Fuaktui Province, South Vietnam, July 1967. Captain James McNamera of the US Army’s fifth special forces group, veteran of 23 combat operations, twice awarded the Silver Star, stood at the helicopter pad of Newiot base, and couldn’t believe his own eyes. Before him stood 12 men in uniforms, faded to an indeterminate color, with boots cut down to ankle height, emanating a nauseating smell of rotting fish mixed with swamp mud.
hair grown below the collar, faces covered with unckempt stubble, and instead of standard army pouches, homemade canvas bags dangled from their belts. This was the first squadron of the Australian Special Air Service. That very legend whispered about in saigon bars by intelligence officers. But McNamera had expected to see anyone but this gang of raga muffins.
Colonel Harrison, commander of the American base at Bian Hoa, had warned him the day before, short and harsh. Tomorrow, the Australians will be working in your sector. Receive them. Show them the maps. Don’t interfere. McNamera had smirked then. He knew jungle warfare. His men had spent more months in the Green Hell than these colonial toy soldiers had served years.
And the thought that someone from the Allied forces would teach American green berets how to fight seemed like a mockery. But an order is an order. And now he stood before these jungle clowns. Yes, that’s exactly what he mentally christened them in the first minute. And this nickname stuck firmly in his head.
jungle clowns with their stinking rags and savage appearance. The commander of the Australian patrol, Lieutenant Peter Badco, approached the American without fuss, extended his hand and spoke with an accent that carried the intonation of a man accustomed to not being taken seriously.
We’re ready to move out in 2 hours, sir. Just need the current intelligence summary for Grid Squares Whiskey Tango and Echoulu. McNamera nodded, pointed to the headquarters tent, but couldn’t resist asking, “What’s that smell, Lieutenant?” Badco smiled with the corner of his mouth. Newok mom captain fish sauce that all Vietnamese use.
We apply it to clothing and equipment three days before patrolling. Chemical detergents from American soap and powder can be sensed in the jungle at distances up to 50 m with the right wind, but the smell of decay is natural background. Charlie doesn’t notice us until we’re three steps away from him. The American captain frowned, but said nothing.
The theory seemed too absurd. His platoon used the latest camouflage technologies, infrared sights, motion sensors scattered along the trails, and all this worked well enough not to believe tales about fish sauce. However, in Badco’s eyes, there was neither mockery nor challenge, only the calm confidence of a man who knows the value of his words.
McNamera nodded and led the Australians to the maps, where recent clashes with the enemy were marked with red crosses. Over the past 10 days, his men had run into Vietkong patrols three times in the Long Tan village area. Firefights had broken out twice. Casualties were four wounded. Confirmed enemy killed. Zero.
Charlie dissolved into the greenery faster than the Americans could open fire. The Australians studied the map silently, exchanging short phrases, pointing fingers at stream bends and sections of dense forest, noting something in battered notebooks. McNamera noticed that one of them, a broad-shouldered sergeant with a face weathered to the color of old leather, wasn’t looking at the paper at all.
He was studying the terrain relief from memory, as if he’d already been here. This was Harry Smith, veteran of the Borneo campaign, a man who had spent more time in the jungle than in barracks, and whose name the Vietkong would later remember as Ma Rang, ghost of the forest. Smith turned to Badco and said one word, rubber.
The lieutenant nodded, circled with his finger an abandoned plantation north of Long Tan, and said to Magnamera, “We’re going here. Your men bypassed this section, correct?” The American confirmed. The plantation was mined. Intelligence reported the presence of snipers, risking the platoon to check an insignificant location made no sense.
No one then suspected that this very plantation would become the site of a lesson that would overturn all understanding of jungle warfare. Badco smirked. That’s exactly why Charlie set up a transit point there. We’re going in from the west through the swamp that in your guy’s opinion is impassible. Actually, there’s a trail there kneedeep if you know where to look.
We’ll be moving 10 hours to position, another 24 hours for observation. Then we’ll decide whether to hit or wait. Magnamera involuntarily widened his eyes. 34 hours in enemy territory without support, without radio contact, without evacuation capability. That’s suicide. The Australians exchanged glances, and in their eyes there was neither fear nor bravado, only the weary understanding that explaining anything to this Yank was useless.
