@sneakypete (Arthur)
I've got to ask you this, I've probably thought of it for a year. I use to work with some Hmong, you know, hill tribe in Laos. Did you ever come across any in your experiences? I like them, good people. You once told a story that almost seemed to touch on it but maybe not. I don't even know if you were ever in Laos.
Lastly, if this is offensive or personal, you don't need to answer. It is a bit off-topic, so apologies for anything.
@TomSea I honestly can't remember what tribes I worked with,but I know for a fact there were MANY Hmongs that worked with SF units. Most SF units in VN were the traditional A-Teams that were inserted into areas under the control or under attack by the NVA,and they set up base camps to patrol from and block supply routes in and out of NVN,Laos,and Cambodia. Which means they worked with whatever local tribes were available.
Other SF units like Mike Force were mobile and covered large areas,and recruited from whatever tribes were volunteering. Sometimes tribal members traveled long distances to work with Americans they had worked with before,or to work with relatives/fellow tribal members. However,Chinese Nungs were VERY popular as bodyguards with Mike Force units.
I worked with MACV-SOG,and our area of operations were North Vietnam,Laos,and Cambodia. We mostly operated 6 man recon teams to monitor NVA troop movements,call in air strikes on them,do an occasional POW snatch if we could catch a NVA alone. Sometimes there were special missions to whack NVA military or political officials if we received word some of them were traveling south to give speeches or meet with locals.
Recon teams used various tribes,and even used some Vietnamese members. They didn't mix ethnicity,though. All your hired employees were from the same tribe/ethnic group to ensure loyalty to each other and to avoid thousand year old fights. The first recon team I worked with was me,two other Americans,and a number of Vietnamese. We only went out on 6 man missions,but we had other VN hired,trained,and ready to go to insure we had them if any of our prime guys was KIA or WIA and couldn't go. We had to have backup.
Same thing when I was working with Hatchet Force Platoons,except there were never any Vietnamese on HF platoons AFAICR. Hatchet Force platoons were used to run recon in areas considered too hot to send in 6 man teams,and we would do stuff like go into Laos or Cambodia on road block operations to keep any NVA force that had crossed the border to attack a camp in VN had no where to escape the bombers when they tried to run back to Laos or Cambodia to hide. If done right,you did it in an area where they had nowhere to go once you blocked the road by blowing up a couple of their trucks,and then sicced the USAF on them. That was a pretty big job for 26-28 guys,and I don't mind admitting that Hatchet Force operations scared the hell out of me. If you have ever heard of Operation Tailwind,that was my old platoon about a year after I left VN. CNN did a "expose" on "American troops murdering innocent men,women,and children in Laos" named Operation Tailwind,and it backfired on them. By the time the dust settled,CNN had to kill their new news magazine show,fire all the editors,and pay out millions in fines to the guys identified by name.
We even went to CNN headquarters in Atlanta to protest,and ended up recruiting a busload of Japanese tourists that were curious about what we were doing and asked why we were doing it,and then ended up marching around and protesting with us.<G>
I am pretty sure I worked on teams with Hmong team members. It would have been hard to avoid them.
