Oral History of COL Ret Bernard Griffard

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FOREWORD

This oral history transcript has been produced from an interview withColonel (Retired) Bernard Griffard, conducted by LTC (Retired) Brent

Bankus, as part of the Academic Year 2013 US Army War College/US ArmyMilitary History Institutes Vietnam Company Commander Interview Program.

Users of this transcript should note that the original verbatimtranscription of the recorded interview has been edited to improvecoherence, continuity, and accuracy of factual data. No statement of opinionor interpretation has been changed other than as cited above. The viewsexpressed in the final transcript are solely those of the interviewee andinterviewer. The US Army War College/US Army Military History Instituteassumes no responsibility for the opinions expressed, or for the generalhistorical accuracy of the contents of this transcript.

This transcript may be read, quoted, and cited in accordance withcommon scholarly practices and the restrictions imposed by both theinterviewee and interviewer. It may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, byany means whatsoever, without first obtaining the written permission of theDirector, US Army Military History Institute, 950 Soldiers Drive, Carlisle,Pennsylvania 17013.


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Interview with COL Bernard Griffard, USA Retired

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword i

Bio of Colonel(Ret) Bernard Griffard ii

Tape G-210, Side 1

Introduction and the 173rd 1

Ammo Supply Point Explosion 2

Battle of Dak Tho/Hill 875 3

Company Command/An Khe/Bong Song 6

EOD Guy, My Brother 8

Friendly Fire 8

Significant People Problem 11

Unit Morale 12

Tape G-210, Side 2

TO&E 15

Training 17

Combat Service Support 18

Environment 19

Types of Missions 20

Command 21

Typical Day 22

Greatest Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction 23

Battalion Commander Leadership Style 24

Tape G-211, Side 1

Anything You Would Change 26

Advice 27

Closing Thoughts 27

Appendix A Access Agreement A

Colonel Bernard Griffard, USA Retired

Appendix B Biosketch B

Brent Bankus


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U.S. Army Military History Institute

U S Army Military History Institute

1

VIETNAM COMPANY COMMANDER INTERVIEW PROGRAM

PROJECT NO. 24 September 2013

INTERVIEWER: Brent Bankus

INTERVIEWEE: Colonel (Ret.) Bernard Griffard

[Begin Tape G-210, Tape 1, Side 1]

INTERVIEWER: September 2013. My name is Brent Bankus, Chief Oral History

Branch, Military History Institute. Im here doing a Vietnam Company Commander

interview in the Center for Strategic Leadership and Development with Colonel (Ret.)

Bernie Griffard. Sir, its a pleasure to have you do this interview with us. Its always

great to have senior leader insights. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and

what organization you served with in Vietnam?

COL GRIFFARD: I was with the 2nd

Battalion, 503rd

Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade

from September of 1967 to March 1969. Prior to going to Vietnam, I was in the

101stAirborne Division initially with the 1-501stas a platoon leader and a company

XO [executive officer] and then I was the aide de camp to the assistant division

commander General Leo Hank Schweiter who at the same time I departed for

Vietnam to the 173rdhe also went to Vietnam and took over as 173d Airborne

Brigade Commanding general. We did not go over together. I arrived in Bien Hoa

Vietnam in September of 1967 which at that time the 173 rdAirborne Brigade base

camp. The Bde combat elements were no longer at Bien Hoa, but had deployed

north to the Central Highlands in the vicinity of Dak To. In Bien Hoa the incoming

replacements were processed and completed the brigades jungle school. After in

processing and completion of the jungle school I was sent to DakTo, Vietnam, in the

Central Highlands to join my unit Headquarters Company 2ndBattalion 503rd Infantry.

INTERVIEWER: I take it that was in the I Corps area.


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COL GRIFFARD: No it was not, this was in the I Field Force AOR. After meeting

with Lieutenant Colonel, later Lieutenant General Ed Partain, Commander, 2nd

Battalion 503rd I was assigned as the Battalion S4[Battalion Logistics Officer].

During my time as the S4 the battalion deployed from Dak To to Tuy Hoa and back

again to Dak To. Following the November 1967 Dak To battle the battalion deployed

to Kontum and then to An Khe, which became the new Brigade Base camp.

As the S4 it was my responsibility to oversee the movements portion of these

deployments. On our move to Tuy Hoa, after the majority of the battalion had been

airlifted out, the C-130 airplane I was in hit a bulldozer taking off from Dak To

airstrip ripping the landing gear off the aircraft. This necessitated a diversion to Cam

Ranh Bay (CRB) Airfield and a belly landing on the foamed runway which totaled

the 2.5 ton and ton trucks that were in the belly of the plane. This required a

layover at the CRB airbase. Luckily, one of the passengers on the C-130 was an F-4

pilot hitching a ride back to Tuy Hoa (Phan Thiet Airbase). He hosted me during the

layover. This resulted in a real hot shower and a real bed in an air conditioned trailer.

Early the next morning myself and the two drivers of the vehicles that had been

totaled were put on a flight to Tuy Hoa. After three weeks of providing security for

the rice harvest we were returned to Dak To in response to heavy NVA activity in the

tri-border area. Upon our return to Dak To we were immediately immersed in the 3 -

22 November 1967 Battle of Dak To. I witnessed the detonation of the Dak To

ammunition supply point by enemy fire. This attack also destroyed two C-130s that

were standing on the apron. If a brave US Air Force pilot had not gotten on board to

back a third aircraft away from a burning aircraft, it would have been a lot worse. I

believe that he was later awarded the Air Force Cross for this action. The following

is an accurate description of this event from Wikipedia

By 0800 on 15 November, three C-130 Hercules transport

aircraft were in the turnaround area as a PAVN mortar barragelanded squarely on the aircraft, destroying two of them. The

resulting fires and additional incoming mortar fire caught the

ammunition dump and fuel storage areas a blaze with

explosions continued all day and into the night. During that

night's incoming shelling, a lone mortar round landed on two

steel containers of C-4 plastic explosive. Both detonated


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simultaneously, sending a fireball and mushroom cloud high

above the valley and leaving two craters 40 feet deep. This was

said to be the largest explosion to occur in the Vietnam War,

knocking men off their feet over a mile away. The explosion

destroyed the entire 15th Light Equipment Company compound

next to the ammunition dump but miraculously no one was

killed. Engineer Lieutenant Fred Dyerson thought "It looked like

Charlie had gotten hold of some nuclear weapons."