The lieutenant shrugged, “Captain, we conduct such raids for 10 days straight. Standard practice, rations for 15 days, ammunition, 200 rounds per barrel, no artillery support, no helicopters. Charlie expects you to come with noise, fire, and steel. We come quietly, count, leave. Sometimes we shoot. very rarely miss. The American captain offered to assign two of his best Rangers as escort, but Badco politely declined.
Your guys move too loudly, sir. We need silence. Magnamera felt a prick of wounded pride, but restrained himself. Let them try. Let them prove it. He ordered the Australians be provided with fresh aerial photography data, the latest intercepts of enemy radio communications, and minefield coordinates.
But Badco took only the map and dismissively waved off the rest. We have enough. Two hours later, right on schedule, 12 men dissolved into the green wall of forest east of the base, and McNamera watched them go with an uneasy feeling. He saw how they walked, not in formation, not in a chain, but in some strange dispersed cloud where each soldier moved as if on his own, but the entire group maintained clear distance and direction.
After 5 minutes, they were no longer visible. After 10, not audible, and after another 15 minutes, the radio operator reported that the Australians had left the station’s range and contact was lost. McNamera spent the next 36 hours at headquarters, studying reports and trying to understand what exactly was wrong with the picture of war he was accustomed to considering correct.
American doctrine for jungle operations was based on the principle of fire superiority. Detected the enemy, called in artillery, didn’t help. Called in aviation, didn’t help. Called in helicopters with Napalm. Patrolling lasted from dawn to dusk. At night, platoon returned to bases or fortified camps because the jungle after dark belonged to Charlie.
This was a war of technology against fanaticism, steel against bamboo, and the Americans believed that sooner or later quantity would turn into quality. McNamera himself had been through 12 ambushes, four direct engagements, and one village clearing operation. And each time the scheme worked the same. Contact, suppressive fire, withdrawal, air strike, clearing, evacuation.
There were losses, but this was considered inevitable. War is war. On the second day after the Australian patrols departure, Lieutenant Colonel George Hackworth arrived at the base. A legend of the US Army, a man whose name was known by every military journalist and every enemy of America. Hackworth had fought in Korea, commanded a battalion in Vietnam, written three books on infantry tactics, and was considered one of the Pentagon’s harshest critics.
He flew to New Dot not for inspection, but out of pure curiosity. Rumors about Australian methods had reached headquarters in Saigon, and Hackworth wanted to see everything with his own eyes. McNamera met him with relief. Finally, someone from the senior officers would confirm that these colonial antics were worth nothing against American might.
The lieutenant colonel listened to the report, grunted, and asked to be shown where the Australians were now. McNamera spread his hands. Radio silence, sir. They haven’t made contact for 38 hours. Hackworth frowned. And you’re not worried? The captain shrugged. They said they’d return in 72 hours, so they’ll return.
What happened an hour later forced both officers to reconsider everything they had been taught inmies and on battlefields. The radio operator burst into the headquarters tent with a sheet of paper on which was scrolled in trembling handwriting. Quote three. McNamera snatched the sheet from the sergeant’s hands and reread it three times, not believing his eyes.
21 21 enemy fighters from 12 Australians. That’s impossible. Hackworth took the report, studied it silently, and said one word. How? The captain didn’t answer. He didn’t understand himself. His platoon in three months of combat operations had killed a confirmed 16 enemy personnel, losing seven killed and 23 wounded in the process.
The Australians in two days had accomplished what took Americans weeks and did so without a single shot from their side without artillery, without aviation, without losses. 8 hours later, right on schedule, 12 men emerged from the jungle at New Dot Base, and McNamera and Hackworth met them at the same helicopter pad.
The Australians looked even worse than when they left. dirt, blood, torn uniforms. One of the sergeants had a bloodied bandage dangling from his shoulder, but their eyes were all the same. Empty, cold, unseeing. They moved like automatons, unloaded trophies, three AK-47 assault rifles, 12 grenades, a stack of documents, maps, photographs, and only after this did Badco approach the American captain and report briefly, “Mission accomplished.
