Review Written By Bernie Weisz, Historian, Vietnam War, March 13, 2011 Pembroke Pines, Florida, USA Contact: BernWei1@aol.com Title of Review: "To This Day, I Consider Hanoi Jane & The Peace Creeps of the 60's and 70's as Dishonorable Traitors!" There are many memoirs of intense combat in the jungles, rice paddies and hill tops during the Vietnam War, and Stephen Perry's "Bright Light" is no exception. All memoirs of combat have one theme in common: the adrenalin experienced by the combatant can never be equaled in civilian life. Mr. Perry exemplifies this by stating at the outset of this short but intense book with the following Study and Observations Group (SOG) motto: "You've never lived until you have almost died, for those who fight for it; life has a flavor that the protected will never know." This motto takes on special meaning when Perry vehemently points a finger at the people he blames the most for losing the war, i.e. the politicians in a rush to get America out of Vietnam regardless of the promises we had made to that country and the protesters on the streets of America which turned an American victory into an unnecessary defeat. In his dedication, Mr. Perry reminds us that not all casualties of the Vietnam War are accounted for with the following lament: "This book is dedicated to the military forces of the U.S., especially to those left behind in the seething jungles of Vietnam. We must never allow their sacrifice to be in vain!" The author ends this memoir with a current day warning that there can be "no more Vietnam's for this country!"
This book tells a story of a secretive group referred to with the acronym "SOG." Their role was to execute missions deemed top secret deep behind Communist lines throughout North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Going deep into the enemies sanctuaries, they conducted officially denied actions to rescue downed airmen where no conventional force could go, monitor and report key enemy installations, conduct prisoner snatches as well as scout out targets for devastating B-52 air strikes. It is also a tale of a man that carries much bitterness, whose superhero as a child was Superman, the "Man of Steel." Values such as "Truth, Justice and the American Way" were values Stephen Perry deemed important as a child as well as ethics he tried to emulate as an adult. The only thing that could hurt Superman was "kryptonite." Forty Two years later, Perry suggested why America is seen as losing this war as follows: "In my opinion, we lost because we did not all stand united for Truth, Justice and the American Way. The kryptonite that brought us to our knees was our loss of honor and dignity as the greatest nation on earth," Who would join a SOG unit, with the stakes of danger so high? Perry explains that it is the man who sat next to you in church, or even your neighbor next door. They came from all walks of life, but the main factor they all had, according to the author, was their "moral compass." Perry elucidates this individual collectively as follows: "They had heard the call of their country and had stood proudly to accept their responsibility as U.S. citizens. They were not afraid of the talk of war or its intrinsic dangers. These men volunteered for the good of their country."
A native of Los Angeles, California, Steve Perry went one year to college and in 1965 enlisted in the Army with designs of winning the "Green Beret." By 1967 he successfully completed medical training in a Special Forces specialty school and found himself in Vietnam, just in time for Christmas and the most significant incident of this conflict, the "Tet Offensive." Perry explains that SOG was not officially part of Special Force Operations in Vietnam, but instead used as a cover to shift highly trained insurgents into top secret operations. The reader finds that the most important factor a member of a SOG team would ever learn was a workable knowledge of map and compass reading. Without this, a SOG unit deep in enemy territory could never direct B-52 air strikes, call one's own extraction from newly created clearings in dense jungle or call napalm runs on the enemy without risking the mortal mistake of friendly fire. As a SOG medic, Perry juxtaposed American methods verses the Communists: "I gave a few aspirins to an old woman complaining about a headache and cleaned and bandaged an injured foot on a young boy. These times were special for us all as villagers and the team would gather around to watch the American "Bac Si" (doctor) do his thing. The simple care and kindness went a long way to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people. It was in sharp contrast to the VC or NVA who would go into a village, take the food and supplies of the villagers, and perhaps kill anyone who did not cooperate with them."
