 This is the Vietnam of the Mekong Delta, one of the 9th Infantry Division's defense areas. It is the Vietnam of endless rice paddies and swamps. Of myriad waterways, the Mitho River, the Vam Kho, the Kanjuik, the Nga Bay. A watery battleground for which the 9th Division soldier is very well equipped. He is the striking arm of the Mobile Riverine Force. A unique joint operation by the United States Army and Navy, as novel and precedent setting as the air cavalry. To provide the payoff, as in all forms of war both new and old, come the infantrymen. These are soldiers of the 9th Infantry Division. Their stout-hearted performance in battle has added luster to the nickname of Division I in World War II. The Old Reliables. Okay, move out. The 9th had a glorious history in World War II. It served in Africa, France and Germany. And quickly won the reputation of being unbeatable, completely reliable in action. I know because I started out with them in North Africa. The terrain and the enemy have changed. Vietnam is far different from Europe. But one thing hasn't changed, the fighting spirit of the 9th Division. The men who wear its patch today have proved themselves to be from the same stock as the Old Reliables. I know them and their battle record well. I was assigned to the Division's Information Office, but it was reactivated for combat under the urgency of the Vietnam War. That was in February 1966 at Fort Riley, Kansas. In record time, the new 9th Division was transformed from a cadre of officers, non-coms and a mass of recruits into a combat-ready division. We said our goodbyes. By November of 1966, the 9th Division's 3rd Brigade was en route to Vietnam. In December, the 1st and 2nd Brigades followed. It was a long voyage, halfway around the world. Plenty of time for detailed training and calisthenics. But still time to relax. In Vietnam, meanwhile, our base was being rushed to completion, expanded from a smaller camp left by the 1st Infantry Division. This camp, called Bearcat, was established as the Division Base. It occupied a strategic position in relation to Saigon, with firm lines of communication to the sea at Bung Tau, port of entry and naval base. The 1st and 2nd Brigades came ashore at Bung Tau in January and February 1967. They were under the command of Major General G. S. Eckhart. By late January, the 1st Brigade had already been in combat in Operation Colby against a Viet Cong stronghold southeast of Saigon. It was typical jungle terrain, which means that movement was slow and visibility limited to a few feet in any direction. In some cases, the jungle was so dense, we had to create a clearing for the helicopters to come in. They never failed to deliver the ammo, rations and other supplies we needed. We began to hit paydirt, Viet Cong tunnels, bunkers and weapons, even a communist flag. When one search and clear operation was finished, we went on to another, and another. The 9th Division's main responsibility, however, was to help secure the Mekong Delta. This vast, fertile area is virtually one gigantic rice pattern, broken up by rivers, canals and earthen dikes. The Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces have been fighting a long struggle against the Viet Cong in the Delta. Our job was to help them. It was decided to set up operations at Dong Tam, about 40 miles from Saigon on the Mitho River. The question was, where do you put troops when every square inch of dry ground is lived on by Vietnamese or used to grow food? The answer was, create your own dry land. The world's largest dredges brought up millions of tons of sand from the riverbed and made a base capable of supporting an entire division. Supplies would come in via land, sea and air. Thanks to the engineers, the Dong Tam base soon had its own airstrip, big enough to handle caribou-sized fixed-wing aircraft, as well as helicopters. A large force moved in right away. Not that we stayed on base very much. Most of the time, we were out in the rice paddies, scouting for the enemy and learning how to operate in the deceptive terrain. What looks like a scenic rice paddy to the eye often feels like a swamp to the feet. You're lucky to keep moving, however slowly, in this watery muck. When it becomes more muddy than watery, a man can be completely immobilized. Getting stuck in a mud hole can be an exasperating experience. The swampy mud makes one grateful to hit open water. This stream was supposed to be affordable, in a way it was, from the neck up. When the water gets too deep for treading, the men of the 9th Division turn on a little Yankee ingenuity, using an air mattress to float gear across the stream, or by making a raft out of a poncho. For a 9th Division scout dog, a river crossing is no problem at all. The watery terrain makes it hazardous, even for the highly-mobile helicopter to use a rice paddy for a helipad. A fairly hard earthen dyke is much safer when it's available. Operation of ground vehicles proved to be a chancey thing, too. The powerful armored personnel carriers often plow through swamp water with great ease, but muddy roads are a real hazard. When you gamble on moving tracked vehicles on terrain like this, you can be a loser as often as not. The Delta proved to be a testing ground for machines as well as men. But as we got to know the lay of the land, we learned how to keep the armored personnel carriers moving. These APCs are M-113s. We like to have their firepower around when we hit a Viet Cong angle. We often ran into them without warning. We never knew when a harmless-looking piece of scenery