War is rarely black and white, and the Vietnam War, fought under the umbrella of the Cold War,
was a vastly complicated conflict indeed. Ignoring external communist and anti-communist allies for a
moment, it wasn't as if every Vietnamese citizen was communist-aligned just because they lived in
the north or anti-communist-aligned just because they lived in the south. In fact -- allied with
North Vietnam and its military arm, the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) -- the National Liberation
Front for South Vietnam and its military arm, the People's Liberation Armed Forces of South
Vietnam (PLAF), was a movement conceived in South Vietnam and Cambodia. To reiterate, political
inclinations, if any, weren't so much laid out in neat plots as strewn throughout Vietnam,
Cambodia, and Laos, and many were made to fight and die under flags they never wanted to raise.
The Republic of Vietnam or, for simplicity, South Vietnam and its military arm, the Army of the
Republic of Vietnam (AVRN), recognised this and even went as far to launch the Chieu Hoi program
to encourage men and women of the PLAF and PAVN to defect to the side of the South Vietnamese;
these defectors were known as Hoi Chanh or "returnees."
Some of these Hoi Chanh went on to serve in the AVRN as
well as the armed forces of other nations allied with South Vietnam,
and for the rest of this video, we're going to discuss the Hoi Chanh who went on to serve
the United States Armed Forces in the Vietnam War as Kit Carson Scouts or members of Force
66. This fascinating piece of history has gone under the radar for far too long, and to tell it,
we've employed the help of historian Stefan Aguirre Quiroga, whose article on the agency and
motivation of Kit Carson Scouts in the Vietnam War was recently published in "War & Society."
So we know Kit Carson Scouts were PLAF and PAVN defectors who served the US Armed Forces in
Vietnam, but how did the Kit Carson Scout program come to be, and what did the Scouts actually do?
Named after American frontier scout Kit Carson, the Kit Carson Scout program was
launched in November 1966 by the US Marine Corps and renamed as Luc Luong 66 or "Force 66" in 1970.
While the USMC was already using intel provided by defectors, the Kit Carson Scout program was
basically created to facilitate the process, but the Scouts proved their worth in other ways too,
locating and identifying former comrades, locating tunnels and weapons caches,
serving as interpreters and interrogators, and calling attention to ambushes and booby-traps
for not only the USMC but the US Army and US Navy SEALs as well. The Scouts wore American uniforms,
wielded American weapons, and were trained in American tactics; they were also employed
directly by the US. In 1970, the Kit Carson Scouts were at their largest, boasting some
2,500 active members, and while they were mostly ex-PLAF soldiers, some Scouts were ex-PAVN.
So why defect from the PLAF or PAVN and then volunteer as a Kit Carson Scout?
What we must clarify right away is that while political inclinations may have been strewn
throughout Vietnam, not everyone boasted a strong political inclination, and political
inclinations were rarely what inspired men and women of the PLAF and PAVN to defect
and volunteer as a Kit Carson Scout. Mostly, they defected for more personal and pragmatic reasons.
One of the more clear-cut motivators was a desire for revenge -- often for being
forced to join the PLAF or PAVN (often on the threat of death or the deaths of loved ones),
and sometimes in retaliation PLAF/PAVN atrocities.
While families supposedly under PLAF and PAVN protection were sometimes worked to starvation or
outright killed, PLAF defectors in South Vietnam were guaranteed their family's safety upon joining
the Kit Carson Scouts. If the family couldn't be returned to a place of safety such as their home
village, they were resettled in Chieu Hoi hamlets which, while on leave, the Scouts could visit.
In some cases, poor working conditions inspired one defect. Soldiers of the PLAF and PAVN worked
in poor and dangerous conditions with inadequate food and medical supplies, often beyond the
point of exhaustion and under harsh, substandard leadership. The Scouts, on the other hand, could
offer more than this, providing the same rations and treatments received by American soldiers.
Another benefit of volunteering for the Scouts was the salary, with Scouts between 1966 and 1970
earning around 5,000 piastres a month (roughly 42 US dollars) and PLAF soldiers
earning just 80 piastres a month, with no guarantee of actually getting paid.
What encouraged others to defect was the disillusionment they felt when PLAF/PAVN lies were
exposed. This disillusionment could be political, yes, but it was also felt when promises of
imminent victory on the battlefield or in the war were revealed as false -- when PLAF/PAVN soldiers
came to the realisation that much more blood was going to be split before the fighting was over.
So that was an overview of Kit Carson Scouts in the Vietnam War. But what do you think? Did
you know about the program before this? Do you find it as fascinating as we do? Also,
how did you enjoy the input of historian Stefan Aguirre Quiroga? Would you like us to collaborate
with Stefan and other historians in the future? Please share your thoughts in the comments.