I remember the C4 explosion in the description because we had been out all day

visiting our units that had been resupplied. And had come back and were watching

the fireworks as the ASP [Ammunition Supply Point] was being blown up - it has

ruined my appreciation for the 4thof July ever since. But I was at the opposite end of

the airstrip from the ASP when the C4 exploded. It looked like a nuclear explosion.

There was a mushroom cloud and all I knew was that with something that big I

should not be sitting out in the open and I got out of my Jeep and started running

towards the bunker and didnt make it. The blast wave came over and just knocked

us ass over tea kettle. No shrapnel but it was a hell of a blast.

INTERVIEWER: You would have thought that they would have because of the blast

policy for moving it, not having everything in one place.

COL GRIFFARD: You bunker your ammunition by type and as the bunkers blew up;

this one would blow up and throw something over here. That would blow up. They

didnt go in order. When this happened there was nothing you could do about it. You

just basically had to let all the explosions go until they stopped. And that was what

happened. We waited it out for the rest of the day and then turned it over to the

EOD folks.

Hill 875

For 2nd

-503rd the fight for Hill 875 was a defining moment in time. Because the

Battle of Dak To lasted almost three weeks, the fight for Hill 875 was familiar to the

people in the United States because the reporters had time to get on the scene. Hill

875 was a 2nd

-503rd fight and it ran from 19 to 24 November 1967 and it included


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Companies A, C and D, the 2nd

-503rd against a regiment that was dug in on top of

the hill and who had ambushed them as they were moving up the hill. After they had

consolidated their position, CPT Hal Kaufman, who was the Charlie Company

Commander, and senior man on the scene had gotten all the wounded together in

one place so that when the time come to evacuate he could have gotten them out

fairly quickly. He was the only Company Commander of the three companies up

there not wounded. CPT Mike Kiley at that point in time the A Company commander

had been wounded and the Delta Company Commander Bart OLeary, a 1st

lieutenant at the time was wounded and he had been put in a defilade position with a

radio and made the logistics and supply coordinator. So he had the resupply radio

which we were in contact with down at my S4 shop. They were calling the air strikes

on the North Vietnam regiment that was up there and one pilot came over and

dropped the bomb, a 750 pounder on top of the CP [command post]. It was a

friendly fire incident and it killed 42 people outright, to include the CPTs Kaufman

and Kiley. All the communications on the operational side were gone at that point in

time. The only way we knew that something had happened was that OLeary was

still alive and still able to talk and he explained what had happened. He was on the

logistics radio. So we got that at our side of the house and reported it to the TOC

[Tactical Operations Center] as to what had happened. And at that point in time of

course we lost all logistics contact because the radio switched over to operations

and that was it. This is the fight where Chaplain Charles Waters earned the Medal

of Honor. He had been the battalion chaplain since Id been there and before and

had done just courageous work up on the hill pulling wounded out of the kill zone

and everything else and he was killed during that action. For his actions on Hill 875

he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. On one of the first resupply

helicopters that were able to get in I went up with the resupply and as we were

coming in we were unable to land at that point in time because there was no

prepared LZ. We were on the reverse slope and when I jumped out of the helicopter

and landed and I thought I was in some kind of a bunkered area, but actually where I

had gotten out of the helicopter was where we stacked all our KIAs [killed in action]

and some were in body bags and some were in ponchos and everything. Its a sight


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that has not left me yet to look around and see the bodies stacked., then you realize

the cost that the fight had taken at that point in time. An aside about the Battle of

Dak To, Rick Atkinson wrote a book The Long Gray Line about the Class of 1966

and a number of these officers that he wrote about were killed at Dak To. Its an

interesting thing to go back and read after youve been there, and of course I knew

two or three of these guys that were in our battalion. Some survivors went on later

on to do great things. Dak To ended, we moved on, went up to Kontum area and to

a place called Du Co which was a Special Forces camp. While we were at Kontum I

was in my S4 area which was adjacent to one of the other battalions. One night the

VC hit the adjacent battalions motor pool and logistics area. The two areas were

separated by a berm. When the attack started me and my support platoon leader

were asleep in our tent. We could hear the explosions but it not appear to be coming

at us. After an explosion you would hear what sounded like fallout hitting the top of

our tent. It sounded like rain on your tent and I told my platoon leader thats just

fallout dont worry about it. The next morning we woke up and we could see

through the top of the tent. Because we were up against the berm, we had been

protected from the shrapnel that had shredded the tents roof canvas. If it wasnt

coming on you, you didnt worry about it.

The battalion was in the Du Co area when TET 1968 took place. Our base area was

still in Kontum. When the TET uprising started, Vietcong units rose up all over the

place, and then we killed them. It was a turkey shoot for all the gunships and USAF

CAS. They would barely get off the ground and unload everything they had just to

make one circle and come back around. It was almost like watching an action

movie. They (VC) really had no capability to get into perimeter. Theyd just stand

out there and get slaughtered. It was helicopter gunships, air force CAS, Spookies,

and artillery, a real joint firepower demonstration..

INTERVIEWER: Was that the sandys? The sky raiders?


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COL GRIFFARD: We had some of those. We had F4s, and whatever happened to

be in the area. After Kontum the battalion moved to An Khe for a road security

mission. And it was kind of interesting because all of us had read Bernard Falls

Street Without Joy before we were ever deployed to Vietnam and so you had a

sense of history being on one of the highways where the French had fought and

disappeared.. I had been scheduled for company command but it came a little

earlier than I had expected. Captain Jim Rogan who was the Bravo company

commander and the only original Company Commander still around because his

Bravo Company had not been on Hill 875, was in charge of the road security and

during an ambush he had moved up and was handling air support and artillery when

a sniper took him out. I assumed command of Bravo company at that point.

Transitioning to company command in combat is a bit different than in garrison.

Youre called up and told by the way youre now the commander and oh by the way

youre the response force and you have response mission.

INTERVIEWER: Here drink from this fire hose.