Stephen Perry quickly became inured to the sights of war. Before deployment to Vietnam, as part of his training he had to shoot a dog in the thigh and put the animal to sleep, clean the animal's wound and nurse the canine back to health. After the January, 1968 Tet Offensive, he walked into a Hue hospital that had run out supplies and was loaded with both soldiers and civilians that were casualties of the combat. With some of his fellow medics, he wrote the following as he entered Hue Central Hospital: As we walked into what we expected to be the lobby, we encountered a surrealistic scene of a makeshift operating room. To the side of the temporary operating table and lights was a table. It was piled high with mangled arms and legs amputated from the injured or infected and sprinkled with some sort of white powder, apparently sprinkled here to reduce the stench and discourage the horde of flies hovering above. The blood spattered walls, the old marble floors and the powdered body parts were the perfect setting for some Alfred Hitchcock film." The most dangerous missions Perry performed were called by the codename "Bright Light." This is a code for where a team would be inserted by a helicopter in an area where another team member had been killed or captured, or where a plane had been shot down behind enemy lines. The North Vietnamese always knew a "Bright Light" mission would come, as Perry wrote, because: "It was the American's value of human life and the sincere desire not to leave anyone behind that drove the men of SOG to readily volunteer for such dangerous work." The bulk of this book leaves the reader on pins and needles, experiencing a nerve shattering vicarious experience.
Stephen Perry also explains exactly what makes up a SOG team. Referred to as a "Spike Team," it was composed of both Americans with different roles as well as their South Vietnamese (called indigenous or "indig's") counterparts. The Spike Team leader was referred to as the "1-0", The second in command would be the 1-1 and the 1-2 would be the radio operator. The indigenous would follow the opposite order, with the leader being the 0-1, the second in command being the 0-2, etc. Mr. Perry described the men of his team as follows: "The men stood in full battle dress complete with camouflaged paint on the exposed flesh of their faces and necks, blackened uniforms devoid of any labels or identifying marks, web gear, side arms, rucksacks and weapons." The typical weapon a SOG member would rely on would be a Colt CAR 15s, a fully automatic assault rifle with it's serial numbers filed off. If the team was captured or killed, the weapons could not be traced back to the U.S. All team members were above expert marksmen, and their attitude, as described as Perry, was as such: "The team members were happy to be going out to kill the enemy." The radio man carried the standard PRC 25 radio to talk to CIA radio cites or friendly planes in the air and each man individually carried an emergency radio called the URC-10. This pocket radio broadcast a constant homing signal on a frequency monitored by all friendly aircraft. If an aircraft picked up the signal and attempted contact, the American on the ground had to key his mike according to a prearranged code signifying that everything was okay. If the SOG failed to do this, the assumption was that the radio was in enemy hands and the position promptly bombed. If answered, a rescue operation would be arranged and air strikes called in on targets of opportunity. Perry writes that the URC 10 saved the lives of surviving team members especially when a team was split up or lost during combat operations.
Being a Special Forces Medic, Perry routinely carried morphine in case a SOG member was wounded in battle. Interestingly enough, he also carried Dexamyl, an amphetamine used to keep the entire team awake alert during nights they were in particularly dangerous positions behind enemy lines. Regardless of steep terrain or deep jungle encountered, each SOG member carried on his back close to 100 pounds of supplies. Perry comment on that: "Today, 40 years later, I cannot fathom how we were able to carry such a load through the hostile and steamy jungles of the Ashau. Our enemy was in his own backyard, light afoot with only an AK-47, a light ammo belt, and a few grenades, yet our Spike Team were usually able to break contact and loose themselves once again in the jungle." Although you will have to read Perry's in depth description of each mission, he tells the reader the only two times he lost his nerve as a SOG member: "I can honestly say that the only two times I was afraid in Vietnam was while in a chopper being fired upon from the ground, and when I was near death on a Bright Light mission in target Whiskey Five a few months later. The most troublesome part of being a SOG member was that most of their missions occurred in Laos, ostensibly a neutral country. Perry elaborates: "Here we were, 12 men alone on a mountainside, about 50 miles from all friendly forces, out of the protective reach of friendly artillery, and a long helicopter flight for any rescue flight if one became necessary. To make matters worse, we were behind enemy lines in Laos, a country that our country denied we ever entered until 35 years later. We had nothing to identify us as American citizens or soldiers. Only a handful of "spooks" knew where we were and what we were doing in the Ashau Valley. Those "in the know" were in the White House, the Pentagon, MACV SOG headquarters and back in Phu Bai."