Enemy detected at Rubber Plantation, Grid Square, Whiskey Tango 37. Ambush organized at 0400. Contact occurred at 0523. Completed at 0528. No casualties. Hackworth stepped forward. Lieutenant, explain how 12 men destroyed 21 enemies in 5 minutes without support. The answer turned out to be so simple that at first it seemed like mockery.
We waited for them, sir. Badco pulled out a battered notebook, opened to the right page, and began to tell. After leaving the base, the patrol moved through the swamp along a trail that even the local population didn’t suspect existed. It was found by an Aboriginal tracker from an Aboriginal tribe serving in the Australian army and assigned to SAS for his unique ability to read the jungle like an open book.
The journey took 11 hours because every step was checked for trip wires. Every branch was bent by hand so it wouldn’t crack. Every breath was taken through the nose to avoid creating unnecessary noise. By dawn, the patrol reached the edge of the plantation and laid down in the thicket 120 m from a row of old rubber trees under which, according to intelligence, a Vietkong transit point should be located.
The first 6 hours, nothing happened. Only mosquitoes, heat, and immobility that turned muscles to stone. The Australians didn’t move, didn’t talk, didn’t change position. They simply were part of the forest, merging with roots, foliage, and mud so that even an experienced fighter would pass within a meter and not notice. And if at 1300 hours local time, the first Vietnamese appeared from the depths of the plantation.
A thin man, about 30, in black pajamas and a conicle hat with a rifle on his shoulder and a bundle of bamboo poles in his hands. He walked slowly looking around, but didn’t see the Australians because they were invisible. Three more followed him, then five more. Then a group of eight people with heavy boxes wrapped in palm leaves. Badco counted. Sergeant Smith counted.
Every fighter in the patrol counted, recording the enemy’s position, trajectory of movement, distance to cover. The Vietkong unloaded boxes under the trees, pulled out bags of rice, boxes of ammunition, several RPG2 grenade launchers, transferred everything to bamboo stretchers, and prepared to leave.
Americans in this place would have opened fire immediately. Target detected, enemy in open position, chance of destruction maximum. The Australians continued to wait. 20 minutes passed, 40 minutes passed, an hour passed, and the Vietkong finished loading and formed a column. Badco gave a signal. One short wave of the hand.
12 L1 A1 rifles, the Australian version of the Belgian FN foul, raised simultaneously. 12 fingers lay on triggers. 12 pairs of eyes chose targets. The enemy was at distances from 70 to 110 m. Position: Compact Group without cover. Escape routes, two, both under fire. The Vietkong didn’t even suspect they were dead.
Badco gave a second signal and the patrol opened fire. The first burst lasted 3 seconds. 12 barrels released five rounds each. 60 bullets of 7.62 mm caliber, each flying at a speed of 840 m/s. 14 Vietnamese fell instantly, the rest scattered. But the Australians had already switched to single fire. Short, accurate shots without haste, without panic.
Seven more people died in the next 30 seconds trying to reach cover or raise weapons. The events of the next few minutes McNamera would remember for the rest of his life as an example of that cruelty which Americans called inhumane and Australians necessary. One of the Vietnamese wounded in the thigh crawled toward the boxes trying to reach a grenade.
Sergeant Smith descended from position, walked 50 m through the plantation, ignoring the possibility of ambush, approached the wounded man, and shot him in the head from a distance of 3 m, then methodically walked around all 21 bodies, checking pulses, and shot twice more. Confirmation kills. Badco collected documents, maps, personal items of the killed, photographed faces for intelligence identification.
Took three rifles in a box of grenades. One of the Australians pulled insignia off the dead Vietkong commander and stuffed them in his pocket. A trophy. The entire operation from first shot to leaving the contact site took 5 minutes 20 seconds, after which the patrol disappeared into the jungle as silently as it had appeared.
The Vietnamese would discover the bodies only 8 hours later when the next supply group arrived. And by that time, the Australians would already be 15 km away moving along a route that never repeated twice. Hackworth listened silently and Magnamera saw how the lieutenant colonel’s face changed from skepticism to bewilderment and from bewilderment to shock.
