Scrounging during the Vietnam War

American Ranger Advisors and ARVN Ranger units were snubbed by their “old school” parent units and often treated like “Bastard Children” when it came to dishing out supplies and other necessities. As a result, the BDQ Advisor usually became the unit scrounger to finagle needed supplies for their camps and their inhabitants. Keith Nightingale was one of them—read how he managed in this role.

By Keith Nightingale

Key to any BDQ (Referred to as Biêt–Dông–Quân or BDQ, a significant number of Ranger-qualified officers and NCOs served as advisors to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Ranger units) advisor’s success and comfort was the ability to scrounge. The Rangers were usually located in semi-isolated sites with minimal amenities such as housing, food and protection from the elements. Add to that minimal supporting weapons, adequate ammo, barrier material and overhead cover. In many cases, the ARVN Ranger wives and kids co-located with their husbands, making the conditions even more barren. Hence, each BDQ team usually developed an informal scrounge capability for whatever was direly needed that the ARVN Army would not/could not provide. My experience is just a microcosm of all Ranger advisors.

Located on a bare hill in Xuan Loc, with a full complement of Rangers, wives, kids and dogs and minimal close-in defense capabilities, our “accommodation” was a GP Medium tent with sufficient holes to make it an observatory. The floors were mud, and the cots were from WWII. We were plush compared to the Vietnamese. Candles were the illumination, water a scarce commodity and fortifications of the barest nature. Rain was a continuous challenge.

Lt Nightingale, Deputy Advisor, was anointed as the Czar of Scrounge. After overcoming culture shock in my first-week in-country, I was tasked with “finding stuff.” This meant a Japanese jeep ride into Bien Hoa and Long Binh to develop an acquisition system.

I kept a journal as I visited each US org, did some minor BS’ing to determine what they had in excess and what they needed/wanted. In many cases, each had what others did not and I could make a trailer resolve the issue, in turn, getting a cut. By evening, a good haul would be collected at an Army buddy’s place in Long Binh.

I would call the battalion via landline and request X Vietnamese 2 ½ ton trucks to haul the usual tarps, wood, tin, med equipment, ammo, and weapons parts. The trucks would bring Ranger wife manufactured VC flags and Montagnard bows which were prime trading material.

Often, this is all that was needed to close a trade. At Ranger Hill, a thriving industry grew.

Then, time provided ideas and experiences. I visited the Philco-Ford offices at their storage yard at Saigon Port. After working my way through several factotums- speaking Vietnamese was a shock and a plus-I got to the man with the power of the pen. He was a short guy with a lot of energy and a cowboy hat. Clearly a cut to the chase guy. I explained the dire circumstances of the unit, the lack of interest by anyone in the chain and my abject desperation. He pulled out two ice-cold “33” beers from his office fridge and pulled out a sheaf of papers. He wrote authorizations for pallets of 2x4s, galvanized tin, nails, a 10KW generator with a mile of light sets, sacks of cement and several thousand sandbags. He looked me in the eye and told me to have 12 trucks at the yard at 0800 in the morning with this paper. He also suggested I visit the PDO yard next to his. The Senior Advisor was certain I was deep into the Black market which I assured him was not the case and the battalion commander was incredulous but said the trucks would be there-which they were.

The PDO yard, however, was Christmas all the time. The yard was a vast storehouse of everything the US Army didn’t want, couldn’t use or was mis-sent for re-shipping. I became very proficient with a large forklift, which separated GP Mediums, Kitchen Fly, and GP Small tents- vastly superior to the present Ranger hootches. This would be my perennial Go-to place after operations throughout the year. A long row of Conex containers held weapons-allegedly malfunctioning or broke. I found neither to be the case much………..50 cals with timing gauges, M60s, M79s, M16s, magazines, tripods, and mortars, both 81 and 4.2. A double-wide held a radio repair facility run by a Vietnamese.

We had a cup of café sua where I explained our situation, gave him 20 MPC and he “gifted” me six functioning PRC 25s-a major upgrade from the PRC 10s. I would personally accompany this sensitive loot back to Xuan Loc to ensure no diversions. Soon, Ranger Hill had lights, a decent tent city, barbed wire and sandbagged positions, a quality ops bunker, vastly more firepower and a team house duplex for the advisors and the battalion commander.

Tet struck and we rarely were back. Regardless, now as Senior Advisor, I had my deputy undertake the same tasks to better our lives throughout III Corps as we wandered with the whims of the General Staff. We usually had lights and more firepower than most.

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Keith has contributed almost a dozen posts to this website. To read more of his work, go to the top right of this post and click on the magnifying glass, type in “Keith Nightingale”, and hit enter for a drop-down menu.

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