If you're interested, check out this book about SOG It gives great insight into what these teams went through on those missions, I can't recommend it enough.
Another good one is Six Silent Men.
Considering how highly classified the stuff MACVSOG did back in the day was, it's no wonder you don't know too much.
From left to right the awards on the machete are: South Vietnamese Jump wings (Signifying he jumped with the SV Paratroopers at least once), Special Forces Crest (Symbol for all Army Green Berets), Combat Infantryman Badge (An award given to any SF or Infantryman that saw combat), the SF Shoulder Patch, and Basic US Jump wings.
If you want to know more, contact the US National Archives and try to obtain his DD214. If you want a more general history of MACVSOG, I recommend SOG by John Plaster.
I agree, Vietnam had project 100k one of the most retarded programs we ever had. There this book about it called Mcnamara's folly. They took the low IQ, the drop-outs, the criminal and the intellectually disabled and decided they would be perfect candidates for fighting a brutal jungle war.
These soldiers couldn't tie their shoe, read, write, some of them had down syndrome and some didn't know the difference between left or right. There's cases where the officers either killed outright or "unintentionally" (through things like heatstroke during training), they couldn't deal with it. Some of the low IQ soldiers would fight back and kill their officers, throw a grenade on them. These soldiers make up nearly 10% on the Vietnam memorial wall. This is why things like the my lai massacre happened when you had inept soldiers with little reasoning skills fighting it.
The author btw is pro-millitary and defends the US government.
I really, really recommend Achilles in Vietnam if you're interested in this stuff. A little bit dated now, but to me it was really eye-opening in how it approached PTSD, especially with how it connected the Vietnam-era soldier with the hero of The Iliad, Achilles. But the common thread that seems to crop up isn't that PTSD is primarily caused by people killing enemy combatants. The act of killing isn't necessarily the traumatic part. It's the amount of active combat that modern soldiers are a part of continuously, and the betrayal of accepted expectations of how war goes or is supposed to go. Even professional soldiers in the medieval time would spend much of their soldiering on campaign on the march, traveling, posturing, setting up for battle and then - if battle was refused - marching again. It was still hard and shitty, and sieges were godawful, but it wasn't continuously being attacked or having the potential to be attacked by enemy combatants. They weren't lying awake every night wondering if a bomb or an artillery shell or a bullet would get them the next day. Guilt and regret definitely have their place in the minds and hearts of returning soldiers, but for PTSD it seems more to be about - for many men and women, anyway - that there's a hypersensitivity that turns on in active combat that doesn't get turned off back home, etc.
The Crusades are interesting, as the crusaders were in enemy territory for the most part... But they had conquered parts of the Holy Land to shack up in, with fortified castles and cities, and those fortified areas were (largely) secure. There's a book... can't remember what it's called, but it's a written account by an Arab nobleman of his stupidly crazy adventures during this period, and at times he mentions the crusading Europeans - who he always laughs off as timid, unwilling to really commit to battle unless ambushed or surprised.
Except that few did anything heroic. Instead, they suffered far higher death rates than average I.Q. soldiers, and got normal soldiers killed around them as well.
"Many military men, including William Westmoreland, the commanding general in Vietnam, viewed McNamara’s program as a disaster. Because many of the substandard men were incompetent in combat, they endangered not only themselves but their comrades as well. Their death toll was appallingly high." https://www.amazon.com/McNamaras-Folly-Low-IQ-Troops-Vietnam-ebook/dp/B0108H60MG
"The low IQ soldiers were incompetent in combat, putting themselves and their comrades in danger. Inevitably, their death toll was appallingly high." https://www.veteranstoday.com/2018/11/01/mcnamaras-morons-vietnam-was-war-for-profit-american-lives-be-damned/
Check out the book Kill Anything that Moves. It uses data collected by the US military about atrocities committed in Vietnam, all of which were covered up by the military. This involves individual acts by troops, but also policy by the higher ups. This is what makes people dislike the US military.
I think others have given you some good links to the ways the US destabilizes countries and overthrows legitimate governments.
There's a theory that this was not a mistake in the movie:
Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam
A book that all leftists should read IMO, alongside open veins of Latin America.
McNamara's Folly: The Use of Low-IQ Troops in the Vietnam War
One of my favorite stories about Vietnam, and what happens when you drastically lower entrance requirements.
https://www.amazon.com/Kill-Anything-That-Moves-American-ebook/dp/B008FPSTOQ
kill anything that moves, very eye opening book on the massacres in Vietnam.
> Suppose that, in expectation, a candidate in this category will do an adequate job 99 times out of 100, but that the remaining 1% results in an actively abusive or harmful outcome. This is a field with a long tail of unacceptably harmful outcomes.
Here is a speech from the author of Mcnamera's Folly. From the amazon blurb:
> In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara were desperate to find additional troops for the Vietnam War, but they feared that they would alienate middle-class voters if they drafted college boys or sent Reservists and National Guardsmen to Vietnam. So, on October 1, 1966, McNamara lowered mental standards and inducted thousands of low-IQ men. Altogether, 354,000 of these men were taken into the Armed Forces and a large number of them were sent into combat. Many military men, including William Westmoreland, the commanding general in Vietnam, viewed McNamara’s program as a disaster. Because many of the substandard men were incompetent in combat, they endangered not only themselves but their comrades as well. Their death toll was appallingly high. In addition to low-IQ men, tens of thousands of other substandard troops were inducted, including criminals, misfits, and men with disabilities. This book tells the story of the men caught up in McNamara’s folly.
Some of the stories are horrific. Soldiers who couldn't tell their left from their right. Perimeter guards who shot their own soldiers.
Doing is not the only thing that happens. Sometimes intelligence just is the limiting factor. This was established in the Vietnam War.
It is to my knowledge that the CIA did not have any bomber capabilities. I have read numerous books and accounts of operations occurring in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam with respect to the CIA air involvement. The Ravens is an excellent account of the units that the CIA had which were flying spotting missions in the area.
Implementation of the Marine Combined Action Concept in Future Contingencies
Involved evaluation and future implementation proposals of the Marine Combined Action Program, which had squads of Marines live in South Vietnamese hamlets and partner with their Popular Forces to facilitate military training and relationships with locals. There's a great book called The Village that tells the story of one of the squads and gives a good picture of the intent behind the program.
Are you talking about the 3000-page monster put out by the government itself? Surely there's a summary with commentary somewhere, which I imagine I would need if the government doesn't provide enough context for me to understand. Would you recommend any of those?
That's kind of what I'm getting at with the post (although poorly explained).
Combined Action Platoon's described in The Village were successful because they acted more as a police force with the South Vietnamese and because they were there for an extended amount of time, allowing them to develop friendships and understanding with the South Vietnamese.
The more modern example would be Al Anbar after the surge. Except it's critical that troops wouldn't be there on short, 7 month deployments. We'd have to have people go that want to be there and want to learn and participate in the culture in order to develop those same types of friendships and understanding.
If you have his unit number/designation, you might be able to locate a unit history. Some are online, even. Some others may have an officer in charge of keeping those records who you can write to and request the unit's Vietnam story.
Also, I have a book that is very dear to me -- it's thick but it actually has aerial photos and maps of my deployment areas in Vietnam. It's Where We Were in Vietnam: A comprehensive guide to the Firebases, Military Installations and Naval Vessels of the Vietnam War. Thick thing, $44 on Amazon and $10 on Kindle. I highly recommend the print version as I'd never be able to read some of the smaller maps on my Kindle.