Postcard from Vietnamese Marine Training at Quantico

Given the Presidential Inauguration this week, it seems an appropriate time to share this postcard.

It was sent on January 10, 1965 by a Vietnamese Marine, Major Minh, training at Quantico, Virginia. The machine postmark reads, "Marine Corps Schools, VA."

The recipient was a Warrant Officer in the Vietnamese 1st Marine Battalion, headquartered in Saigon. A receiving cancel in Vietnam marks a transit time of eight days.

General Le Minh Dao

The two covers illustrated with this post bookend the military career of Le Minh Dao, the South Vietnamese General who is perhaps best known for leading the ARVN 18th Division during the waning days of the Republic of Vietnam.

The first cover takes us back to February 1956, when Le Minh Dao was stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia for military training. It was sent home to his family and the enclosed letter mentions his recent visit to Washington DC during Tet. He writes that he is attending school regularly and expects to be home in June.


After a long and decorated military career, Le Minh Dao was captured after the at the Battle of Xuan Loc by PAVN forces and was sentenced to live the next 17 years in re-education camps where he became weak and nearly blind from malnutrition.

The second cover was sent from Le Minh Dao from a re-education camp in Ha Son Binh province in April 1982. When he was finally released, he received political asylum in the United States where he lives today.

White Star Mobile Training Team

This roughly opened cover is quite a find, in my opinion. It is addressed from Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) Laos that was formed April 24, 1961 pursuant to an agreement among United States, Cambodia, France, Laos, and Vietnam for mutual defense assistance in Indochina. MAAG Laos was abolished October 1962 in compliance with the Geneva Accords requirement for removal of all foreign military forces from Laos, with the exception of French forces (the MMFI). This cover is dated November 3, 1961.

Even better, the cover was sent by a White Star Mobile Training Team (WSMTT). White Star was the US Army Special Forces program to recruit native Hmong to fight against the Pathet Lao and later to support covert Air America operations. White Star Units were attached to or worked with a unit of regimental or smaller units of the Forces Armee du Royaume (FAR) or Royal Laotian Army.

The cover is addressed home to Fort Bragg where the White Star units were trained.

Laos MMFI cover

This cover, sent from Laos to France in early 1966 has a return address of 'MMFI'. The Mission Militaire Francaise d'Instruction assisted American Special Forces training Hmong troops in Laos and later flew them to the Vietnam border for fighting. The MMFI reportedly left Laos in 1962, but I noted accounts of MMFI operating between between 1964 and 1975, so the hiatus was apparently a short one.

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Philippe Drillien responded to this post based on his personal experiences with the MMFI:

According to the Genova agreements in 1962, France was the only foreign country allowed to have soldiers in Laos. The aim of these soldiers (MMFI) was to help the Laotion Government in instructing the Laotian soldiers.

When I arrived in Laos, in 1969, the MMFI was still operating in Laos. If I remember well, only 6 French military instructors helped instruct the Laotians: one (or two) in Paksé, two or (three) in Luang Prabang; the remaining were teaching French and mathematics in the military Chinaimo school (near Vientiane).

Besides these six instructors, the MMFI included at least 30 or 40 other military personnel because the MMFI ruled a Bureau Postal Militaire (BPM), a hospital for the French living in Laos, a mini supermarket and even a place for movies. This mission was housed in Wat Tay (close to the airport).

In 1975, the MMFI was asked to close by the Laotian Government. To the best of my memory, the communique that has been published stated, "The situation has changed; the MMFI does not correspond to the new situation. Laotian and French Governments agree to make an end to the mission. The end of the mission does not alter in any way the excellent relationships between the two countries."

The mission definitively closed in October 1975 (I shall try to find the exact date in my archives). The same day, Soviet people (civilian? militarians? KGB? I do not know) entered Wat Tay (ex-French campus) and replaced the MMFI. The merchandise of the mini-supermarket was sold within a few days to the members of the different Embassies. I remember that I met there, for the first time, the American "Charge de Mission" as there was no longer a US Ambassador.

Naval Officer Training Center in Rhode Island

Selected officer candidates in the Vietnamese Navy attended the Naval Officer Training Center in Rhode Island. This cover was sent in 1973.

A typical training program went like this: Quang Trung Training Center for basic training. If you tested high for English aptitude, you were sent to the Boat School in Saigon where you were taught English by U.S. Navy and civilian contractors. Some Finns even taught English here. Students were housed in two large ships anchored in the Saigon River in front of the Vietnamese Naval Headquarters. Those who did well at Boat School went on to train as officers. During the "Vietnamization" period, the high number of candidates resulted in some being trained in Australia.

VNNOC = "Vietnam Navy Officer Candidate"
IOCS = "International Officer Candidate School"

Thanks to Vinh Nguyen for this information.

South Vietnam Military Postal Rates in 1972

This cover has several aspects that set it apart from typical ARVN training covers of the period.

