User talk:MaThomas

The Vietnam War: Communication The United States met an unusually challenge in Southeast Asia. The army has fought in support of a national policy of assisting an emerging nation to develop governmental processes of its own choosing. In addition to the usual problems of armed conflict, the assignment in Southeast Asia has required the sophisticated tasks of a modern army upon an underdeveloped environment. Those involved helped deal with the frustrations of anti-guerrilla operations, and conducting conventional campaigns against well-trained and determined units. During 1959, insurgents in South Vietnam backed by the North Vietnamese were increasing their campaign of violence in an effort to gain political control over all Vietnam. In 1960 the Communist Party of North Vietnam decided that South Vietnam was to be "liberated" and unified with the north. Hanoi organized a National Liberation Front and claimed that it was made up of "several political parties" in South Vietnam, with a People's Revolutionary Party identified as the leader. By 1961 the South Vietnamese Communists, termed Viet Cong, were conducting military operations of great size in South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese Government, although it had been receiving US assistance since 1954, could not cope with the worsening situation. In late 1961, therefore, South Vietnam urgently appealed for immediate and extensive help from the United States. The US government decided to expand its assistance to South Vietnam and increased the number of US military advisers. Tactical aircraft and Army helicopter units were sent to Vietnam to support and train the South Vietnamese, to keep pace with the growing US commitment of communications. As early as 1951, US Army troops were providing a small US advisory group in Vietnam with communications that linked into the Army's worldwide network. The advisers, scattered up and down the more than 500-mile¬long country, had to rely meanwhile on the low-capacity Vietnamese military communications networks and on a high-frequency radio network they operated themselves to pass messages and furnish telephone service. The Vietnamese commercial system was of little use since it consisted primarily of a few high-frequency radio links using old French equipment. The US Agency for International Development, however, was planning the construction of a major long-lines microwave system to connect Saigon with commercial service throughout the country and to include local cable distribution systems. The very limited communications available could not support the US in Vietnam. During 1961 and 1962 the joint staff of the Commander in Chief, Pacific, pushed to modernize the communications facilities in the Republic of Vietnam with two objectives: first, to create a communications system to meet the defense needs of the South Vietnamese, and second, to build it in such a way that it would require minimal support of the U.S. In 1962 U.S. Army Signalmen in South Vietnam began operating scatter radio relay sets capable of providing numerous voice communications channels over extended ranges-the first use of that type of advanced equipment in a combat environment. By 1964, US Army Signalmen were operating a new satellite ground station through a single communications satellite thousands of miles aloft-the first use of satellite communications in combat. By 1968, the US in South Vietnam had begun to operate fully automatic digital message and data switches, another first in a combat zone. Any account of communications in Vietnam include the increasing sophistication in equipment used to meet ever-growing communications needs in support of a multination effort directed toward the dual roles of nation-building and combat. Such an account must also tell the story of the dedicated, highly skilled soldiers who fought the enemy and maintained and operated that equipment in a hot, humid, underdeveloped land thousands of miles from their homes. Mobile exchanges were employed in a number of different locations in Vietnam and were very important in crucial periods after the mid¬1960s in providing a flexible dial telephone capability as needs shifted in Vietnam from one combat area to another. The vital matter of securing communications against Vietnamese interception and intelligence had been discussed, particularly with reference to the technically difficult area of scrambling telephone or voice traffic, especially the voice communications of the combat battalions. Studies have shown the absolute necessity for communications security, whether the information is passed by message or voice. It was known that the enemy listens in because they had captured some of the Vietnamese listening devices. It was found that the most persuasive, effective way to insure its use was to provide proof that a given enemy action ¬and ambush of one of the patrols, for example-was the result of the enemy's intercepting our radio talk. Good training in voice security-awareness of its necessity and a compulsion to use it-was the key of communication during the Vietnam War. The only excuse for voice communications in the clear, that is, not secured or scrambled, is its use on an occasion when the information being passed is extremely current. It was first planned for the United States civilian contractors to control communication, and later they would be turned over to the Vietnamese who have been trained in the Vietnam signal school, or in the new U.S. contractor-operated Signal Training Facility, both at Vung Tau. The contract school also had been turned over to the Vietnamese to help them build a viable communications system for the future, and become independent.

Works Cited Rienzi, Thomas M. "Communications, Electronics 1962-1970." Vietnam Studies. 15 Oct. 1971. Dept. of the Army. 1 Nov. 2005 .

Fincher, E.B., and Franklin Watts. The Vietnam War. New York, 1980.

Caputo, Philip. Ten Thousand Days of Thunder: A History of the Vietnam War. Antheneum   Books for Young Readers, 2005.