might explode with enemy fire or a boobie. And there was always the difficulty of determining who was friendly and who wasn't. The Rakkyen area was full of tunnels and underground hiding places. Some were even underwater. We always left a grenade as a call to fire, parts from sniper fire and boobie traps. But we called in Medevac to get our casualties out fast. Stopping didn't necessarily mean resting. We filled sandbags for our defensive perimeters. In one month, the 9th Division filled half a million sandbags. Half a million! We got a surprise visit from a 9th Division veteran, General William C. Westmoreland. He dropped in during Operation Port Sea, in which we bagged a lot of Viet Cong supplies and equipment. We were all pleased to see him wearing a 9th Division patch from his service with the old 9th in Tunisia. We kept moving, or rather sloshing ahead. Wetness was the order of the day, the week and the month. Most of us would feel strange if we ever got dry. Well, it did simplify taking a bath and washing laundry. Gradually, we began to move more and more on the waterways, not in them. They became highways, not obstacles. Of course, the Division's helicopters continued to play a major role as air taxis for troops to transport artillery, vehicles, even other helicopters, and to extend the Medical Civil Assistance Program, MEDCAP, deep into isolated Delta villages, whose inhabitants seldom see a doctor. The medic showed that sometimes the best medicine comes in the form of a laugh. The fixed-wing spotter planes, nicknamed bird dogs, had the job of guiding aircraft into strikes at enemy positions. While the jets orbit overhead, the bird dogs take a run at the VC positions to mark them with smoke rockets. The pilots are highly trained Air Force forward air controllers, FACs. They don't hesitate to fly low within a few hundred feet of the enemy in order to bring the planes in on target. The daring and precision of these men is a major reason for the tremendous effectiveness of inter-service cooperation between the Army and the Air Force. The war in the Delta produced another form of inter-service cooperation in which the 9th Division played a major role. The Army and Navy combined resources to create a unique strike force, to which the Air Force also gave fire support. It was called the Mobile Riverine Force. The second brigade of the 9th Division was its primary combat unit. One must go back to the American Civil War to find a major precedent for this inland waterways task force. Army and Navy working together as a fighting team. When the men go out on a mission, they have the close support of the Navy flotilla with all the facilities necessary to resupply and maintain them. The soldiers live aboard the USS Benawa and the USS Colleton were not fighting. These floating barracks hold a 30-day supply of fresh food and provide medical, dental, and other facilities. The auxiliary personnel lighter also accommodates men of the Mobile Riverine Force. The USS Eskari contains a complete machine shop and facilities needed to maintain and repair weapons and equipment. Seaborn supplies are usually brought up from Vung Tau, or Dong Tam, by LST. In case of need, choppers bring in supplies directly to the decks of ships. The workhorses of the Mobile Riverine Force are the armored troop carriers, or ATCs. The ATC is armor-plated and has an armored canopy over the troop area. It can carry a two-and-a-half-ton truck or a 105-millimeter howitzer. The command and communications boat, or CCB, is the control center for the ground forces commander and the boat group commander. The battleship of the flotilla is the monitor, a landing craft armed with a 40-millimeter and a 20-millimeter cannon, an 81-millimeter mortar, and 40- and 30-caliber machine guns. This variety of weapons makes this shallow draft vessel a versatile fire support ship. It was in firepower that the 9th made its own important innovation, the use of barges as artillery platforms. Infantry elements of the Mobile Riverine Force would range far and wide once operations started. The guns and mortars aboard the armored troop carriers and monitors did not have either the range or the caliber to provide the long-range heavy fire support troops would need. Only artillery could do this. The 9th Division's 3rd Battalion, 34th artillery, decided to try using barges as gun platforms, anchoring them firmly to shore. The M102 105-millimeter howitzer, the lightweight, flexible model originally designed for airborne operations, proved to be an excellent weapon for this purpose. The M102 carriages provided an easy 360-degree traverse. Steel braces were welded to the deck to keep the gun in place. Two 105s to a barge. Three barges to a battery. Necessity rising out of conditions in the Mekong Delta had caused the 9th Division to come up with a new way of deploying artillery to back up its waterborne troops. Another invention was the Air Mobile firing platform. This device made it possible to have heavy fire support follow troops as they moved inland in the Delta. Because it is 90% aluminum, the 24-foot square can easily be airlifted to rice paddies or to streams or canals remote from the main riverways. It provides a stable firing platform in muddy river banks up to 4 feet deep. Mechanical jacks at each corner can be adjusted to keep the platform level. Packed with troops and firepower, the Mobile Riverine Force was ready to go anywhere in the watery wilderness. An ATC can carry a full platoon of combat-equipped soldiers and move in just about any river, canal, or