COL GRIFFARD: Thats right. And the birds will be here in ten minutes and when

you get to where were sending you to check out the F6 intel report (which is the

lowest reliability intelligence report at that time). Youre going out there on some of

the worst intelligence that you could possibly have. Tell us how it turns out. Thats

basically what it came down to. It was character building. It was a good baptism of

fire literally because the artillery that had fired into the zone before we arrived set the

whole place on fire and it was more of a matter of how we were going to get out

rather than anything of danger from the enemy, but we managed without any

casualties.

A couple days later were still operating out there and my B Company which was

leading an air assault in the mountainous region outside An Khe. The mission was

supposed to be a quick in and out. Check this area out and come back out. It was

quick in and out -- except I didnt get in. I always rode in the last chopper ofthe first


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stick that went out just as a matter of course. Picked that habit up and kept it the

whole time I was in command. We lifted off from the An Khe perimeter our bird took

fire and wounded the co-pilot and tore up all the avionics so we basically sort of

made a loop and came back down, auto rotating back into the An Khe helipad. I got

out of our helicopter with my radio operators and we walked back to the pickup zone.

the Soldiers in the company turned around and said Didnt you just leave? So by

the time we got on the ground my platoon sergeants had pretty much cleared the

area and there had been nothing there but it was an intelligence thing we had to

check out and we were extracted.

In the early spring the battalion assumed operations on the Bong Song plain and the

coastal highlands. This is basically where I spent the remainder of my command

time. Youre either down working the rice paddies or youre up in the highlands in

triple canopy forest, all a convienent commute from the base camp. This resulted in

lots of patrolling, search and destroy missions etc. It was also a very high booby

trap area. More Vietcong than NVA [North Vietnamese Army]. I guess today we call

them IEDs [Improvised Explosive Devices], back then they were booby traps. Bravo

Company was extremely lucky in this area. Although we tripped our fair share, we

only incurred minor casualties. We had a 105mm round go off right in the middle of

the company, but it was buried too deep. It mostly just knocked people on their butt.

It gave my first sergeant a concussion. That was about the extent of it. The other

companies were not so lucky. It seemed that every time they moved somebody got

blown up. I think Id like to say it was skill, but it was no skill involved. You just got

lucky. To reduce opportunities for VC [Viet Cong] to turn unexploded ordnance into

a weapon we would blow duds in place when we found them. We always had

blocks of C4 with us. One day we blew up a 175mm round. It was a little bigger

explosion than we expected. Luckily we were all under cover when it went off, but

for something that has a effects radius of pretty much a grid square it was an

exciting day. The resulting explosion proved that maybe thats why they train EOD

[Explosive Ordnance Detachment] guys and so when we found an exposed 500lb

bomb we called the EOD [Explosive Ordnance Detachment] and the battalion


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commander LTC Bill Hornish called in and said Look Im enroute with the EOD guy

and I want you to hop on the bird and were going to go do recon to your next LZ

[landing zone]. So when he landed the EOD captain and I crossed paths and I

greeted my brother, Hi Mike, and he said Hi Bernie, wheres the problem?

INTERVIEWER: So that guy was your brother?

COL GRIFFARD: Oh yeah, he was the EOD guy. He was working out of An Khe,

and we crossed paths more than once in that situation. We were lucky.

Early May 1968 was a very busy time for B/2/503. On 4 May 1968 a company

plus sized Viet Cong unit hit our night bivouac a couple of hours before

daybreak. Because of the early warnings of movement provided by the OPs,

the Company was at Stand To when they attacked. Their mistake was that

they assumed that the combat outposts were the actual company parameter

so when they actually reached us they were the ones who were surprised.

We inflicted heavy casualties on them (20 confirmed VC KIA). The best news

was that they had swept over the OPs so quickly that they all came out of it

OK. One of our Platoon Sergeants later received the DSC for actions that

day.

LTC Hornish, the Battalion Commander was impressed with how the

company handled that action, and since no good deed goes unpunished, on 6

May 1968, when he was tasked for a rapid response unit to support a sister

battalions action, Company B got the mission. The 1/503 (I am pretty sure

that was the unit) had flushed a NVA main force regiment. Company B was

air assaulted into an area of dry rice paddies and hedgerows on the right flank

with the mission to block the NVA retreat. When we hit the ground all we

really knew was that the good guys were on our left and the bad guys were

out front somewhere. So we moved out with the recon squad in the lead and

platoons in column. What resulted was a classic infantry meeting


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engagement. As the lead NVA Company was crossing our front we hit their

right flank. In the initial contact the B Companys lead elements, the recon

squad and lead platoon took some casualties, to include the loss of the

Companys best platoon leader, 1LT Karl Bullard, who was mortally wounded

organizing the initial fight (Awarded DSC posthumously). This contact forced

the NVA unit to stop retreating and face B Companys threat to their right

flank. The rest of the company came on line and established defensive

positions using the rice paddy dikes as cover. We established contact with the

unit on our left and established an L-shaped position to protect our right flank.

Fighting was intense with the NVA and B Company separated by only 10-20

meters. Remember, once we could fix an enemy unit all advantage went to

the Americans. Our FO brought all the artillery in the area to bear on the NVA,

and shortly an airborne FAC was overhead with fast movers. Once we had

marked our positions he brought in two separate strikes across our front

(doctrinally correct). When the bombs hit the concussion literally lifted you off

the ground high enough to see over the rice paddy dike.

For some reason the third aircraft flew over the unit instead of across our

front. His 750-lb high drag bomb landed directly on the B Company position,

about 30 meters left of the Company CP. As with many quirks in combat the

Good Lord took a hand. The bomb was set with a delay fuse (bunker buster)

and the company was deployed in a dry rice paddy Before it exploded it went

10 feet or so into the ground protecting most soldiers from the immediate

blast and from resulting shrapnel. However, when it did go off it created a

crater about 10 feet deep and 30 feet across. Once the debris stopped falling

from the sky, there was a frantic effort to rescue a good number of soldiers

who had been buried in the crater. Though wounded, our medic, Rick Fassett,

performed selflessly, treating and defending his wounded charges. For his

efforts he received the Silver Star. Over 30 personnel were MEDEVACed,

and at least half of the remaining Company B soldiers were treated for minor


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wounds in the field. Larry Aldrich and his assistant gunner were the only KIAs.

