Special Forces: "The Hidden War in Vietnam" 1963 US Army; James Arness; The Big Picture TV-562

more at http://quickfound.net/

'From remote and hazardous locales in South Vietnam comes this documentary report on what the United States Army, Air Force, and Navy are doing to contain the spread of Communism. THE BIG PICTURE camera crews on location in South Vietnam show the military operations of our Special Forces units--how they live--how they operate--and what they are doing to help the Vietnamese. The host-narrator of this issue is television and motion picture star Mr. James Arness.'

Originally a public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_Army_Special_Forces#Southeast_Asia_(Indochina_Wars)

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

...The Vietnam era saw the testing and shaping of Special Forces policy and action for the United States. The mission of the Special Forces changed rapidly in the first years from a force which had initially been used like its WWII predecessors as an internal strike force into a training force which helped develop unconventional warfare and counterinsurgency tactics. The period between 1961–1965 were especially formative.

The first U.S. Special Forces operations in Vietnam were in 1957, when soldiers from the 1st Special Forces Group trained fifty eight Vietnamese Army soldiers at the Commando Training Center in Nha Trang. Special Forces units deployed to Laos as "Mobile Training Teams" (MTTs) in 1961, Project White Star (later named Project 404), and they were among the first U.S. troops committed to the Vietnam War. Beginning in the early 1950s, Special Forces teams deployed from the United States and Okinawa to serve as advisers for the fledgling South Vietnamese Army. As the United States escalated its involvement in the war, the missions of the Special Forces expanded as well. Since Special Forces were trained to lead guerrillas, it seemed logical that they would have a deep understanding of counter-guerrilla actions, which became the Foreign Internal Defense (FID) mission. The 5th Special Forces Group mixed the UW and FID missions, often leading Vietnamese units such as Montagnards and lowland Civilian Irregular Defense Groups. The deep raid on Son Tay, attempting to recover U.S. prisoners of war, had a ground element completely made up of Special Forces soldiers.

The main SF unit in South Vietnam was the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne). SF soldiers assigned to the 5th Group earned sixteen Medals of Honor in Vietnam, making it the most prominently decorated unit for its size in that conflict. The unit was also awarded the coveted Presidential Unit Citation for extraordinary heroism during the Vietnam War from 1 November 1966 – 31 January 1968. Army Special Forces personnel also played predominant roles in the highly secret, covert, multi-service Military Assistance Command Vietnam Studies and Observation Group (MACV-SOG), with an extraordinarily large number of covert U.S. military personnel killed or lost MIA while operating on Studies and Observations Group (SOG) reconnaissance missions in Laos and Cambodia. During the prolonged conflict the Army Special Forces trained regular and paramilitary units of several Allied nations as well as US reconnaissance members; supervised the indigenous Civilian Irregular Defense Group stationed throughout Vietnam in fortified camps and as backup reserves; monitored the border region and infiltration routes; conducted strategic intelligence missions and fielded numerous elements engaged in special operational tasks. From 1957 to 1973, 882 Special Forces Soldiers died, killed in action or missing in Southeast Asia (including 121 in Laos and 32 in Cambodia).

The "Green Beret Affair":

U. S. Special Forces received a severe damage to its reputation when in July 1969 Colonel Robert Rheault, Commander of 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), six subordinate Green Beret officers, including his headquarters staff intelligence officer, and a sergeant first class (SFC) were arrested for the murder of Thai Khac Chuyen, a suspected North Vietnamese double agent. It was suspected that Chuyen was providing the North Vietnamese Army information about Project GAMMA and the indigenous agents used by the 5th Special Forces Group. Thai Khac Chuyen's name was found on captured documents recovered from a MACV-SOG recon mission in Laos...