When Badco finished, Hackworth asked a single question. How long did you spend in ambush? The lieutenant answered without hesitation. 43 hours, sir. From the moment of reaching position to the moment of contact. The lieutenant colonel turned to McNamera. Can your men hold out 43 hours without movement in the jungle? The captain shook his head.
No, sir. Maximum 6 8 hours. Then problems begin with discipline, fatigue, concentration. Hackworth nodded. There’s the whole difference. They don’t fight like we do. They fight like Charlie, but better. We came here with technology. They came with patience. We want to win the war. They want to survive in it.
And damn it, they’re succeeding. The next 3 days, Hackworth spent at the Australian base studying their methods, talking with fighters, writing down every detail in his notebook. What he learned formed the basis of a report that would later be called the most controversial document of the Vietnam War. The Australian doctrine of jungle operations was based on three principles.
Invisibility, patience, cruelty. Invisibility was achieved through rejection of everything that could reveal the patrol’s presence from soap and deodorants to bright colors of equipment. SAS soldiers 3 days before going on an operation stopped using any chemical hygiene products, rubbed dirt and fish sauce into clothing, cut boots to a minimum to reduce the noise of footsteps.
They studied the habits of local animals and birds to move synchronously with the jungle, not against it. One of the Australian instructors, an Aboriginal named Billy Griffiths, taught soldiers to read tracks as his ancestors had read them for thousands of years by the shape of the print, depth of impression, direction of broken branches.
Patience, the second principle, required seas fighters to be able to remain motionless for hours, days, weeks if the task required it. Magnamera learned from Badco that the record for immobility and ambush belonged to a sergeant named David Wild Dog Mlan who spent 76 hours in one position observing the Hochi Min trail along which North Vietnamese convoys traveled.
During this time he didn’t eat, didn’t drink, didn’t move, only watched, counted, recorded. When he was evacuated, medics discovered secondderee dehydration, muscle damage from static tension, and two dozen mosquito bites that he hadn’t brushed away so as not to create extra movement. MLAN’s report on the number of enemy troops and equipment formed the basis of a bombing operation that destroyed 300 trucks and two battalions of infantry.
Cruelty. The third principle the Australians explained not by sadism but by necessity. SAS patrols operated deep in enemy territory where a single mistake could cost the entire group their lives. Therefore, wounded enemies were always finished off. Prisoners were taken only when there was a specific order to capture a prisoner, and bodies of the killed were sometimes laid out in a certain order as a message.
McNamera had seen photographs of such messages. 12 Vietkong corpses laid out in a star on a clearing with insignia cut off and personal items stacked in the center. This was not an act of revenge, Badco explained. This was psychological warfare. Charlie fears Maung jungle ghosts who come silently, strike accurately, and disappear without a trace.
Each such message is a reminder that the jungle no longer belongs only to them. The numbers that Hackworth wrote in his notebook made him doubt the effectiveness of the entire American military machine. Hackworth wrote in his notebook, “The Australians don’t fight by the rules of the Geneva Convention, but their results speak for themselves.
In 6 months of operations in Puaktai province, SAS destroyed 342 confirmed Vietkong fighters with their own losses. Zero killed, three wounded. Efficiency coefficient 114 to1 which is 17 times higher than the average indicator of American special operations units. They don’t use artillery, don’t call in aviation, don’t rely on technology, only on training, tactics, and willingness to do what others won’t dare.
The lieutenant colonel showed these numbers to Magnamera. And the captain felt something turn over inside. 114 to1. His platoon, elite, trained, armed better than any army in the world, had a coefficient of 2:1. the Australians with their cut boots and stinking rags 114 to1. On the evening of the third day, when Hackworth was already preparing to fly back to Saigon, an incident occurred that put the final point in this story.
One of the American sergeants, veteran George Parker, approached a group of Australians sitting by a fire and began telling a joke about how jungle clowns teach real soldiers how to fight. McNamera heard laughter, turned and saw Parker waving his arms, depicting how Australians sniff dirt and crawl through swamps. American soldiers laughed.
