It is commonly believed that the Vietnam War was waged only by the United States
armed forces against the Communists of the North, but the reality was much different.
As part of the Free World Military Assistance Forces, thousands of Spanish,
Australians, New Zealanders, Philippines, and South Koreans served in Vietnam
to support the US and the South Vietnamese. Among them, over 320,000 South Koreans joined
the confrontation, reaching more than 50,000 at the height of their deployment.
By 1972, the South Korean allies even outnumbered their American comrades!
Most of the South Korean young volunteers came from their country’s Marine Corps,
and when Communist forces spotted them in the jungle,
they knew that the Korean Marines meant serious business.
Time would only prove that they were a force to be reckoned with.
Communism Takes Asia
In the aftermath of World War 2, Communism spread quickly through Eastern Europe and most of Asia,
and the territories that were previously occupied by the Imperial Army of Japan
fell into Soviet control. In addition, countries that refused to accept
the USSR were plagued with revolutionary guerillas to destabilize their governments and weaken them.
After a brutal civil war erupted in China during the Japanese invasion of Manchuria,
Marxist ideas prevailed.
The Korean peninsula then followed in 1950. While the South was inclined to democracy
and the influence of the United States, the North was consumed by Chinese Communist ideas.
Then, after three long years of conflict, a United Nations coalition led by the
United States managed to push back the Northern Communist sympathizers beyond the 38th Parallel
and divided the country into two fractions. North Korea became a Communist state backed
up by the Chinese and the Soviet Union, while the Republic of South Korea adopted
democracy and became an ally of the United States and most Western powers.
As the Americans and the South Korean were fighting the Communists, the war in Vietnam
was coming to an end in favor of the Marxist sympathizers of Ho Chi Minh.
The French were ultimately forced to leave their colony after the decisive Battle of Dien Bien Phu,
but the flames of war did not disappear so quickly from the countryside.
The Vietnamese population was divided. Some were attracted
to Communism and the notions of returning to their national customs and traditions,
while others preferred the western way of life.
A civil war broke out once again, and the first country to offer help
was a nation that had just suffered the same fate: the Republic of South Korea.
The Assistance Forces
As far back as 1954, the first President of South Korea, Syngman Rhee,
offered military help to Vietnam to fend off the spread of Communism, but his support was refused.
The war in Korea was over, but peace had not been signed,
which led to a stay of constant alert at the Demilitarized Zone with North Korea.
With the United States increasing its support to Vietnam, President Rhee feared that the Americans
would reduce the number of troops stationed at the border with Korea to help in Indochina.
However, if he could send some of his own troops to aid the Vietnamese,
Rhee believed he could demand a more significant American military presence in South Korea.
Still, President Dwight D. Eisenhower rejected the South Korean offers of military assistance
because he believed the American public would see it as a prelude to future American military
presence in Vietnam. By the early 1960s,
President John F. Kennedy also rejected the offers as he believed that the
conflict could be solved through peaceful means. The president limited the American
presence in Vietnam by merely sending military advisors to train soldiers.
It was not until 1964, when the fall of Vietnam into the hands of the Communists was imminent,
that the strategy changed and peace was no longer an option.
However, while preparing his forces for military action in the Asian country,
President Lyndon B. Johnson adopted a policy of foreign participation in the war. Johnson
personally wrote to world leaders to ask for their support in the upcoming conflict, and this was
part of the President's Many Flags initiatives. The objective was to gather international support
for South Vietnam, which resulted in the Free World Military Assistance Forces,
a group of troops from South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, and Spain.
Out of them, only Spain would limit its support to military medical assistance,
while the rest would go to war. Many more nations would later join
the US side with more passive support roles. Finally, during the last months of 1964, South
Vietnam asked South Korea for military assistance, and the nation didn’t hesitate to help.
Coming to Terms
The reasons behind South Korea's insistence on sending troops to Vietnam dated back to
the country's conditions after the Korean War. South Korea was devastated and bankrupt after
the conflict. The population was starving, and its survival largely depended on foreign aid.
When Army General Park Chung-hee took control of the government after a coup in 1961,
he wished to turn the odds in his country's favor and turned to Japan as an inspiration.
Japan had a miraculous economic recovery during the Korean War, and Park believed
that the war in Vietnam would provide him with the same opportunities for his country.
However, he could only achieve it if he proved that his nation had the stamina
to fight its way out of a third-world country. The only way to convince the US of getting more
support for the economic recovery of South Korea was by proving that the Koreans were willing to
fight shoulder to shoulder with the American soldiers. Park knew that the country could
then count on military modernization, domestic help, and economic support.
