5th Special Forces Group (United States) - Unit History - Vietnam War

Vietnam War

Fearing the growing threat of the Viet Cong insurgency to the Vietnamese government, President John F. Kennedy begin activating special forces units in anticipation of their insurgency combat expertise in 1961. The 5th Special Forces Group was amongst those units activated in 1961, and while attending training at the Special Warfare Center, Kennedy visited the units and personally approved the distinctive Special Force's Green Beret. The 5th SFG was first deployed as a battlefield advisory group for the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). By February 1965, it was deployed as a mainstay battle force once the war was in full swing. and irregular units of the Vietnam People's Army, and other communist bloc insurgents. They used unconventional and conventional warfare, and were some of the last soldiers the United States pulled out of Vietnam.

In June 1969 the killing of a suspected double agent Thai Khac Chuyen, and the attempt to cover it up, led to the arrest in July of seven officers and one non-commissioned officer of the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) including the new commander, Colonel Robert B. Rheault in what became known as the “Green Beret Affair”. Mr. Chuyen was working with the 5th on Project GAMMA when he underwent some ten days of rigorous interrogation and solitary confinement before being shot and dumped into the sea. National newspapers and television picked up the story which became another lightning rod for anti-war feeling. Finally in September 1969 Secretary of the Army Stanley Resor announced that all charges would be dropped since the CIA, which may have had some involvement, refused to make its personnel available as witnesses.

In April 1970, 5th SFG began reducing its number of personnel in Vietnam. Later in November and December, further reductions in personnel and extraction of companies ensued, ending in a complete withdrawal of the group by March. On 5 March 1971, 5th SFG returned to Fort Bragg. During their time in Vietnam, members of the unit earned 19 Medals of Honor, making it the most prominently decorated unit for its size in that conflict. Members of the unit continued to conduct intelligence operations in Southeast Asia until the collapse of the South Vietnamese government on 29 April 1975.