Salzer, Robert S., Vice Adm., USN (Ret.)

John T. Mason, Jr.: I got you off on a tangent, but you started to tell me about the frustrations involved in planning the various operations.

Vice Admiral Robert S. Salzer: Well, higher command always felt most comfortable when (a) they could review one's plans and (b) just as we do in the Navy, so no, I don't want you to do this, do that. There seems to be a temptation to say, "I have good intelligence at the MAC V level, and I think you ought to go up into this area there." Of course, the intelligence was probably briefed yesterday and was gained two days before and it's part of the history.

Actually, in working with Bert David, who was the brigade commander of the troops, and getting the best intelligence we could out of our rather good intelligence officers, and correlating that with the pattern of enemy activity that we had observed in different areas, we arrived at sort of a sixth sense, if you will, as to where we shall go. I can't say we were always right. We hit a large number of dry holes, but we had an astonishing number of successes where there was no intelligence report of enemy activity. It might just be in some district reports of kidnappings in this area and we haven't been there in a while, and maybe we ought to take a look down there. Why not?

Our preference would have been to have gone on these operations by a very brief planning process, yet the SOP requires very formidable documentation, a landing plan, a communication annex, and you've always got to get to work and grind these things out, a detailed process, as much, or more, for the benefit of higher headquarters than for our subordinates.

John T. Mason, Jr.: They'd been well taught at the Naval War College.

Vice Admiral Robert S. Salzer: Yes! And they wanted it reviewed. Also, then, they insisted that these had to be coordinated well in advance with the Vietnamese authorities. This was a great danger because the degree of security of classified information in the average division headquarters in Vietnam was damned poor. In most cases, they would plot your projected operation on a map in their operations rooms, and then notify the province chief and the district chief that this was going to go on, and the leakage was tremendous.

John T. Mason, Jr.: It certainly would be, naturally.

Vice Admiral Robert S. Salzer: And in many cases, I blame that for some of the more formidable ambushes, but more frequently for the dry holes.

Talking about the technique of making contact by ambush, this is pretty hard lines on the boat crews. In their tour there they could expect roughly a 365-day stint less five days' R & R. In that time frame they could generally expect to go on 100 probes into the little canals and streams and they could expect to get into at least fifty fire fights. It's an environment that is extremely difficult for anybody to comprehend who has not been there.

John T. Mason, Jr.: You are dealing with sudden death.

Vice Admiral Robert S. Salzer: And a ferocity of combat that's foreign to modern Naval warfare. Your enemy is firing at you with rockets and machine guns and he's unseen. He's unseen in his bunkers fifteen yards away. You're firing back at him with cannon and machine guns and hoping to silence him and kill him, but you don't really see him. All you see is the source of his fire. Anybody can be a hero on those things the first five missions. Around twenty it gets to be old.

John T. Mason, Jr.: If you survive.

Vice Admiral Robert S. Salzer: If you survive, and around fifty you either dread the thought of going back or you’re enamored of the idea. You learn to like to kill; you like the excitement, you know.

John T. Mason, Jr.: You also become a fatalist, don't you? You have to.

Vice Admiral Robert S. Salzer: Yes, you do, if you're smart you become a fatalist; you don’t worry yourself to death. None of these people had been really trained for that kind of warfare. On the days when they didn't go out, they were busy at maintenance; those were damned well-maintained boats. These were just Mark 1 U.S. Navy sailors, mostly from the amphibious forces because it was not a high-technology war. You didn't really need all that many ETs. A very sophisticated gunner's mate would have been lost with a 40~mm or 105-mm howitzer, or a 20-caliber.

John T. Mason, Jr.: What were a man's chances of surviving fifty such engagements?

Vice Admiral Robert S. Salzer: Surviving was pretty good. I don't have any overall statistics for the totality of our time there. Initially, the rate of survival was fine. After the rockets came in, it started going down. The fatality rate averaged, over my time there, no more than 7 to 10 per cent, but the casualty rate got quite high, indecently high, during the very intense combat operations that took place during Tet 68 and the subsequent six to eight months.

Overall, in that period of time, starting in February 1968, your chance during that time of being wounded in at least some small degree were about seven out of ten. About 25 per cent - I don't have a breakdown between fatalities and serious casualties - went home either in a box or on stretchers. That was the annual rate.

John T. Mason, Jr.: What about the mental breakdowns?

Vice Admiral Robert S. Salzer: There were virtually none.

John T. Mason, Jr.: That's surprising.

Vice Admiral Robert S. Salzer: Yes, it was surprising, except that I learned to appreciate there more than I had earlier in my career, what wonderful people sailors are, professional sailors. River war was archaic and these were bo'suns' mates, gunners' mates, and right arm rates, if you will, quartermasters, who ran the boat crews and who manned them. What OSD analysts call the "soft skills," the ones you don't pay very much. There was a very high percentage of professionals, professional seamen, really. A lot of them volunteered for the duty, not because they were killers, but because they were there to serve the country, and the country was looking for volunteers to go to Vietnam. Some because of the $65 a month hazardous duty pay. Then there were some who were just sent there. Very high petty officer ratio, 65 to 80 per cent of the boat crews.

Boat crew chiefs, boat captains on larger boats were chief petty officers down to petty officers first class or second class, and so on, in the small boats.

A great deal of the mental stability I attribute to the sheer quality of these "soft-skill" petty officers. Another part of it was the cohesiveness, the mutual support, they gained from the sort of buddy system in the boats. People felt very close to each other. That was your temporary family and you had to learn to live with it.

(Note: Due to edits, corrections, and/or amendments to the original transcription draft, there are some inconsistencies between the recording and the text.)