It appeared that the bomb hit directly on their M-60 position.

Once we had secured the position and removed the NVA threat, B Company

patrols began a methodical area search moving in ever expanding circles

from our defensive position. We found remains, but it was not until 1996 that I

discovered that the remains were of only one of the soldiers. Larry Aldrich

had remained MIA/KIA, but thanks to the dogged efforts of a team from the

Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, today he rests in Moore Cemetery,

Arlington, TX.

INTERVIEWER: Good news story of sorts anyway.

COL GRIFFARD: Well in a matter of speaking yes. .

INTERVIEWER: What timeframe was that?

COL GRIFFARD: It was 4 - 6 May 1968. I relinquished command in July of 1968,

very interesting ceremony. We had worked along the coast of Bong Song and we

had set up a relationship with the Patrol Craft Fast also known as SWIFT boat guys

out there, and they had a great direct fire mortar they could use. In many cases we

used their fire support to help us remove enemy snipers, and so when it came time

to change command we had a nice little area on the beach and we called them in

and they beached the boat and came in and enjoyed the ceremony and then

everybody went back to work.

I had nine Soldiers KIA during that time frame which was actually kind of amazing,

quite a few wounded. On multiple occasions B/2/503 would be filled to near

authorized strength. At those times I would turn around a see B company troopers

almost to the horizon. However, within a short space of time, due to enemy contact,

malaria, R&R, non-battle injuries (a scorpion sting on an extremity would force a


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soldier to be MEDEVACed), we would be reduced to three under strength platoons.

Mission sets remained constant no matter what your actual strength; it just took

fewer helicopters to move you.

INTERVIEWER: Sir, during your tour you had six months in command, what do you

consider to be your most significant people problem?

COL GRIFFARD: Inexperienced platoon leaders and noncommissioned officers. I

had personnel turnover which of course thats the way the system was set up.

When you were sent a platoon leader you had to train them in order to keep them

and their men alive. I mean you get a guy who was a lane grader at the Ranger

School. Hey this is going to be good. They got lost just like everybody else. They

had to understand everything that they had been taught in the basic course. They

had to use it. You had to use a map. You had to use a pace count. You had to use

a compass. You had to use all three. You just couldnt fake it because you would

get disoriented. You had to be in shape. A lot of them thought they were in shape,

but when you put a 75 lbs. rucksack on somebody and you start sending them

through the woods its a whole different ball game. Youve got to learn how to walk.

Youve got to learn how to move. You had to teach them to swim through the jungle

not walk through the jungle. Its a whole different ballgame. You sort of lived in the

crouch as opposed to trying to stand straight up. It just made it work better.

INTERVIEWER: The famous wait a minute vines.

COL GRIFFARD: Exactly, and once you learned how to swim through them you

could move through it fairly easily because you knew it was just something that

became second nature. The new guys they just beat themselves to death fighting

the vines.

INTERVIEWER: Now you mentioned earlier on that there was some kind of a small

school they send them through.


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COL GRIFFARD: You mean the jungle school? Im not sure what I took out of that.

It was something that you had to do; at least they gave you a week or so to

acclimate to the weather. We learned what they had done down in the Bien Hoa

area was not what we were fighting up in the Highlands where I spent most of my

time. Many of the NCOs [noncommissioned officers] you were getting as Staff

Sergeants were called shake and bake. They had gone through basic training and

asked how you like would to be an NCO or how about going to OCS. They had

been drafted, completed basic training, and suddenly they were an NCO or an

Officer candidate. They really had no leadership experience and that was an issue.

INTERVIEWER: How did you utilize them well obviously because they didnt have

much experience. You had to sometimes put out a lot more detailed information I

think.

COL GRIFFARD: You didnt always have all your officers and platoon leaders. You

didnt have necessarily E7s. Most of my platoon sergeants were E6s and they were

in many cases just guys who had no experience leading people and so you were

basically running platoons, squads, because you had to. If you had a really good

NCO you rode him hard and they knew that you could trust them, but you had to

know where to put your trust because otherwise you had Soldiers get killed.

INTERVIEWER: Now the morale in your unit, did you have any at all? Were there

problems with it? Was there any kind of entertainment available to them?

COL GRIFFARD: Morale is kind of an interesting issue. You usually didnt have

trouble with your Soldiers if you were out in the woods. We had Soldiers that would

get promoted and then get busted every time they went back on R&R, so they were

more than happy to come back out and go back to work. If you were on a patrol,

what you had to watch out for was that you didnt have accidents, accidental

discharges. You had accidental discharges when youve been out for a long time


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and there hadnt been anybody shooting at you. The sharpness goes away and you

get lazy and youre carrying a loaded weapon you have to be very careful and so

that was always something you had to be on top of. If you werent getting contact on

a regular basis you had to make sure that your Soldiers stayed alert. We didnt

really have morale problems per se. You had issues. You had people that didnt

like each other. You had kids brought up in the inner city that didnt like authority no

matter whom or what it came from. First of all they didnt want to be in Vietnam, but

that was what you had to do as company commander and you had to get your

platoon leaders to understand that too. It wasnt a confrontation all the time. It was

how do you lead? How do you get these soldiers to understand whats going on and

make them do what they ought to do. A story comes to mind. We had one young

Soldier, a rehab transfer. He was sent to us. He just didnt want to fight. You send

his platoon out on patrol and when theyd finish up and youd turn around and count

your people as you come back in and he wouldnt be there. He would sit down in

the middle of a trail in the jungle and just stay there. He was putting other Soldiers at

risk to go back out there and find him. Well we were out there and he just sat down

on the ground. He said, I quit, and sat down on the ground. Those are the kind of

people that are dangerous. They are dangerous to themselves yes, but to other

people that have to take care of them. We managed to get through to that guy. Got

him to understand what the whole team thing was about. This was accomplished,

basically, with a lot of peer pressure, if you want to put it nicely, but we got him out

alive and we didnt get anybody killed because of him but it wasnt easy. What he

wants to do is he wants you to send him to the rear. This would not be fair to the

other soldiers, so you assign him a babysitter and that babysitter makes sure that he

doesnt quit. Platoon sergeant, squad leader, its a leadership issue all the way

down the line. But the biggest thing is you dont let him endanger other folks by

pulling another stunt like that. We got him through it. He was never an ideal Soldier,

never volunteered for anything but he didnt quit on us. Whether he wanted to or not

was immaterial. He did not quit on us again.