Australians were silent. Sergeant Smith, that very Maung who finished off the wounded at point blank, stood up, approached Parker, and said quietly, but so everyone could hear. Guy, you’ve been here 3 months, killed two, lost seven. I’ve been here 18 months, killed 143, lost zero. Want to laugh? Laugh at yourself.
Parker read with anger and humiliation stepped toward the Australian. [ __ ] you, you damn savage. Nobody even invited you here. McNamera wanted to intervene, but Hackworth held him by the shoulder. Wait. Smith looked at the American sergeant with a long gaze, then smiled with the corner of his mouth and said, “You’re right. We weren’t invited.
We came ourselves because we saw how you fight and realized, if not us, you’ll lose this war in a year.” You come to the jungle with tanks and think it makes you strong. Charlie comes barefoot and defeats you because he knows where to step. We come quieter than Charlie and kill him because we learn to be the jungle and you guy will remain a tourist who shoots at trees and hopes the helicopter will pick him up before dark.
Parker swung. McNamera jumped forward. Hackworth barked. Stand down. The American sergeant lowered his fist, turned and left, but the air remained thick with the unsaid. The captain approached Smith. Wanted to say something, but the Australian shook his head. No need, sir. I understand. It hurts you to admit that we do your job better.
It hurt us too when the British told us the same thing in Malaya. The difference is that we listened and you didn’t. McNamera clenched his teeth. We’re listening. Smith smirked. No, sir. You’re writing it down. Listening means changing. And you’ll return to your base, write a report, and in a month everything will be as before. Because the Pentagon doesn’t want to change doctrine.
It’s easier for them to write off our successes as luck or that we’re fighting where you’re not. Hackworth flew out the next morning, taking with him a notebook full of notes, photographs, numbers, and conclusions. His report, quote, 12 landed on the desk of the commander of forces in Saigon, General William West Morland in August 1967.
The general read called Hackworth for a personal meeting and said briefly, “Lieutenant Colonel, your report is interesting, but inapplicable. We can’t send our soldiers on 10-day patrols without communication and support. It contradicts our entire strategy. The Australians operate effectively because there are few of them. They’re elite. We’re fighting with a mass army.
We need methods that work for hundreds of thousands of soldiers, not for hundreds. Hackworth tried to object. Sir, it’s not about mass application. It’s about creating units that can operate according to the Australian model. The general shook his head. We have Green Beretss. We have Rangers. We have LRRP. That’s enough.
Send the report to the archives. Discussion closed. The Pentagon’s decision made on that August day cost the American army thousands of lives and decades of senseless losses in the jungles of Asia. McNamera learned the fate of the report a month later when he met with Hackworth in Saigon. The lieutenant colonel was grim, drinking whiskey and repeating the same thing. They don’t want to listen, Jim.
They don’t want to change. It’s easier for them to believe that the problem is with the soldiers, not with the system. The captain asked, “What now?” Hackworth finished his glass. Now we continue to fight as we fight and continue to lose. Hey damn and the Australians will fight as they fight and will win.
And in 20 years someone will write a book about how we knew the right way but didn’t take it. McNamera was silent. He didn’t know what to say. His platoon had lost three more fighters in the last month. The Australians in the same period destroyed 43 enemies without losses. The numbers spoke for themselves but the system refused to hear them.
The incident that would later be called quote 14, occurred in November 1967, 4 months after McNamera’s first meeting with the Australians. The captain received an order to conduct a joint operation with an SAS patrol in the Binba village area where intelligence had detected a large concentration of Vietkong. The plan was simple.
Americans block approaches from the north and east. Australians enter from the south and west. The enemy ends up in a cauldron. Magnamera insisted on his version. His platoon moves out at 060 0, takes positions by 10 in the morning, Australians pull up by noon, strike is delivered after artillery preparation. Lieutenant Badco listened and said calmly, “Captain, with such a plan, you’ll lose half your men.
” Charlie will hear the artillery. Leave through tunnels and you’ll be shooting at an empty forest. Give us 24 hours, we’ll enter quietly, find the tunnels, block the exits. After that, you do what you want.” The proposal sounded like an insult to Magnamera. You want my men to sit and wait while you do the work? Badco shrugged.
