The Privileges of War? A Green Beret’s Story of American Service in Vietnam

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In 1968, Tom Ross was the intelligence and operations officer of a unique Special Forces detachment in the Republic of South Vietnam, the Elite Unit, also known as the Green Berets. In 2004, Tom brought a unique perspective to the view of American service during the Vietnam War with his book, Privileges of War: A Good Story of American Service in Vietnam. Today, Tom is the president and CEO of his own successful custom design jewelry firm, The Ross Jewelry Company, in Atlanta, Georgia. Here’s Tom with his Vietnam story.

My name is Tom Ross, and the American Story you’re about to hear is one of courage and selflessness, traits that Americans demonstrate with great ease when others are in danger or need of help. I’m almost 75 years old now, and the events I’m about to share with you took place more than 50 years ago, but I remember them as if it were yesterday. I’m always pleased to know that women, family members, and friends of a veteran might be in the audience. This is because in many cases, those closest to our veterans have absolutely no idea what they may have done or experienced. And that’s simply because veterans often don’t talk about their experiences. Well, I’m here to tell you about a few of them and what they did. And to all the female listeners, what you’ll hear aren’t war stories. While they occurred during a war, they’re stories that I hope will touch you. They’re not what you typically hear about those who served in Vietnam. So welcome to everyone.

I’ll start with a bit of background. I was raised in Pensacola, Florida, home of the Navy’s flight demonstration team, the Blue Angels. I used to watch them train out over the Gulf of Mexico while I fished from the Pensacola Beach Pier. They were magnificent and inspiring, so it was easy for me to grow up a patriot, and my parents had certainly done their part by getting me started in scouting. I’d been a Cub Scout and a Boy Scout, where I earned the rank of Eagle Scout. My parents, on me, also made sure I was in church every Sunday, where I served as an altar boy and a choir boy. So I’ve always thought of myself as having been an all-American kid, no one special, but someone who loved the country where he was growing up.

I volunteered for service in 1966 after watching a news report one evening while waiting to have dinner at my mom and dad’s home in Pensacola. As with many news reports in the sixties, the evening news often began with a report on action in Vietnam. I watched as two young American Marines struggled to drag another wounded Marine out of the line of fire. You could hear bullets pinging all around them. As I watched, something very strange happened to me that evening. I was suddenly struck, as if hit by a bolt of lightning or drenched by a bucket of ice water. Maybe it was just a feeling of guilt. Whatever it was, I was immediately embarrassed that I wasn’t fighting alongside the young men I was watching. I could do was watch. I could do a thing to help. Only an evening or two before, I’d been at a fraternity-sorority party, laughing and dancing without a care in the world, but watching the struggle before me, and without fully understanding why, I suddenly felt compelled to join the service and go to Vietnam. So, skipping my college classes, the next morning, I was standing at the door when the U.S. Army recruiter arrived at his office. After enlisting, I applied for Officer Candidate School and was accepted. Just before graduating from OCS as a second lieutenant, I applied to the U.S. Army’s Special Forces, the Elite Unit also known as the Green Berets. I thought that if I were going to Vietnam, I should probably get myself as well trained as I could if I were going to survive the experience. Then, after more than a year of intense unconventional warfare training at the home of Special Forces in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, I finally received orders sending me to Vietnam.

I arrived in-country during the infamous Tet Offensive of 1968. During a New Year’s truce, the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong launched a surprise attack on nearly every major city in South Vietnam. Nha Trang, where I was arriving, happened to be one of them, so my tour of duty began with a bang, and it never got dull. I’d just been picked up at the helipad by driver who was to take me to the Fifth Special Forces Group Headquarters to draw my orders and equipment. The driver was winding his way through city streets where one of the recent battles had occurred, when suddenly, and out of nowhere, the street in front of us erupted in gunfire and explosions. The driver slammed on the brakes and we slid to an abrupt sideways stop. Dust boiled up around us, and we both jumped out of the jeep and took cover on the far side. Here I will remind you that we were on our way to draw my equipment, so at that moment I was unarmed and without a weapon. When I peeked up over the jeep to see what was happening in the street ahead, a troop truck was stopped in the center of the street and South Vietnamese soldiers were firing into a burned out building where enemy soldiers had been hiding. As bullets impacted around us, I thought, ‘This is crazy. I haven’t been here fifteen minutes, and I quite ready to be shot.’ I was still looking over the jeep when through a cloud of dust and smoke, I saw something else, a young American woman standing alone right in the middle of the action.

And you’re listening to Tom Ross, a Vietnam Special Forces vet, on the Privileges of War. More of his story here on Our American Stories. Lee Habib here, the host of Our American Stories. Every day on this show, we’re bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories from our big cities and small towns. But we truly can’t do the show without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but they’re not free to make. If you love what you hear, go to OurAmericanStories.com and click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot. Go to OurAmericanStories.com and give. And we continue here on Our American Stories with Tom Ross’s story. Let’s pick up when we last left off.