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Those are the kinds of things you had to watch out for. It was just a fact of life. You

had to understand some of these guys. They werent there because they

volunteered and so when you go back in a firebase the Red Cross girls (Donut

Dollies) would come out and talk to them and theyd sing or whatever the hell they

would do then. If you were back at base camp youd get USO Shows for

entertainment. Miss America came through one time with her crew. Jimmy Stewart

and his wife came through. You just did what you could do for morale while you were

back there .

[End Tape G-210, Tape 1, Side 1]

[Start Tape G-210, Tape 1, Side 2]

INTERVIEWER: . . . the issue that he just had quit.

COL GRIFFARD: One of the morale issues is when you got a new battalion

commander. I had, lets see, I had four battalion commanders in the 18 months I was

in Vietnam, which is too many. We (the Army) had to get everybody qualified.

Theyd come in and everybody wants morale for the troops in the field by providing

hot chow twice a day. Well first of all this Battalion S4 initially I realized what that

meant. You only have so many mermite containers; you only had so many

helicopters. You had three companies out there. We wanted to give them two hots

a day. If you gave the company two hots a day they didnt do much because you

couldnt move in the morning until the mermites got there and then you couldnt

move until the mermites were gone. In many cases if they went out late, supper was

late, because you had to go through a recovery, cleanup, fill up deliver rotation. In

my own experience as a company commander every time theyd try to go to two

hots a day, you might get three or four hours worth of patrolling in and you were

back stationary. It was not a smart move. We were most affective when you had

one hot every three days. Every time you had C-rations resupply. You went out

actually four days. It was easy to resupply that way. How many people youve got?


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Ive got 75 out here today. Okay here are 75 cases of C-rations that you resupply

and heres water. They would bring out five gallon cans. When you were moving and

patrolling, you used iodine tablets and your water purification tablets. When theyd

bring the water treated by the reverse osmosis, it had no flavor as far as the Soldiers

were concerned. Water isnt supposed to have a flavor but it was flat so even

though it would come out and had been purified they dropped the tablets in just to

give it flavor again, because they were used to what they were drinking. Just the

sort of the things that take place out there. After awhile reality would set in, and the

two hots a day usually lasted about a week and a half and then he battalion

commander understood it was counterproductive. We worked best on one hot meal

every resupply which was about every three to four days. I wont say that morale in

the company was the greatest in the world but nobody was shooting each other.

INTERVIEWER: Given the fact that you were a light infantry outfit airborne was

there anything that you saw as far as youre TO&E [table of organization and

equipment] went that was inadequate or did you feel that it was just fine for what you

needed to do?

COL GRIFFARD: I wouldnt say inadequate. I would say you had the Air Assault

Division. You had the 101stand the 1stCav over there. They had helicopters. And

so they would go in and these guys in many cases would travel light and their

equipment would be brought in to their lager site at the end of the day. We

understood that being the 173rdAirborne Brigade that our helicopters would take us

in and then we would walk until we ate our way through our C-rations and lighten our

load and then they would give us more. We were a ground mobility unit. The

helicopters got you from point A to point B but from point B to point C, D, E, F you

walked, and that was just the way it was. It was the name of the game. Nobody felt

didnt have enough equipment. I mean we were very light (70+ lb rucksacks). Were

not talking about what you see today. Soldiers in Afghanistan with all the body armor

and everything else which, oh by the way, makes them somewhat immobile. And

they will tell you that. They are limited in movement. We basically had jungle


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fatigues and rucksacks. Flak vests were not used by anybody that was out in the

woods. Youll see pictures of Marines using them but you notice they have no shirts

underneath. Its a short sleeve operation. That was patrolling through the jungle.

Id say that we could have used better and more reliable radios. You didnt have a

rapid fielding program. The M16 -- screw that, the M16 we had in 1969 was not the

M16 we had in 1967. Between the time I came into country and the time I left we

pretty much rebuilt that system piece by piece because it was a pain in the ass to

keep shooting it and we replaced the receiver group, the buffer group, the firing pin,

the bolt, the hand grips, everything that you could think of replacing was replaced a

piece at a time as it went through the system. The weapon in 1969 was

considerably better than the weapon in 1967.

INTERVIEWER: Well that brings up a good point because sometimes you hear war

stories and it may just be war stories about people getting a hold of Thompsons

submachine gun or stuff like that. Stuff out of the ordinary: M1 carbines, grease

guns, anything like that. Did that happen?

COL GRIFFARD: We carried the CAR -15 which is the M4 predecessor. I wish I

would have carried it but I didnt have one. I had a 45 and a radio that pretty much

got me whatever I needed. The Soldiers all had M16s. A couple of platoon leaders

had CAR-15s, one of my platoon leaders had a .44 Magnum pistol. We didnt care,

it was part of his persona and it didnt make any difference. We had some shotguns

but that was pretty much it. I had a shotgun that I used when I was the S4 of the

battalion. It was captured. It was a US shotgun, an Ithaca pump that had been

captured by the Vietcong that we recaptured and so we sawed it off and carried it in

the Jeep with me and it was my personal weapon and when I took the company I

gave it to my point squad who made good use of it I might add. It was a handy tool

to have if you suddenly stumbled on somebody and you put a couple of quick rounds

of either fleshette or 00 12 gauge downrange youre going to clear the area out

fairly quickly. We had to finally get rid of them all because there had been some

accidents in the brigade and accidental discharges and some not so accidental that


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they said, Okay if its not an authorized weapon, you have to turn them in. So they

had to get rid of it. Sad day that was a good tool. Other than that you had what you

had. You complain and piss and moan about it but it wont make any difference and

we didnt really realize that there might have been better stuff out there because we

just did what you had to do.

INTERVIEWER: We talked a little bit about training but is there anything else youd

like to add, either good or bad?