It was sent by a soldier training at the Thu Duc Infantry School (KBC 4100) in 1972 on a piece of United Nations stationery. He was in the 5th class of 1972 (Khoa 5/72). I am guessing that TBTX is an abbreviation for "Tham Bao Thien Xa" or Recon Unit Sharpshooter. Tell me if you think I am completely off the mark.

Despite the western (or at least American) style lines in the upper left corner for a return address, the sender created a triangle in the lower left corner typical of Vietnamese military correspondence.

The stamp, a coil version of the King Quang Trung stamp (Scott 411a) pays a 6d rate from a military personnel to a civilian address. A Quan Buu machine postmark cancels the stamp.


The sender wanted to make sure the return correspondence was properly addressed, so inside he drew up what the envelope should look like, including the addition of 10d postage.

Based on this cover, postage rates in August 1972 were 6d from military personnel and 10d sent to military personnel. The 10d rate is common, but I don't recall seeing a 6d rate. I need to dig through my covers to see if I have others I have forgotten about. Or of course the sender might have just gotten away with using a cheaper stamp.

Very Early BDQ (Ranger) Cover

The South Vietnamese Ranger organization (Biet Dong Quan) was officially formed in July 1960. The depicted cover is the earliest Biet Dong Quan cover known to me. It was sent on Sept 21st, 1960 to a sergeant on the training staff of the Ranger Training Center (Huan Luyen) in Dong De, Nha Trang.

The Thu Duc registry label and clear postmark make this a nice cover from a philatelic standpoint as well.

USARPACINTS

USARPACINTS stands for United States Army Pacific Intelligence School, which was located in Okinawa and serviced by APO 331. Below are two covers, one sent to a Vietnamese Lieutenant training at the school, the other from a Vietnamese Lieutenant to Saigon.



Below are two citations that comprise the extent of the information I have been able to locate online about the school.

One unique feature of the Pacific theater was the existence of the U.S. Army Intelligence School, Pacific. Unlike other Army intelligence training facilities overseas, the Pacific intelligence school, set up on Okinawa in 1958, trained foreigners, not Americans. The students from seven different countries bordering the Pacific basin took courses in combat intelligence and counterintelligence techniques until the reversion of Okinawa to Japanese sovereignty brought operations to a halt in 1975.
http://www.army.mil/CMH/books/Lineage/mi/ch8.htm

More tantalizing are the following excerpts that school was linked to "Project X" and potentially the Phoenix program.

Until the early 1980s, the U.S. military ran an intelligence training program in Latin America and elsewhere using manuals that taught foreign officers to offer bounties for captured or killed insurgents, spy on nonviolent political opponents, kidnap rebels' family members and blackmail unwanted informants, according to recently declassified Army and Defense Department documents.

The manuals, known as Project X, were written by U.S. Army experts starting in 1965 for use by the U.S.-funded Joint Foreign Intelligence Assistance Program. Portrayed by the Army as instructional materials to help friendly governments fight Cuban- and Soviet-inspired rebels in Latin America, the manuals were "in fact a guide for the conduct of clandestine operations" against domestic political adversaries including peaceful ones, according to a panel of Army experts that later reviewed some of the material.

Army officials were unable to provide details about the intelligence assistance program, such as the date it ended or the countries where it operated. It's also impossible to tell how the use of the training manuals may have influenced the actions of foreign militaries.

The intelligence assistance program was first used in 1965 to train Vietnamese and other foreign nationals at the then-U.S. Army Pacific Intelligence School on Okinawa, Japan, and also operated in Iran in the late 1970s, according to the records.

"This school is in an excellent position to meet requests for intelligence training submitted by" military advisers and attaches in "the Pacific and Southeast Asia area," a 1965 informational brochure on the program states.

One counterintelligence official told Army officials in 1991 that she believed the program might be linked to the Phoenix program, a U.S. military and CIA undertaking that resulted in the assassinations of thousands of South Vietnamese suspected of disloyalty. Some of the Project X materials appeared to be the same as the Phoenix lessons, and the Army intelligence school was teaching a course on the Phoenix program at the same time that the Project X manuals were being written, she noted.

During the mid-1970s, after the intelligence school moved to Fort Huachuca, Ariz., the school "began exporting, on request, Project X material to MAAGs, MILGROUPS, defense attaches, and other U.S. military agencies participating in the U.S. advisory-training effort in friendly foreign countries," according to a short history of the program prepared in 1991.

The program's history is difficult to trace in part because Defense Department intelligence oversight officials, after seeing what the manuals contained in 1991, ordered that the original documentation be destroyed. The ostensible reason was so the materials could never be used again.
http://www.soaw.org/new/newswire_detail.php?id=996

ARVN Photo Postcard

The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) issued a number of different postcards for use by troops. Many had civilian scenes, such as women buying fruit at a market on the picture side. The reverse typically had a military insignia or printed KBC number.

This postcard has a distinctly military theme with text reading, "Practice well, study well to build strong armed forces." It was sent from KBC 4918, the military boot camp in Nha Trang. According to the contents, the sender was drafted on 22 May 1965, at age 30. He received a stipend for the difference in pay between his regular job as his duty as a Private in the Army.