Operation Game Warden:

Mekong Delta, 1965-68

By Kelly Bell

It was oppressively hot in Saigon in September 1965. US Navy Lt. Kenneth Logan MacLeod III maneuvered the sidewalk of a nameless street, looking for a shop he had visited the previous week. It looked much like all the others, just a hole in the wall, but he had to find it—the proprietress was preparing something vital for him. He had gone to her because one of his men who had been in-country several months told him this seamstress spoke some English and did good work. He had placed his order, and the lady told him to return for his purchase in precisely seven days.

MacLeod ducked under the low doorway, and into the shop’s dim interior, the elderly operator emerged from the back room. She had been waiting for him. She carried two colorful bundles over her forearm. After a low bow, she held out her handiwork and asked the American, “You like?” When he replied, “I like,” she flashed a grin, nodded, and commenced wrapping his two big American flags in brown paper. These flags were the only pieces of equipment he had not been issued upon his arrival in Vietnam, and without them fluttering from his Patrol Boats, River (PBRs), he ran the risk of friendly fire. Days later, the banners would see their first combat.

Read the Full Article in MW55M

Objective Hamburg &
Seven Days to the Rhine:
War in Europe in the 1980s
Modern War, Issue #55 Magazine now available!

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Articles:

• Objective Hamburg & Seven Days to the Rhine: War in Europe in the 1980s: In this fifth and final installment of the Seven Days to the Rhine Series, we analyze the situation in the far north of Germany.
• Operation Game Warden: Mekong Delta, 1965-68: During 1968 alone, Game Warden sailors earned more than 500 Purple Hearts (some men earned two or three), an astounding feat considering the tiny percentage (about one-half of one percent) of naval personnel they comprised at that time.
• The Indonesian–Malaysian Confrontation (1963–1966): During Great Britain’s pullback after World War II, Britain fought several “Imperial Rearguard” campaigns in faraway corners of the empire. One of these rearguard actions, usually forgotten in the Malaya Emergency and Vietnam shadow, was the Indonesian-Malaysia Confrontation.
• The Second Chechen War: Russia’s failed attempt to regain control of Chechnya in the First Chechen War ended in August 1996. Following the withdrawal of Russian forces, the situation in Chechnya failed to improve. By 1999, the Russians were better prepared, and an opportunity to intervene grew out of conflict in neighboring Dagestan.

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