COL GRIFFARD: When you look at how we prepare our forces today. We use unit

replacements, not individual replacements. Thats a big difference. The unit goes

in. It goes through the cycle, the ARFORGEN [Army Force Generation Process]

cycle, the equipments up, theyre trained; theyve been training this unit for a year

before they go and do a deployment. You have a very effective command and

control operation. Not so in Vietnam. You had no idea what level of training

proficiency your individual replacements had achieved. They just showed up. The

resupply helicopter would come in with 70 cases of Cs and 4 replacements. Okay

thank you very much. Whats your name? I hope you live long enough or are here

long enough for me to know you. That again is what the unit training does for youit

keeps people alive. The Soldiers have got to feel like they belong and its tough.

Because you see so many come throughYou hope that they were trained. You

didnt have any time to train them in the field. They show up with your resupply and

your pulling out and you would assign them to your squad and platoon leaders say,

Hey theyre yours. They would have to integrate into the unit. Then when they went

out on patrols they basically were learning, it was all OJT [on the job training].

When you went back if you had a firing range, which was rare, you might run

through that but there really was no time scheduled in when you went back to take a

break to try to sharpen your skills. You usually only had a day/day and a half at the

most, showers and shower clean and youre back out there again. So if you went to

a firebase it wasnt a training area, you were there for security. I would say that


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theres no comparison to what we did then and what you have today. I mean were

so much smarter now than we used to be.

INTERVIEWER: Were there any kind of issues you had with combat service support

especially when you were in the sticks for such a long period of time?

COL GRIFFARD: As I said I was the Battalion S-4 and I used to feel that actually I

had a better feel for what was going on out in the field than a lot of the operators

because they never left the TOC. If youre the captain in the TOC youre just

working. You never leave. Youd go to bed and come back in here to the TOC. As

the Battalion S-4, I was out with resupply helicopters. I knew every company

commander. I knew what they needed, what they had to have, what the problems

were. They knew who I was. So I had a pretty good idea of what was enough. Does

that mean we had everything we wanted? No, but we got the commanders what

they had to have. I think the quote that fits best is, Dont tell me what you want, tell

me what you have. I know what you need, and I will get it to you. Thats basically

what it comes down to. And so that was always radios, batteries, in that climate a

batterys lifespan was very, very short. A batterys lifespan was about 24 hrs, but the

soldier isnt thinking about conservation, only about reliability. So every time were

about ready to go on a mission, boom, that batterys two hours old, its gone, new

battery goes in there. So we understood that. We worked hard to gain the

confidence of field operators.

Fire support, I had an outstanding Forward Observer [FO]. He was a lieutenant but

he understood the business and he was good. He taught me a lot. They moved him

back to the firing battery because he was too good to leave out there all that time. I

mean I had a couple of young sergeants who were good at that but basically once

he wasnt there I was pretty much the FO. As a Company Commander, it was

understanding what fires you had available when you were on patrol. You had to

understand what youve got artillery wise. What it can do for you. Where its at?

Whats up in the air? Is it gunships? You have to understand the whole process


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and it was a great education. Too bad they never taught us how to before we got

there.

INTERVIEWER: Now during the conversation that weve had you talk a little bit

about the areas in Vietnam and where you served. Were there any issues like the

Vietnam environment on your operation, temperatures and all that? You mentioned

a little bit where the guys had to some of them thought they were in shape but they

werent.

COL GRIFFARD: Each individual had to adjust to the environment.. A Soldier who

had been humping a rucksack through the Highlands for about 9 months he could

handle that. He couldnt run half a block in formation with our battalion but he could

walk forever. Its a different type of conditioning. The weather was the key factor.

Youre talking humidity, heat, certain times of the day you just didnt move. You

would work in the morning and then in the heat of the day you would basically just

pack it in. Find someplace to lay low. It gets 100 plus degrees. Humidity is up

there. Youre just going to kill your people and nobody is moving at that time. And

you had to deal with malaria issues. We took the once a week pill, the big orange

pill and we had to take a Dapsone tablet daily because we were in a falciparum

malaria area. Each leader held an ad hoc Monday morning formation (whether you

were in the field or in base camp) so you could ensure that everybody took the

orange pill, and the leadership had to make sure everybody took the daily Dapsone.

Well you still have people getting malaria. They would go on R&R and come back

and they wouldnt have been taking their pills. The pills were just a prophylactic. It

didnt cure anything. All it did was keep the malaria infection from affecting you

during the period of a working infection so that you get passed that line. They went

back to the hospital where they would take them off it and then wed get blamed for it

when they came down with malaria. You had malaria. You had non-battle injuries.

Not necessarily wounds and some tough walking with all that stuff. Youd hurt. I

had some guys fall. Youd break legs. The weather was the environment you


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operated in. You had to understand how to make it work. Take the precautions to

keep your Soldiers as healthy as possible.

INTERVIEWER: A little bit about the missions. You talked a little bit during the

conversation about some other things that you did. Did you do mostly search and

destroy?

COL GRIFFARD: It was patrolling. You did cordon and search, search and destroy,

search and find, or search and search. A lot of times responding to intelligence

findings of questionable reliability but you would go out. You would cover 10 to 14

kilometers a day if youre going through an area. You think how you are moving and

the stated mission. You were looking for the bad guy and trying to get him to shoot

at you. You would try to fix him and then youd kill him. That was the purpose of it.

In a Cordon and search operation, you would go out to a village, close it off as best

as possible then one unit would sweep through and try to find whatever they could

find. Looking for caches or suspicious young people that dont seem to belong in the

village, things like that.

INTERVIEWER: Run into any bunker complexes?

COL GRIFFARD: Oh yes, there were some interesting ones. We were inside one

area and we didnt realize how big the bunker complex was. So weve got a hole

over here. Okay go ahead and throw a grenade in there. Threw the grenade in and

one of the Soldiers about 30 meters away fell down because the tunnel ran all the

way underneath there and blast shock shook the ground under his feet. These guys

kept popping up out of the ground, where did they come from? Then you realized

that maybe you need help and you call for the specialists to come in and do

something with it. You were never quite sure what you were going to run into when

you finally found one of these complexes. You had the poor guys that would go in

as tunnel rats. You want to do this? No, but Ill go.


