Red School: Recruit to Guerilla

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363-04765.pdf
Digital Object Identifier
363-04765
Title
Red School: Recruit to Guerilla
Description
Article published in the New York Herald Tribune about a defector recounting Việt Cộng recruitment and training, page unknown
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Draft transcripts were automatically generated via Google Document AI and are currently under review. Please report significant errors to Archives & Special Collections at archives@unl.edu.
Transcript
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- Page 1
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NEWS PERSPECTIVE
[Jan 31, 1966.
Red School: Recruit to Guerrilla
By Beverly Deepe
A Special Correspondent
SAIGON.
A defector from one of sev-
en regular Viet Cong battal-
ions now surrounding Saigon
said he was told by Commu-
nist recruiters "when we win
the war you will become mas-
ter of the country."
The defector, one of some
4,000 trained Red troops on
the outskirts of the capital city
complex, described his
cruitment, training and life
with the organized guerrillas
to this reporter.
re-
He said the commander and
the deputy commander of his
unit the 6th Battalion, oper-
ating on the outskirts of Sai-
gon-were native-born South
Vietnamese, but had gone to
North Viet Nam when the
country was divided by the
Geneva Convention in 1954.
The political commissar of
the unit "is a new man that
has just come in from North
Viet Nam-and is North Viet-
namese by birth," the defector
said. He said 90 per cent of the
troops in his unit had been
recruited from their local vil-
lages outside of Saigon-and
that recruitment had been ac-
celerated since the February
air strikes against North Viet
Nam.
PERSUASION
The defector said the Viet
Cong recruiting agents-
called propaganda and prose-
lytizing cadres-told him that
if he joined "the puppet gov-
ernment forces" he would have
to kill his friends and relatives
in other villages and that since political training- including
he had little education "he some cultural training like
would have little future with teaching the illiterate to read.
the government and American Only 20 per cent of the train-
forces."
ing dealt with guerrilla war-
"If you join the Viet Cong fare, which included how to
you don't have to kill innocent
people and your future will be
very bright," the defector said
he was told by the recruiting
agents.
The defector said he had
received 11 months of training
with the Viet Cong before he
became a full-time guerrilla.
"The first three months we
studied in villages around
Saigon," he said. "About 80
per cent of the study was
lay booby traps and spikes
and how to shoot pistols and
rifles."
He said the trainees were
given four months of "district
level" training farther from
Saigon, where 60 per cent of
the instruction dealt with po-
litical-cultural subjects, in-
cluding how to make Viet
Cong propaganda and how to
become friends with the local
At the district level the
trainees spent about 40 per
cent of their instruction time
on military training, involving
more sophisticated weapons,
such as .30-caliber machine
guns and automatic rifles.
They also were taught how to
camouflage themselves.
The trainees were then sent
for four more months of "zone-
level" instruction, the highest
and most sophisticated in-
struction. About 60 per cent
of their time was devoted to
military instruction, while
only 40 per cent dealt with
political subjects.
On the political side, they
were taught the policies of the
National Liberation Front for
South Viet Nam (the political
backbone of the Viet Cong
guerrillas-which is dom-
inated and directed by the
Communist People's Revolu-
tionary party).
During his military instruc-
tion, the defector said that he
was taught five main tactics:
How to concentrate human
power and fire power to at-
tack fixed positions or moving
convoys with high intensity.
How to defend adequately
their home bases, plus how to
retreat from government at-
tacks.
How to attack armored
vehicles, and how to use re-
coilless rifles, grenades and
"elephant traps" to defeat
armored convoys.
How to chop up an in-
fantry column or convoy and
smash one segment of the
selected unit of the column
and annihilate it.
How to conduct close
hand-to-hand combat, using
rifle butts and bayonets.
CANOPY
The defector said the train-
ing was held in the Viet Cong
jungle strongholds in Tay
Ninh Province bordering Cam-
bodia under three layers of
canopy. He said that the
training courses started at
5:40 a. m. and lasted until 4
p. m. When the training was
finished, the trainees walked
through the Viet Cong strong-
hold of D-Zone, where they
received weapons and ammu-
nition, and then they broke
up in small units and walked
to Binh Chanh district, which
lay south of Saigon and
Cholon on the outskirts of the
city.
During their march to Binh
Chanh, the defector said, the
upit moved during the day in
the thick jungle, but moved at
night through areas contain-
ing government outposts.
"Every time we stopped, we
had to dig foxholes," he said.
"Most of these stops were
made two to three kilometers
from villages. Even if we were
near our home village, we
could not go to see our rela-
tives. We were forbidden even
to talk with our wives."
Date
1966, Jan. 31
Subject
Mặt trận dân tộc giải phóng miền nam Việt Nam; Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, Vietnamese; Recruiting and enlistment; Defectors
Location
Saigon, South Vietnam
Coordinates
10.8231; 106.6311
Container
B4, F6
Format
newspaper clippings
Collection Number
MS 363
Collection Title
Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
Creator
Keever, Beverly Deepe
Copyright Information
These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
Publisher
Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
Language
English