I was still looking over the jeep when, through a cloud of dust and smoke, I saw something else, a young American woman standing alone, right in the middle of the action. She was behind the truck and she held a long lens camera. As gunfire ricocheted around her, she would occasionally lean out and snap pictures. As I watched her move around, I was amazed by her boldness and tenacity, but my thought was, ‘She’s going to get herself killed.’ Suddenly, there was an explosion after South Vietnamese fired a grenade into the building. Shortly, two enemy soldiers appeared in windows with their hands raised. With the battle ended, I walked over the young woman to check on her, and the driver followed me in the jeep.

‘You okay?’ I asked.
‘Yes, just fine,’ she said confidently.
‘Need a ride out of here?’ I asked.
‘What? No, I’m working. I’m a war correspondent. This is my job,’ she snapped. She was obviously a little annoyed with my question.
‘Okay, okay.’ Then I said, ‘We’ll be on our way.’
‘Take care of yourself,’ I said over her shoulder as she walked away.
‘Always do,’ she answered. But she hadn’t gone far when she stopped and turned around to face me. She smiled and said, ‘Thanks for stopping.’ Then she turned and rushed away to begin documenting the capture of the enemy soldiers.
‘Let’s go,’ I told the driver. ‘She certainly doesn’t need us.’

When I was finally dropped off at Fifth Special Forces Group Headquarters, I collected my equipment in orders. Our Special Forces medics were very well-trained. If necessary, they could perform in appendectomy. I watched one day as our senior medic performed a very complicated surgery that saved our cook’s life. And while they were also trained to use virtually every weapon on the battlefield, what our medics enjoyed most was going out into the local village to treat sick children. I always knew when they were going because they came around collecting goodies from back home to give the kids they treated. Those men were a very special breed.

Amidst all the war action in Vietnam, it might be surprising, but there were also warm, even tender moments in Vietnam, and many of those were provided by young, dedicated women who served in the American Red Cross. Many called them the Doughnut Dollies. I’d been in Vietnam for about three months, and all that time until this particular day, I was preparing a map for a mission. The next day, I began pouring a glass of iced tea and didn’t turn around when I heard someone say, ‘We’ll seat you next to Lieutenant Ross.’ But then I smelled perfume, so I turned to see who or what had been seated next to me. My teammates weren’t above playing pranks, but when I turned and saw who had been seated, my brain just quit working. Seated next to me was a very pretty young American woman. For a moment, I honestly thought it was a hallucination. She was so out of context. But then the hallucination spoke. She said, ‘It’s full.’ Not understanding what she was saying, I said, ‘Excuse me?’ to which replied, ‘Your tea glass, it’s full.’ Well, it was more than full. It had overflowed and tea was now running all over the table. I was immediately embarrassed, but my guest smiled, giggled, and said, ‘It’s okay, Lieutenant, this happens a lot.’ She helped me clean up my mess, and we finished lunch together, and I took her on a tour of camp. I introduced her to members of the team, and as I did, their faces lit up like a child on Christmas morning. The effect of the presence of these young women was amazing. They risked their lives visiting forward bases that could be fired upon by the enemy at any time. Their work of visiting and the entertaining American servicemen was meaningful, and they accomplished a great deal by simply being there, maybe more than they even know.

I didn’t volunteer to go to Vietnam to kill anyone. I simply believed that I was there to help a country in its fight for freedom. For me, it was as simple as that. In fact, the day before I left home for Vietnam, I told my mom and dad that I hoped I could accomplish something good, something meaningful, in a war. I wasn’t quite sure what that might be, or if doing something good was even possible, and as time passed, the idea of doing ‘something good’ had all but faded because I had also been exposed to the horrors of war. But then August 2nd of 1968 dawned. What began to happen on that day quickly turned into a very complicated situation. At about 11:00 in the morning on August 2nd, I received a radio call from one of our outposts. It was Me Loc Outpost, and they had called me to tell me that three enemy soldiers had turned themselves in. The senior adviser asked me to come as soon as possible. This was an unusual event. Having arrived in Vietnam in January, by August, I had become a seasoned adviser. So when I arrived at the outpost and saw them in, I immediately recognized that they weren’t enemy soldiers at all. Rather, they were Montagnard tribesmen, peaceful mountain dwellers who stayed pretty much to themselves and harmed no one.

