Touchy Times for American Advisers

BACK in the 1950s and early 1960s, when the fledgling South Vietnamese army was largely relegated to the task of guarding roads and villages, American "advisers" not only taught their inexperienced charges but frequently led them into combat as well --on the rare occasions that ARVN was allowed to "liberate" a Viet Cong hamlet. Nowadays advisers barely even advise. In fact, says Major Jerry G. Williamson, a veteran of three tours in Viet Nam, "these guys don't really need advising. We're mostly out here to talk to FAC [forward air control] pilots and coordinate air strikes."

On instructions from Washington, the advisers are supposed to avoid getting into combat--or onto those politically sensitive weekly U.S. casualty lists. The sometimes unseemly result is that when a South Vietnamese unit gets into a critical situation, the first soldiers to leave are its U.S. advisers.

During the recent North Vietnamese advance on Kontum, two American Army advisers were ordered to pull out of nearby Fire Base 5, even though it had not been directly attacked. They simply left behind the base's garrison of 130 Montagnard tribesmen, who have long been among the hardiest and most determined troops on the allied side.

A similar episode occurred early in the Communist offensive. An ARVN force of 20 or 30 troops found itself surrounded by the North Vietnamese near An Loc. As the South Vietnamese fought the Communists oft, the three American advisers with the ARVN unit radioed for an evacuation helicopter. When the tiny chopper arrived, it was rushed by desperate South Vietnamese troops; some of them grabbed the American crew chief and tried to throw him off. The overloaded machine finally got airborne after several hard bounces along the ground; one ARVN soldier aboard was swinging from the legs of an American adviser who was sitting at the chopper's open door.

By and large, the advisers are embarrassed by orders to retreat under fire; unlike many G.I.s who serve only in American units, they have considerable respect and liking for the ARVN soldiers, although not necessarily for their commanders. "These little Bengies [Bengal Tigers] are great soldiers," says Colonel J. Ross Franklin, adviser to the ARVN 21st Division.

The advisers include both Army men and Marines, who have somewhat different approaches to the assignment --a fact that has led to animosity between the two services. The majority of Army advisers are clustered in ARVN regimental and divisional headquarters. There are only 50 Marine advisers, but they are sprinkled through South Viet Nam's elite marine units down to the battalion and even company level. In Military Region I (the northern provinces), the Marines are almost unduly proud of the tough fighting done at Quang Tri by their charges. They also complain that the Army advisers to the ARVN 3rd Division, whose collapse caused the loss of the city, had poor communication with the troops under their guidance.

In Hue nowadays, Marine and Army advisers--many of them veterans of the Quang Tri debacle--occasionally find themselves at loggerheads. Shortly before TIME'S David DeVoss was wounded last week, one angry Marine told him that "Quang Tri would never have fallen if there had been decent advisers there." Another Marine offered a grim forecast: "I'll tell you what's going to happen one of these days. One of those helicopters is going to come down for the American advisers--and they are going to shoot it out of the air. I mean the friendly guys, the South Vietnamese, are going to shoot it out of the air."

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