I want your men to stay alive. But if that’s more important to you than results, act according to your plan. The captain felt blood pounding in his temples, but restrained himself. All right, Lieutenant. We’ll do it your way. But if something goes wrong, the responsibility is on you. The Australian nodded. Agreed.
McNamera turned and left. And his sergeant, that same Parker who had made a scene a month ago, said after him, “These clowns think they’re smarter than everyone.” The captain stopped, turned, and said quietly but firmly, “Sergeant, shut your mouth. They are smarter. At least in this.” Parker fell silent, but his gaze was full of resentment.
Resentment toward those who proved that American superiority wasn’t absolute. The operation began at dawn. The Australian patrol, 12 men under Badco’s command, went out on mission at 0400 and disappeared into the jungle. McNamera’s American platoon, 38 fighters, moved along a pre-planned route, maintaining radio contact with base and counting on artillery support in case of contact.
By 9 in the morning, they reached the northern edge of the operation zone, took positions, and began waiting for signal from the Australians. An hour passed, two passed, three passed, the radio was silent. Magnamera was nervous. Lieutenant Badco had promised to make contact by noon, but it was already 1300 hours and no news. The captain contacted base.
Any contact with the Australians? The radio operator answered, “Negative, sir. Radio silence.” Magnamera cursed through his teeth. Damn self assured bastards think they can ignore coordination. At 1332, Magnamera’s platoon heard a burst of automatic fire from the south, then a second, then a grenade explosion.
The captain shouted into the radio, “Base contact in grid square echo whiskey 5. Requesting data.” The radio operator answered 10 seconds later. Sir, Australians report. Enemy detected. Tunnels blocked. Clearing beginning. Recommend your platoon remain in positions. Possible Vietkong exit to the north.
Magnamera switched to the Australian channel. Lieutenant, report situation. In response came Badco’s voice. Calm. Without a trace of panic. Captain, we’re in contact. Enemy in tunnels blocking exits. No casualties. Hold positions. The American wanted to object, but the connection broke off. The Australians again went into radio silence.
The next two hours, the American platoon spent in immobility, listening as single shots, explosions, screams came from the south. Magnamera boiled with helplessness. His men sat in bushes while the Australians fought. This was humiliating, wrong, contradicted everything he’d been taught. Sergeant Parker crawled to the captain and whispered, “Sir, maybe we should move out.” McNamera shook his head.
Order is hold positions. But inside he thought the same thing. To hell with orders. To hell with Australians. We must act. He was already preparing to give the command to move when figures appeared from the thickets 50 meters ahead. Three Vietnamese running straight at American positions. The captain froze.
The enemy didn’t see them. Was escaping from the Australians. Running blindly. This was an ideal moment for ambush. The American platoon opened fire. Three short bursts. All three Vietnamese fell. Contact completed in 5 seconds. McNamera exhaled with relief. Finally, at least some action.
But a minute later, five more jumped out from the thickets on the right, then seven on the left, then a group of 10 people from behind. The Vietkong was exiting tunnels from all sides, and the Americans found themselves in the center. The captain yelled into the radio, “Base, need support. We’re surrounded.” The radio operator answered, “Sir, artillery on the way. Hold on.
” The platoon took cover, opened fire in all directions, but the enemy was everywhere. In bushes, behind trees, in tall grass, bullets whistled overhead. Grenades exploded 10 meters away. Someone from the Americans screamed from a wound. McNamera understood. They’d fallen into the trap that the Australians had predicted. The Vietkong didn’t run north by accident.
They were pushed there, driven, directed straight at American positions. SAS used Magnamera’s platoon as an anvil against which the hammer would break. The tragedy that could have been avoided unfolded before the captain’s eyes with cruel inevitability, and it was already impossible to stop.
The battle lasted 8 minutes, but it seemed like an eternity had passed. The Americans lost five killed, 11 wounded, expended half their ammunition, and held out only because artillery began covering nearby squares, cutting off the Vietkong from reinforcements. When the shooting died down, McNamera raised his head and saw Lieutenant Badco emerging from the jungle from the south.