When I asked questions through my Montagnard interpreter, A’at, the man who seemed to be the leader of the three told stories of terrible abuse by the enemy who had enslaved them. Mon Kwang was the man’s name, and he said that the villagers were used as crop growers and pack animals to carry military supplies. He also told sickening stories about the abuse of women and children, and he said that it had gone on for years. After some time, and now with tears in his eyes, Mon Kwang reached out and took one of my hands with both of his. Then, in his native language as A’at translated, he begged for help for his village. Is no way I can adequately express to you how his pleas and the desperation in his voice made me feel. I could only think of my own family in a situation like the one he had just described, and as if what he had told me wasn’t bad enough. Through A’at, but looking directly into my eyes as he spoke, Mon Kwang told me that if he didn’t return to the village with help by the next day, his wife and two young children would be killed. One of the other Montagnard men confirmed what Mon Kwang had said by saying the enemy had done that before. Based on what I’d already learned, the village was located deep within enemy territory, and attempting a rescue meant placing the lives of a rescue team at risk under unknown conditions. I also had to consider that this could be some type of elaborate trap. At the time I was pondering what I had just been asked to do, I was 22 years old. Still considering my response, I looked at the handful of American advisers who manned the outpost. I looked at the Special Forces patch on the shoulder of one, and I looked at the Special Forces crest on the Green Beret of another. The crest read “De Oppresso Liber,” Latin for ‘Free the Oppressed.’

And you’re listening to Tom Ross, Vietnam Special Forces vet, on the Privileges of War. When we come back, more of Tom Ross’s story here on Our American Stories. And we continue here on Our American Stories with Tom Ross’s story. He’s a Vietnam Special Forces vet, and he’s telling us the story of his life there. Let’s pick up where we last left off.

I looked at the Special Forces patch on the shoulder of one, and I looked at the Special Forces crest on the Green Beret of another. The crest read “De Oppresso Liber,” Latin for ‘Free the Oppressed.’ That was the Special Forces motto. As I thought, it occurred to me: this was a real chance for our team to actually live the motto, and it was an opportunity for me to do the ‘something good’ I’d hope to do. Ultimately, what every veteran listening would likely tell you is that if you’re wearing the uniform of an American serviceman or woman and you’re asked for help, there really isn’t a lot to consider. If you have the means, you provide the help. So I told A’at to tell Mon Kwang that we would give him the help for which he had come.

‘Yes, yes,’ was echoed multiple times around the inside of the bunker as my enthusiastic teammates voiced their feelings about my decision, and I was glad to hear that they felt as I did. Something listeners should know: as an American adviser, I didn’t command Tuta’s Vietnamese troops. I and the other advisers simply did just that: we advised him. So if I were to lead this mission, I would not only need Tuta’s troops, I would also need his permission. So as soon as we got back to Trung Dung, I went looking for Tuta. When I found him, it was about 2:00 in the afternoon and he was eating a late lunch in his quarters. He motioned me in when he saw me at the door and invited me to have lunch with him. But I told him I would be missing lunch that day. ‘There is something I do need, Tuta,’ I said. ‘I need about two companies of your best soldiers.’ Then I told him about the Montagnards and what I wanted to do for them. When I finished, his only question was, ‘Is this mission important to you, Trung úy?’ I assured him that it was, and I told him that it would give meaning to my service in his country. Tuta paused and there was a brief silence as he seemed to give some thought to my request. He put his chopsticks down across his rice bowl, wiped his mouth with a cloth and dropped it on the table. Then he turned to face me. ‘Trung úy,’ he said, ‘you can have whatever you need.’ Then he asked, ‘Will you command this mission?’ When I said, ‘Yes, I will,’ he surprised me by saying that he would come with me. With troops committed, the next thing I needed was a way to get them to the village. So, as I had many times before, I went to my radio and called the 281st. When I told the 281st Duty Officer, Lieutenant John Ware, that the mission was going to be a rescue effort to free families, rightly, he asked to know more. I told him everything I knew, and I was bluntly honest with him. I told him how little I knew about the area and how very dangerous the mission could become. It was a brief pause, and then he said, ‘Just tell me where you need us and at what time. We’ll be there.’

To alert the villagers what was happening, I had arranged for an Air Force speaker plane flown by Major Ken Moses to broadcast a pre-recorded tape of Mon Kwang in his own voice. The tape instructed the villagers to gather where our troops had landed. The message blared loudly as Major Moses made pass after pass over the jungle at treetop level and with the circling gunships. I feel reasonably certain that the Viet Cong soldiers guarding the village were more than a bit confused and intimidated. After all, they were in the middle of nowhere and had never been bothered as they used and abused the villagers. At the end of the day, when we assembled back at base camp, we had 82 men, women, and children. There were smiles on the faces of the villagers as well as the troops, pilots, and crews who had rescued them. However, the mood quickly changed when Mon Kwang went through the crowd looking for his wife and children and discovered they weren’t there. Because the villagers had been kept separated for years and many taken away, not even Mon Kwang knew how many were still in the area. All he was sure of was his family wasn’t there. He collapsed at my feet, sobbing. Emotionally moved by Mon Kwang’s obvious grief, I made a promise that I wasn’t sure I could keep. I knelt beside him and told A’at to translate, ‘We’re going back.’ I