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.  

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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