After Johnson and the Vietnamese government finally accepted South Korea's assistance,
Park sent the first units in February of 1965.
This brigade was known as the Dove force and comprised engineers,
military police, a navy LST, and a MASH unit. The men were deployed to Bien Hoa, where
they built roads, schools, and medical facilities to treat wounded civilians.
More than 30,000 Vietnamese would be treated until the end of the war.
Then, in June of 1965, Johnson asked Park if he could send more men to Vietnam,
and he agreed under some conditions. The first and more important was to guarantee
a stable number of American troops in Korea to protect the Demilitarized Zone. The second
was that South Korea would limit itself to providing the men, but the US would provide
them with military equipment and combat pay. And the third condition had to do with the
chain of command, as Park insisted that his troops would only answer to their officers.
The US agreed that the officers could retain tactical control of their units.
Still, they would be subordinated to the authority of American officers in a combat zone.
With these stipulated conditions, the volunteers then began to enlist by the thousands, but the
South Korean military only picked the best. While many enlisted to honor the sacrifice of
American soldiers during the Korean War, others saw it as a way to rise through the ranks and
earn a stable income for their families. At the time, the average South Korean received less
than 2 dollars a month for his military service. In comparison, those fighting in Vietnam under
American pay would receive about 37 dollars a month.
A Combat Legacy
In August of 1965, the South Korean assembly authorized the deployment of troops in Vietnam,
and by the fall, there were over 20,000 South Korean men
stationed in the Vietnamese countryside. However, the Vietnamese government would
ask for more troops only a few months later. The Tiger Division was a battle-tested unit
that had fought alongside the Americans since the beginning of the Korean War.
The men fought on the Pusan Perimeter and became part of McArthur's dashing counterattacks.
They were the Capital Tiger Division and the 2nd Marine Brigade, the Blue Dragons.
Korea then created the 9th White Horse Division, increasing the number of deployed
troops to over 45,000 men. General Chae Myung-shin,
the commander of South Korean forces in Vietnam, established his headquarters in Nha Trang
to better coordinate with the Americans. President Park personally chose the officers
sent to Vietnam to show the US that his men were more than capable of fighting.
He also insisted that all the men were volunteers. This push translated into highly trained and
motivated men. Most of them wanted payback against the Communists, while others wanted
to prevent Vietnam from suffering what South Korea had endured during the Forgotten War.
Every man was trained in the art of Tae Kwon Do to master his body and turn him into a
lethal opponent at close quarters combat. The South Koreans were not just agile and
tough but also highly disciplined, and those who disobeyed orders were harshly punished.
The US Marines would eventually incorporate Tae Kwon Do into their combat programs after
watching the South Koreans, or ROKs, as they liked to call them,
handle themselves in combat. And several senior officers from the Tiger Division
would teach the Marines the basics of this martial art during wartime.
The South Koreans were better than the Americans at counter-insurgency operations. Although they
did not speak Vietnamese, the Koreans understood their culture more than the US soldiers.
They shared Buddhism as a religion and ate rice like the Vietnamese,
which helped them relate with the locals when inspecting villages searching for Viet Cong.
Still, these bonds did not prevent the Koreans from committing certain acts
attributed to battlefield rage. Like the Americans,
the Koreans were sometimes tricked by villagers that were Communist sympathizers,
which led them to terminate civilians when they felt betrayed.
However, the ROKs from the Tiger Division were highly effective while in action.
During combat in the Phu Cat Mountain, the ROKs finished
over 3,000 enemies at the cost of just 300. The same occurred with the Marines from the
Blue Dragon Brigade. During Operation Van Buren, the Marines and the 101st Airborne managed to
secure over 30,000 tons of rice from the hands of 700 Viet Cong at the loss of just 45 men.
The White Horse Division also got its fair share of combat starting in 1967.
As part of Operation Hong Kil Dong, they fought their way out of various Viet Cong ambushes
and managed to down more than 200 men without losing a single of their own.
One company of Marines would even earn a Presidential Unit Citation
for its actions at Trah Bin Dong in 1967. The South Korean support would go as far
as surpassing the number of American military personnel in Vietnam by 1972, reaching 50,000 men.
Ultimately, over 320,000 brave Koreans would serve along with the Americans during the 10
long years of the Vietnam War, always feared by the enemy and ready to defend their honor.
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