the other end, tying the line into place. There he was—very unexpectedly—engaged in conversation.

A North Vietnamese solider—a straggler—happened across RT AWL and walked up directly behind its team leader.

“We wore green fatigues, always,” Martin said. “A lot of the other guys wore camouflage, but we always wore green because the North Vietnamese wore solid green.”

That happened to be a wise decision. Instead of a discussion about the weather, the shocked and unlucky North Vietnamese found himself face-to-face with an American commando. He was immediately scooped up off the ground by Kephart, grabbed by the scruff of the neck and by the seat of his pants.

Martin heard the commotion and sprinted over from the other side of the line. Together, they pinned the enemy soldier down.

“So we called for immediate extraction and they were happy to come and get us,” he said. “So the ‘Guns' [UH-1P gunships] and the ‘Slicks' [UH-1F troop transports] came. The Guns had to expel their ammo just for the hell of it and they shot all sorts of rockets. We said there had been several hundred that walked through the night before and they couldn't have been that far away. But they just shot the area for the hell of it and pulled us out. We didn't have any trouble getting out. And we took the poor guy back and they questioned him. He was just a low-ranking soldier.”

Kephart and Martin got their trip. In fact, SOG was so happy they sent Shriver and some of the other recon guys along with them.

They ended up getting another trip out of the deal. Kephart and Martin were flown to Saigon where Colonel Ho Tieu, the Commander of Vietnamese Special Forces, awarded them the Gallantry Cross Medal.

They also had tea with Tieu, which was something of an uncomfortable affair, since he couldn't speak English.

Shriver continued pushing harder and harder, perhaps feeling a need to live up to his outsized reputation. Eventually, it caught up with him. In April of '69, he went out on a mission in Cambodia and never came back.

Kephart was a schemer off the battlefield as well and always looking for a way to turn a bit of profit. On their trip to Taiwan, he and Martin brought a stack of records thinking they'd be able to turn them for some quick cash back in Vietnam.

Although he was “one of the greatest soldiers you'd ever meet in your life,” that proclivity may have caught up with him as well. The unverified rumor was that a remarkable military career that included several tours of duty ended prematurely when he was thrown in a Japanese prison. In any event, what happened to him remains something of a mystery.

Martin got out of the military in Oct '68, moved on, and never looked back, although he adds, “it was one of the best times of my life.” He lives back in his hometown in Iowa with his wife Rita. While he remains a tireless worker, he also finds time for his grandchildren and enjoys an enviably normal life.

Unassuming and gregarious, relatively few people in his little town likely are even aware he's a veteran, let alone a highly decorated veteran of MACV-SOG. A true “quiet professional,” that's perfectly okay by him.

*   *   *

DEVGRU's growing proficiency operating in the Afghanistan/Pakistan AO actually led to concerns that its maritime edge may have been dulled with training and operational focus so heavily directed elsewhere.

The unit had shown the techniques honed in Afghanistan were directly applicable elsewhere. For example, in the successful rescue of American aid worker Jessica Buchanan and her Danish colleague, Poul Hagen Thisted, DEVGRU operators performed a HAHO jump into Somalia and intentionally landed several miles from the hostages' location. Once on the ground, they stealthily crept into location and then neutralized nine startled captors within seconds and saved both captives.