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21

INTERVIEWER: Was it necessary for you to acquire any additional unauthorized

equipment or supplies?

COL GRIFFARD: We all got stuff from home. A lot of them got guns, pistols or they

brought them with them, personal protection items, so to speak. That was usually

the extent of it. To be sure, such extras were in violation of Brigade orders. What you

really needed was someone to send you the right amount of spices because C-

rations, after about two or three months, really dont have any flavor and so if you

werent carrying at least ten different spices with you at any given time you werent

really having supper.

INTERVIEWER: Great move into the next question. What were the general living

conditions like?

COL GRIFFARD: You had three levels of living conditions. If you were back at the

base camp you were in WABTOCS. This is a wooden frame with a GP [General

Purpose tent] medium or GP large tent thrown over the top of it. The acronym stood

for special equipment authorized in theater or something like that. That would

probably be where youd be sleeping. If it was a security mission you would be

sleeping in perimeter bunkers. There would be some entertainment. At LZ English

the battalion built our own little recreation center.

At the firebase you dug a hole and you made yourselves as comfortable as possible.

If it rained it was wet. If it didnt rain it was dry, but that was what it was, but you

werent walking. Out in the field, you camped out. What you were carrying on your

back was what you had. You slept on an air mattress and you had a poncho and

that was it. Actually I think that was the best part of the whole thing.

INTERVIEWER: As far as command goes what would you say the most difficult

aspect of command that you encountered during your tour?


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22

COL GRIFFARD: You had a draft Army. It was not a popular war. You got

individual replacements so first of all when you got NCOs or officers you really had

no time to provide adequate orientation. They came in. An hour later you picked up

and moved out, heres your mission, lets go. So your job as company commander

was considerably more complicated. You had to train both your officers and NCOs.

Youd been out with these Soldiers longer than they had. You knew what the

Soldiers responded to and you had to make sure the new leadership understood this

also. You just basically had to. It was a 24 hour/day job. You didnt have anybody

you could really turn to and say, Okay look, Im going to take a break. You just

didnt have that. You were the only guy that had been there the whole time. You

pretty much had the guidance. I think that the leadership challenges were a

constant after personnel turbulence. You built a relationship with certain key people

that you trusted. Your recon guys were always yours; you handpicked those, you

appointed them because of their skills and what they could do. You handpicked

your radio operators because they had to be dependable. They were your eyes and

ears of what was going on in the company. And you just stayed aware of what was

going on and who was doing what and you knew which Soldiers, NCOs and Officers

needed help and if they were there longer they would have learned as they went

along, but it was a training. You were constantly training Soldiers in leadership

because the turnover was just constant.

INTERVIEWER: What was a typical day like, in other words what took up most of

your time over there?

COL GRIFFARD: Lets say we were out in the field. Okay youd get up. Youve got

Stand To just before daybreak. Then everybody got breakfast. I insisted on

everybody shaving every morning. That was not necessarily the rule in a lot of the

other companies but if youre going to get hit in the face better to have a shaved face

than anything else because infection was one of the biggest issues to be concerned

with.. By shaving at least they washed their face and their hands. I remember the

majority of people you lost were lost to disease not to wounds. And so it was mostly


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23

malaria or something like that. You had a lot of skin problems, ring worm, things like

that. That was something we had to do so that was my rule on it to make sure that

that was explained. You had patrols out at night, the ambushes, they had to come

back in and get everybody straightened out. Once youve been given an area to

take a look at, whatever your mission was, then you would say okay were moving

out whatever time frame or the helicopters will be here in an hour and a half, well be

ready to go and heres where we are going. Youd get everybody together, brief the

mission for the day and step out to go do it. That basically was an all day event and

youll pull in about four to a night laager site. It would depend on circumstances

where we were going to be that night. Your goal was okay weve got to find a place

that we can secure and so youd sort of look around, check your map, and

determineokay were going to go here and thats where youd set up. You would

probably send a squad out there to check it out before you got there and make sure

it was secure and set up. Youd have to have time to dig in and the FO would put in

the night defensive concentrations. I would determine where the OPs [Observation

Post] were going to be, and where the patrols were going to go out for ambush and

that was the process.

INTERVIEWER: During your time in command what would you say is the greatest

satisfaction you had and the biggest dissatisfaction you had?

COL GRIFFARD: Actually the dissatisfaction was personal turbulence. Basically

every two weeks you had a new company. That became the new normal. So unit

cohesion was always an issue. My advantage is we worked mostly as a separate

unit. You rarelytied in with someone else.. When it did occur it was never for an

extended period of time. You were pretty much heres your company area, go do

this. So you at least had freedom of movement. As for the soldiers, they no place

to go. They stuck with you. I guess probably the biggest issue on when you have

that much turbulence is everyone understands that Ive got the radios. Im the only

guy that called helicopters or artillery. Once they understand and once thats done

its good. The worst part about it was that at the end of six months when I turned the


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company over. I realized that I was finally fully trained and instead should be taking

over the company. I had learned enough that I felt that I could actually do something

which luckily when I went to Korea a couple years later and went back into company

command; it made life a lot easier.

I think one of the funny stories though is we had a guy, one of the company

commanders, Dan Mannshreck, was a country music fan. When atmospheric

conditions were right you could get some interesting stuff on your tactical radios. I

actually talked to the 2ndInfantry Division in Korea on my radio in Vietnam because it

just happened to be the right conditions. Anyway, Dan would bring a radio out and

he would tune into the Grand Old Opry. We had a battalion signal officer who felt

that he did not belong at that level. He was too smart and he was really a high level

communications guy but here he was a battalion tech radio signal officer and we

decided amongst the three company commanders who were out there that night, not

together, but in different areas, that I would stay on the battalion net and wed put

the other radios on the other D Company net and theyd listen to the Grand Old Opry

that night. I was the lifeline to the battalion TOC. Well of course we knew what was

going to happen. The battalion TOC officer says, We cant reach anybody. Can

you talk to them? I said, Yes I can talk to them out here. I dont know what your

problem is in there. Ive got communication with the other companies. It must be

the radios. Well they woke this poor kid up to switch out every radio that they had

up there. He knew there was nothing wrong with those radios. We were screwing

with him but he had to do it. When the broadcast was over everybody came back

online and it looked like by changing out all the radios that solved the problem. We

werent nice. He was not one of the team so to speak as far as that goes. The team

was out in the field. Those were some of the morale builders, if you want to look at

the morale thats a morale issue.

