Kit Carson Scouts - Origins of The Program

Origins of The Program

The Kit Carson Scout Program recruited Viet Cong defectors (Hồi Chánh Viên or Chiêu Hồi) to work as intelligence scouts with U.S. Marine infantry units. The concept of using soldiers and cadre who had previously fought on the enemy side in this way originated in late 1966 with the 5th Counterintelligence Team, which was responsible for counterintelligence tasks within the DaNang Chieu Hoi Center. Major General Nickerson, commanding the 1st Marine Division at the time, welcomed the idea and enthusiastically facilitated its development. The first six Kit Carson Scouts were placed in the field with the 1st and 9th Marine Regiments as part of a trial program in October, 1966.

Most early Kit Carson Scouts had defected as Hồi Chánh Viên because they suffered either from malaria or grave wounds beyond what could be medically treated with the rudimentary medical care available on the Viet Cong/NVA side. Those Chieu Hoi (Hồi Chánh Viên) who volunteered for selection and training as Kit Carson Scouts had, during their service with the enemy, little or no contact with anyone speaking English. Few had any knowledge at all of the English language, creating a communications challenge as they were deployed with American units. A further complication was that almost all Hồi Chánh Viên had a distrust of Vietnamese soldiers and interpreters because of the degree to which friendly forces had been infiltrated by enemy agents.

Less than a month after the first Kit Carsons were assigned to American combat units, a Staff Sergeant with 5th CIT (counterintelligence team) placed two additional former Viet Cong with the 7th Marine Regiment in Chu Lai. These two newest Kit Carson Scouts were for the first time paired with an American handler able to speak Vietnamese, U. S. Marine Pvt. Allen Sells, who had weeks earlier graduated with the first class trained at the Marine Corps Vietnamese language school at Camp Del Mar in Camp Pendleton. Sells had been in Vietnam ten days when he was made team leader and charged with the hands on development of combat tactics resulting in the best use of these Kit Carson Scouts.

Vo van Tam had been an assistant platoon commander with the 409th Sapper Battalion, while Huynh ngoc Chanh had been an assistant platoon commander with the 38th Local Force Battalion operating in Quang Ngai Province. During their years with the Viet Cong, these former enemy combatants had also spent months on end in combat training and indoctrination, largely in the mountainous areas of Kontum Province. The 409th Sapper Battalion, Tam's Viet Cong unit, came under the direct command of Military Region V, the top National Liberation Front military headquarters in the northern provinces of South Vietnam. The battalion was considered an elite, specialized organization. Tam had himself participated in one of its well known military successes, an attack on the key U.S. airstrip at Chu Lai. In this stealth operation, Tam and his sappers had slipped under the protective barbed wire and breached the defenses of the massive American base to attack jet aircraft parked on the flight line alongside the base's twin runways.

The 7th Marine TAOR (tactical area of operational responsibility) included the coastal plain areas in Quang Ngai and Quang Tin provinces, where both scouts had operated while with the Viet Cong. Pvt. Sells and his two scouts were immediately transferred to 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, operating south of the Chu Lai perimeter in Binh Son District. At 1/7, the three-man team was joined by LCpl Ernest C. Jaramillo, an S-2 Scout already assigned to 1/7. Jaramillo, while not part of the team, played a useful role in early development of operational tactics through his knowledge of S-2 procedures. On November 11, 1966, Sells, Jaramillo, Tam and Chanh deployed for the first time with Delta Company, 1/7 on a company-size patrol on the Mui Nam Tram Peninsula, targeting the hamlets of Phouc Hoa and Tuyet Diem.