creek. This mobility in shallow as well as deep water has enormously increased the striking range of impingermen in the Delta. The men get set to hit the beach. Before they go in, however, Air Force jets pound the landing area. The fighter bombers saturate the Viet Cong positions. As the ATCs move into the beach, the men add their own fires to keep the enemy down. Before long, the men of the 9th Division made contact with the enemy, only to find them strongly dug in. So the heavy stuff, 155-millimeter howitzers, are brought in to knock out the VC positions. When the enemy tried to break off the battle, airborne reinforcements were called in to cut him off at the canal. All casualties were quickly evacuated and given emergency treatment on the hospital-equipped ships of the Mobile Riverine Force. The Division Commander tried to bring us in from the field every three days. We were greeted with a fire hose salute to get the swamp mud off before we went below for hot showers. Hot chow, dry clothes, and a comfortable bunk. It wasn't hard for the 9th Division landlubbers to take sea duty under these conditions. There was even time to go on deck and look at the scenery ashore, a native village, or a colorful assortment of native rivercraft, but for a little while made us feel like tourists on accrues. Soon enough, another passerby on the river brought us back to the fact that the war was very much with us. The 9th Division had a training mission as well as a fighting one. We were proud of our reliable academy that taught the fine points of fighting in Vietnam to newcomers, as well as sharpening the skills of combat veterans. The importance of the academy was emphasized by frequent visits by the new commanding general of the 9th Division, Major General George O'Connor, who assumed command in June 1967. The men of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam were also given intensive instruction by the Division in all types of weapons and equipment. It wasn't long before training of this nature paid off. The South Vietnamese troops became more effective and acquitted themselves well in battles with the Viet Cong. Other academy students were these crack troops from Thailand. These tough little men are known as the Queen's Cobra Regiment. We oriented them on the use of the compass in land navigation and other equipment, emphasizing devices useful in jungle fighting. Their officers were given demonstrations in the tactics of counter-guerilla warfare. We also ran the ties through a quick reaction force to teach them to stay cool and fire back when they ran into a Viet Cong ambush. A very special school trains the 9th Division's long-range reconnaissance patrols. The beret and special patch its members wear testified to their elite status. The men are trained hard to develop stamina, strength, and alertness for their secret missions of reconnaissance, ambush, or sabotage. They must be able to endure a maximum of stress on a minimum of sleep, food, and water. They cannot expect help if trapped by the enemy. Their lives depend on their own resourcefulness and endurance. They become experts at camouflage. Success of the mission depends on perfect concealment. They must blend into the jungle even better than the Viet Cong. They are briefed in detail on terrain features and the location of the enemy objective. Every man knows how to navigate by day and by night. The patrol is inserted into enemy territory by a helicopter that flies in at low level. The men dismount in five seconds or less and move out swiftly. Ideally, they hope to avoid detection, by or contact with the enemy. Mission accomplished, the team leader calls out an asthma and the distance to the extraction point, then leads the patrol back. Normally, a mission will last several days or longer. The men are completely out of communication with their base until they rendezvous with the helicopter at a predetermined time and place. Despite the high hazard in these missions, there is no lack of volunteers. Far less exciting is the regular daily routine of combat. Going out on patrol. Coming back from patrol. Monotonous, mostly. Still, the year passed quickly. So quickly, we were almost taken by surprise when we got reminders in the mail that Christmas was here. The item that really made this Yuletide a memorable one was this streamlined version of Santa Claus. She was minus only reindeer. But a very welcome visitor. The beginning of the new year was memorable, too, since the enemy started their offensive then. They tried every trick in the book. But here in 9th Division country, the Vietcong never had a chance. They were clobbered by our superior Firepower. His VC were through fighting. Large amounts of captured weapons. And we rescued one friendly. We kept pushing ahead in the rice paddies. And the jungle. Fighting from the rivers. And from the air, we drove on. And we'll continue to drive on until a just and honorable peace is won. So that these people may have a chance to live their lives in the way they choose, without fear or communist coercion. That is what this war is all about. To achieve this, the 9th Division will stay on the job as long as it has to. Many new pages will be added to the division history. Many battle streamers were won in South Vietnam. And there may be several more before the 9th goes home. While it remains in Vietnam, it will do what it has always done. Fight and win. That, in a phrase, is the story of the 9th Division. That is why its pride of outfit is so strong. That is why it cherishes its reputation as the old reliable.