The Australian was covered in dirt and blood, but walked steadily without haste. Behind him moved the other 11 fighters of the patrol. Badco approached the captain, looked at the wounded, at the bodies, at the scattered equipment, and said quietly, “You opened fire ahead of time?” Magnamera felt anger flare inside.
“Ahead of time? I have five dead, Lieutenant. What the hell were you silent on the radio for?” The answer sounded so calm that the captain went cold. Because we were leading the enemy to you, sir. If you hadn’t shot, the Vietkong would have passed by. We would have finished him off from the rear, and your platoon would have remained intact.
Magnamera opened his mouth, but found no words. Badco continued, “We blocked the tunnels, destroyed 32 enemies underground, pushed the rest north. Your task was to let them pass, not engage in contact, hold positions. You didn’t complete the task because you couldn’t wait. Result: Five of yours dead, 11 wounded. Operation half failed.
The Australians lost one wounded, shrapnel in the shoulder, nothing serious. The captain felt the ground disappearing from under his feet. They had warned, they had explained, they had given a plan that guaranteed success. But American pride, American impatience, American confidence that shooting is always better than waiting destroyed everything.
That evening, when the wounded were evacuated and the bodies of the killed were covered with tent sheets, McNamera sat in the headquarters tent and stared into emptiness. Badco entered, put a map with marks on the table, and said, “Captain, I’m sorry about your men. They fought well, but they were let down by a system that teaches to act, not to think.” McNamera raised his eyes.
“Are you accusing me?” The Australian shook his head. “I’m stating a fact. You acted as you were taught. The problem is that you were taught wrong.” The American clenched his fists. Then teach me. Badco smirked. I tried, sir, but you didn’t listen. Listening means changing. Are you ready to change? 3 days later, the captain wrote a report on the joint operation and sent it to headquarters with an attachment, personal apology, to the personnel of the Australian SAS for failure to execute the plan and loss of control over the situation. This
document caused a scandal. Command demanded explanations why an American officer was apologizing to allies for actions in combat. McNamera answered briefly, “Because they were right and we were wrong. Because five of my men are dead because of my stubbornness. because the Australians fight better than us and it’s time to admit it.
The report went into the captain’s personal file. His career stalled, but he didn’t regret it. Six months later, he was transferred to headquarters where he became one of the main proponents of implementing Australian methods in the American army unsuccessfully. Sergeant Parker, the one who called the Australians clowns, left the 32nd after being wounded and returned to the States.
Two years later, at a veterans meeting, he met Magnamera and said in a drunk voice, “You know, Captain, I still see those faces. Not the Charlie I killed, but those five of ours who were dead because I didn’t believe those Australian bastards. They were right. We were the clowns.” Magnamera was silent. He knew there was nothing to say.
Parker finished his glass and left and 3 months later took his own life, hanged himself in the garage of his own house. The suicide note contained one phrase, “Forgive me guys, I didn’t listen.” Lieutenant Colonel Hackworth, after his report was rejected, continued to fight, write books, criticize the Pentagon. In 1971, he retired and moved to Australia where he consulted SAS on urban warfare tactics.
In one interview, he said, “I saw how America’s best soldiers fight and then I saw how Australians fight. The difference is that ours come to the jungle as tourists and they as masters. We believe that technology will replace skill. They know that skill makes technology unnecessary.” In 1992, two months before his death, Hackworth wrote a letter to US Special Forces Command with a request to study the experience of Australian SAS and implement their methods in training.
The letter remained unanswered. Each of these men became a witness to the same truth that the American Army would refuse to recognize for another 30 years. Lieutenant Peter Badco returned to Australia in 1969, received the rank of major and taught jungle warfare tactics at the SAS school. His students later served in Afghanistan, Iraq, East Teeour, and everywhere their methods were based on the same principles: invisibility, patience, cruelty.
In 2007, when American Green Beretss underwent training in Australia, Badco met with one of the instructors and heard the question, “Major, is it true you fought alongside Americans in Vietnam?” Badco nodded. The instructor continued, “And is it true that one of their captains apologized to you?” The Australian smirked, “Not to me, to my men.
