Duc Pho District was the end of the line. By 1967 it had been cut off for years from its provincial capital, Quang Ngai, 60 kilometers to the north in what was then South Vietnam. The district had a reputation for resistance and had been the center of efforts against the Japanese in World War II. After the war it became a hard-core area of the Viet Minh rebellion against the reinstalled French. Pham Van Dong, Ho Chi Minh's right-hand man, had been born there. This was well known to the Vietnamese, but to few Americans.

My boss at the time, a man named May, was the provincial representative of Civilian Operations Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS). (Ironic title that: Were we supporting a revolution?) May, dubbed 'King Kamayamaya' after the 18th-century 'Hawaiian Napoleon' Kamehameha because of his ego, had decided to reorganize his staff. Instead of specializing in one area of concern for the whole province, such as agriculture or refugees, a number of us were now selected to handle all civilian matters for a specific district. I got Duc Pho.

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A short helicopter ride from Quang Ngai city left me in the dusty little district capital. It was a hot, sunny April morning. Just a few kilometers away, Task Force Oregon — later designated the 23rd Infantry (Americal) Division — was gearing up for a full-scale push.

Duc Pho lay astride Route 1, Vietnam's only north-south highway. The road ran parallel and close to the coast. Outside the town, in either direction, the narrow two-lane road was mine-scarred, usable in sections and then only during the day. Duc Pho was one of those impassable spaces on the route that, in theory, connected Saigon with the rest of the country. Every bridge, a good baker's dozen, had been blown many times over. As soon as one was repaired the VC destroyed it again. Repair efforts had long since been given up, and the only way in and out was by air.

TF Oregon was sent to change all this. A huge airstrip, called Montezuma, had been swiftly built near the coast, just over the rolling hills a few kilometers northeast of the town. When I arrived a cemetery was being dug up to extend the strip — not a good omen, as the Vietnamese have a profound reverence for ancestral graves.

The next several months would see an all-out effort to open Route 1 and keep it open. This meant massive search-and-destroy operations to eradicate the Viet Cong. It also meant the destruction of every home outside the town and the forcible removal of every family to the district capital.

To govern a dangerous district like Duc Pho, Saigon assigned a military officer, usually a captain who had no friends high up or whose wife hadn't lost the requisite amount playing mah-jongg with his superior's wife — the accepted way to gain a lucrative post. My counterpart, the district chief Captain Bai, was a diminutive, fit, energetic man in his early 30s. His MACV adviser, and my senior in the combined CORDS/MACV setup, was a Captain Carlton, a slight, bespectacled Midwesterner. Despite his nonmartial appearance, Carlton was one of the best officers I met in Vietnam.

Oddly enough, another of my duties (though Carlton was better qualified) was to be Bai's liaison to the 'Free World Forces,' the euphemism for the predominantly American military presence with token contingents from other countries. Right away I hit a rut when Bai, wanting to welcome TF Oregon's commander, was refused entry to Camp Montezuma and the Oregon base. Efforts by Captain Carlton and myself finally gained Bai access to the airfield provided that one of us accompanied him, but he was never permitted to enter the TF Oregon compound. The task force was not about to show anything to any Vietnamese regardless of his position — this despite the Vietnamese and U.S. flags flying side by side in front of the command post. Captain Bai did not forget that affront, and relations became strained.

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