Team 19 in Vietnam

Historical accounts and memoirs of the Vietnam War often ignore the participation of nations other than Vietnam and the United States. As a result, few Americans realize that several members of the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO), including Australia, allied with South Vietnam during the conflict. By the late 1960s, more than eight thousand Australians were deployed in the region or supporting the forces there. These soldiers had gained significant experience in jungle warfare and counterinsurgency by working with the British in Malaya in the 1950s, which made them valuable partners to the Americans and the South Vietnamese. David Millie was a member of the renowned Australian Army Training Team Vietnam, the country's most highly decorated unit of the war. In Team 19 in Vietnam, he offers an insightful account of his twelve-month tour in Quang Tri Province--a crucial tactical site along the demilitarized zone and North Vietnam's gateway to the South.^

Drawing from published and unpublished military documents, Millie's personal diary, and the letters he wrote while deployed, this firsthand narrative vividly demonstrates the importance of the region and the substantial number of forces engaged there.Millie introduces readers to the daily routines, actions, and disappointments of a field staff officer. In the midst of various cultural, political, and economic challenges, he found himself among brothers in arms on a common mission. During his yearlong tour, he worked with province senior advisors Colonel Harley F. Mooney and Major John Shalikashvili, who would later become chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Working with diverse groups of soldiers and civilians, Millie helped conduct a number of operations, including missions against the Viet Cong infrastructure and insurgents, pacification campaigns, and refugee resettlement projects.^

Few Australian accounts of the Vietnam War exist, and Millie offers a rare glimpse of the year after the Tet offensive, when Presidents Johnson and Nixon both made it clear that the United States would withdraw its troops. This important memoir reveals that responsibility for the catastrophe inflicted on Vietnamese civilians is shared by an international community that failed to act effectively in the face of a crisis. -- Inside jacket flaps.