He understood that we were right, but understood too late.” The instructor asked, “And us? Have we understood?” Badco looked at a group of American special forces training on the range and answered some. The rest will understand when it’s too late. Sergeant Harry Smith, Maung, ghost of the jungle, retired in 1971 and settled in northern Australia in an Aboriginal village where his teacher Billy Griffiths lived his last years.
Smith didn’t give interviews, didn’t write memoirs, didn’t appear at veterans meetings. He simply lived, hunted, taught young people to read tracks and remember that the jungle is not an enemy, but a home that must be respected. In 1998, a journalist from Sydney found him and asked, “Sergeant, you killed 143 people in Vietnam.
How do you live with that?” Smith looked at him for a long time, then said, “I live because they’re dead. It was war. They wanted to kill me and my brothers. I didn’t let them.” The journalist asked, “Do you regret it?” Smith shook his head. I only regret those who could have stayed alive if the Americans had listened to us from the beginning.
Today, more than 50 years after the end of the Vietnam War, the American Army has finally implemented many of the methods that Australian SAS used in ‘ 67. Long patrols without radio contact, refusal of chemical hygiene products on operations, training and silent movement, work with local trackers, psychological warfare through demonstration of corpses.
All this became part of the doctrine of Delta Seal Team 6 Rangers. But the price of this training, 58,220 American lives lost in Vietnam, thousands wounded, tens of thousands of broken destinies. The Australians lost 521 people killed in that war with a significantly smaller contingent and achieved an efficiency coefficient that the Americans couldn’t repeat even after half a century.
The difference was not in courage, not in weapons, not in equipment. The difference was in willingness to learn, change, admit mistakes. Captain James McNamera left the army in 1973 with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Though he could have served to colonel if not for that apology report, he worked as a consultant on special forces tactics issues, wrote articles, spoke at conferences.
In 2003, when the Iraq war began, he was invited to the Pentagon to discuss counterinsurgency strategy. McNamera proposed studying the experience of Australian SAS, implementing long patrols, abandoning massive raids in favor of pinpoint operations. His proposals were rejected. We have a different war, different enemy, different conditions.
The lieutenant colonel left the meeting and a week later published an article in a military journal under the headline, “We’re not listening again.” The article caused a scandal. He was accused of unpatriotism, but the numbers spoke for themselves. In the first three years of the Iraq War, Americans lost more than 3,000 soldiers.
The Australian contingent, operating by the same methods as in Vietnam, lost one. History repeated itself with frightening accuracy, as if no one had learned lessons from the past. The story of the jungle clowns is a story about how pride kills more effectively than bullets. The Australians came to Vietnam not as liberators, not as heroes, not as bearers of democracy.
They came as hunters who knew that the jungle was their enemy’s home. And to win, one must become part of that home. The Americans came as conquerors who believed that technology and firepower would solve everything. The result is known. Vietnam was lost by those who shot more and won by those who shot more accurately.
The Australians left that war with the reputation of the world’s best jungle soldiers. The Americans left with the stigma of defeat that still hurts. Today at Australian SAS headquarters in Perth hangs a photograph. 12 men in dirty uniforms with cut boots standing against a jungle background.
This is Lieutenant Badco’s patrol, the very one that met Captain McNamera in July 67. Under the photograph is an inscription, quote 24. In Pentagon archives is stored Lieutenant Colonel Hackworth’s report marked with the stamp reviewed do not apply. In Captain McNamera’s personal file lies the apology report. the only case in US Army history when an officer publicly acknowledged the superiority of allies.
All these documents are evidence of the same thing that war is won not by weapons but by the ability to use them. Not by strength but by mind, not by pride, but by willingness to learn. The methods that Australian SAS used in Vietnam became the standard for elite units around the world only in the 2000s, 35 years after the war ended. The price of this delay, tens of thousands of lives, hundreds of failed operations, billions of dollars spent on technologies that didn’t replace skill.
The Vietkong called the Australians Maung not for cruelty, not for bravery, but because they were invisible, inaudible, inevitable. The Americans were called simply noisy, predictable, vulnerable. The difference in these definitions is the difference between victory and defeat.
And this difference cost America the war. and five soldiers from Captain McNamera’s platoon. Lives that could have been saved with one word. Listen.