The balance of this book describes the missions Perry and his fellow Sogger's went on and the obstacles, heartbreaks and frustrations they were exposed to. Sleeping on the jungle floor without tents or sleeping bags, these brave men lived amid the snakes, leeches and mosquito infested jungles waiting in enemy territory to do a "prisoner snatch." There were situations where if the team was shot down or captured, there was nothing that could be done to rescue them. There was an occasion where Perry and his team were each given "bribe money" of $500 each. This was to pay for their ransom or assistance in reaching the border in the event they were separated from the group. If the mission called for rescuing a downed pilot and no corpse could be found, the SOG team was instructed to bring back a hand or the head of a pilot if they were not able to recover the whole body. However, all is not doom and gloom with "Bright Light." Stephen Perry tells some hilarious anecdotes of occurrences he witnessed, some quite amusing. There was the Private First Class SOG tem member who started to hallucinate on his first mission from the amphetamine "speed" all had taken. Even more incredulously, Perry and his team were held as Prisoners of War on a U.S. Air Force Base! There was a pig the Sogger's liked to wrestle, named Andy, who would later have his head severed to feed a bunch of heavy Sogger's. Andy's head was on a table, with a joint smoldering in his mouth. There are other hi jinks like Perry being dared to spray mace in a fellow Sogger's eyes, who claimed it would have no effect (it did!), a desperate attempt to rid the base of rats, as well as Perry sitting in a bar next to another old man, only to find that it was none other than William Westmoreland, himself.
However, there are other very serious issues that will raise the reader's ire at intelligence ignorance. Perry did reconnoitering of the enemy prior to the Tet Offensive, and predicted of the attack, only to his superior's deaf and ignorant ears. The same happened with Lang Vei, a Special Forces camp manned by 24 American Green Berets and 500 Montagnards. On February 6th, 1968, the camp was overrun by the North Vietnamese sporting PT-76 Soviet supplied tanks driving through the base's wire and over the bunkers. Seven Americans and 200 Montagnards lost their lives. Shortly before this, Perry and his group undertook a mission near Lang Vei and specifically heard the distinctive sound of tank treads moving in the direction of the camp. During his debriefing, he was told by his superiors that the North Vietnamese had no tanks and what had he saw and heard were sounds and tracks from bulldozers used to repair B-52 bomb damage. Unfortunately, Mr. Perry quickly became disillusioned. Observing that the enemy was on the ropes after the Tet Offensive, he felt that between President Johnson quitting, Walter Cronkite criticizing, and Jane Fonda committing the unthinkable in treason, Perry concluded after Tet the following: "I understand that General Giap, (the North's top general who commanded the invasion) thought this would be the end for North Vietnam's "liberation" of the Southland. Little did Giap know at the time that the American peace movement and the weak kneed, crooked politicians in Washington would hand over the South without a fight, just a few years later in March of 1973. I lost a lot of faith in my government and in my fellow Americans when I saw my Nation abandon our friends in South Vietnam to the Re-education camps and executions carried out by the invading army of the North. I am thankful that a few of those Vietnamese whom I knew best were able to escape a fate worse than death on the last choppers and planes departing Saigon in April of 1975."
Stephen Perry continues with his scathing attack on the embarrassment and stigma surrounding this conflict. One of the most infamous atrocities of the war was the Communist occupation and ensuing slaughter of all opposed to the North's regime after their temporary occupation of Hue. Perry reflects on this as follows: "Civilians were taken prisoner by the NVA in Hue and were to be tried for "crimes against the people." We later learned that many such people were tried and killed by the Communists and buried in mass graves. These are the peace loving people of Hanoi, Jane Fonda, and the peace creeps back home. We, who served here, had a very different impression of these barbarians." Obviously, Mr. Perry's words will never be found in official U.S. historical versions of the Vietnam War, all sanitized and glossed over. However, there are three sides to every argument, the historical "official version," the combatant's such as Mr. Perry's memoir, and the truth. This book adds much to the ladder. Mr. Perry today looks back at the massive anti-Vietnam War protests and remarks: "Their cries of protest echoed around the world, encouraging our enemies, and finally led to our dishonorable withdrawal from Vietnam. Many fine Americans had given their lives to free the oppressed in South Vietnam, and their work was almost done before Walter Cronkite wrongly announced on national television in 1968 that "we are losing the war in Vietnam." On August 23, 1968, Stephen Perry's tour in Vietnam ended. After a seventeen hour flight from Vietnam to Oakland, with stops in Australia and Hawaii, he processed out of the Army and left for his Huntington Beach residence. Perry laments: "En route, I was confronted by some long haired hippies at the San Francisco airport that shouted obscenities and called me a "baby killer." What had happened to my country while I was away?" "Bright Light" is an essential book in knowing the complete story of this conflict, and as such Stephen Perry has indeed added a poignant contribution.