INTERVIEWER: Now you mentioned that you had had several battalion

commanders during your tenure there. Anything that stands out in your mind as how

the leadership style in battalion commander impacted on your unit?


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25

COL GRIFFARD: LTC Ed Partain was the battalion commander when I got there,

outstanding individual but he was only there for a very short period of time before he

went up to be the Deputy Brigade Commander. The guy that took him over, LTC

James Steverson, was a Major when he took over and he ended up being the

battalion commander during Dak To. To my knowledge, he never set foot on Hill 875

during or after the fight. The battalion sergeant major was not an infantry guy. Life

Magazine did an article after the Hill 875 fight where it had all the boots lined up. I

dont know if youve ever seen those pictures. I was responsible for setting all the

stuff out there. We had lost quite a few and it was a ceremony. Life Magazine

covered it. Well the ceremony was over and I look over, here is a reporter taking his

boots off and hes going to put on one of these new pairs of boots that we had laid

out there. I said What the hell are you doing? He said The sergeant major said

he could have a new pair . I told him to forget it. Later the sergeant major confronted

me, saying he had told the reporter he could have a pair of boots. Well I told him. I

said, I dont give a damn what you said sergeant major but Ive got Soldiers that

need these boots. He isnt getting them. The sergeant major was more concerned

with being friendly with reporters than with the needs of the soldiers. It reflected the

the leadership style of that battalion command group. Then LTC Bill Hornish came

in. He was an aviator anda dynamic guy. He had some vices, shall we say he drank

too much at times, but he understood leadership and did a good job. It was

worthwhile working with him.


[Start Tape G-211, Tape 2, Side 1]

COL GRIFFARD: After LTC Hornish, LTC Jack Nicholson (later BG) took over. A

born leader who exuded an aura of confidence. Without a doubt, the best

Commander I served under in Vietnam. We later served together in Korea and still

remain friends. The final commander for the last couple months I was there was LTC


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Tony Herbert, a legend in his own mind. There were a lot of mixed feelings by my

fellow company commanders about Tony. Personally I felt that he was lacking in

many areas. In fact there were a lot of parallels between how Tony Herbert

operated and Dave Hackworth. Both proved that a lot of medals indicate you may be

daring, but dont necessarily make you a leader. They both had been around a long

time. In his book Soldier Tony Herbert states he was a 14 year old Marine in World

War II. In Korea he was with the Rangers. He was the last one and of course he

would leave a bad taste in anybodys mouth after a while which he did. After I

PCSd Tony was relieved for integrity issues.

At the Brigade level you had BG Hank Schweiter. I had been his aide at Ft

Campbell and had tremendous respect this World War II vet, two combat jumps,

Normandy and Holland. A battalion Commander in Korea. He had been there during

the Hill 875 fight. This was his third war. He understood the conflict. He understood

what was going on. He was followed by General Allen, then General Barnes. I

think we had just three Brigade commanders during my tour.

Changing leaders every six months was just a lousy way to fight a war. Youre

talking about morale. A Soldier shows up at a company. Hes serving 12 months

out in the field. That company commander or platoon leader may only be there for

six and they know that.

INTERVIEWER: If you had to do it over again is there anything youd change?

COL GRIFFARD: Oh yes what I knew when I finished my company command if Id

have known that when I had taken over I could have done a much better job. I mean

a hell of a lot better job. There is no question, learning to command in combat takes

time. Like I said when I commanded my company in Korea I just knew so much

more what to do and how to do it. The only thing that trains you to be a commander

is to be a commander, and the problem is we rarely give you that opportunity more


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than six months at a time. Youre just learning. Now thats probably the biggest

thing what would I do, yeah Id start from where I finished.

INTERVIEWER: What advice would you give a future company commander who is

in a situation like this?

COL GRIFFARD: Learn your skill. Learn everything you can about the people that

youre dealing with. Todays force theyre a unit when they go to war. Theyve been

together for a while, they have cohesion. Youve got to understand your people.

You read Band of Brothers and you saw how they were formed over a period of

time that they were there. Those are things you learn. You can teach them in

school. You can go to Benning. Learn all the Hey heres the book. But to truly

learn, you have to be out there and do it. You want the guy to be a platoon leader.

You want to give him the opportunity long enough to learn the basics of leadership.

The problem is in garrison you dont learn that because you have so many other

duties. Garrison routine isnt field leadership. There are junior officers who have

been leaders and trusted to think and act in line with an intent statement. Now they

are in the garrison army And they find it very stifling. When I was platoon leader my

platoon sergeant was with the Soldiers. I was out doing the extra duties. I think the

biggest thing we have going for us today when preparing to command in a conflict or

in a crisis is unit cohesion.

INTERVIEWER: Sir that pretty much winds it up. Are there other comments youd

like to make?

COL GRIFFARD: I think I look back on my time in Vietnam as a singular learning

experience. I mean I wouldnt trade it. It was a growth experience. It slapped me

with things Ill remember for the rest of my life and probably will have impacted on it.

I dont think I would be as successful today without having done that because its the

ultimate test of your ability. Did I function well in combat? And the answer was yes.

Was I able to lead? Was I able to keep people? Yes, I lost nine people, but given


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what could have happened I figure that was not good but better than it could have

been.

INTERVIEWER: I was going to say it could have been a whole lot worse.

COL GRIFFARD: Oh yes could have lost 40 or 50. The Air Force tried but it didnt

work out. Its just one of those things that theres an awful lot of luck involved, an

awful lot of luck. Thats all Ive got. Im where I am today because of luck I would

guess. Skill definitely wasnt the issue back then.

INTERVIEWER: Well in any case we want to thank you for participating in our oral

history interview for the Vietnam Company Commanders.

COL GRIFFARD: Well Brent, thank you very much.



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Oral History of COL Ret Bernard Griffard

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