Battlefield Korea

Cancelled Party in the Jungle

Chief Warrant Officer Four (CW4) Charles Lee “Chucky” was excited about the planned trip to Vietnam at the end of the week. They had been planning this JCET for nearly a year with the ODC, a female Lieutenant Colonel from the Embassy in Hanoi. As Chucky was finalizing the contents of his pack, his battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Hank Mitchel, knocked on the door to his office. “You got a second, Chief?” he asked. “We need to talk.”

“Sure thing, Sir,” he replied, placing the last item in his bag before closing it up. He walked around his desk and shook Colonel Mitchel’s hand. “What can I do for you, Sir?”

“I believe the JCET is going to be canceled, and I wanted to go over the change with you,” he said, knowing that it would disappoint the men.

“And here I thought we were going to get an all-expenses paid vacation to Vietnam!” Chucky replied with a wide grin as he tried to lighten the mood. He knew the colonel was looking forward to the JCET as well. He didn’t typically go with the teams that often, but he had planned on being a part of this one to help with the country assessment.

Laughing at Chucky’s comment, Colonel Mitchel replied, “You know, my Dad wouldn’t have called it a ‘vacation’ when he went to Vietnam in the summer of 67’, but I do appreciate your attempt at humor.” He signaled for them to walk to his office and talk further once they got there.

As they walked through the door, Chucky saw Major Lance Witten, the battalion’s S2 (intelligence officer) was waiting for them there as well. The colonel gestured to him. “I wanted Major Witten to be here as well. He has some intelligence updates that you should be aware of,” Mitchel said as he walked around the desk to get to his seat.

Looking behind the colonel’s desk and out the window, Chief Lee could see the wind was really starting to pick up. There was supposed to be a tropical storm moving through the area in a couple of days, so the island was starting to experience some of the outer bands.

Major Witten raised his hand a bit and made sure he had Lee’s attention. “Chief, we have a problem right now in China. As you have likely already heard, Chinese airborne forces invaded Mongolia a week ago.”

Chief Lee snorted. “Sir, with all due respect, they did not just invade Mongolia a week ago-they captured the entire country in twenty-four hours. That’s a feat we did not believe was possible, at least not according to you intelligence weenies,” Chief Lee retorted. He hated it when intelligence officers liked to state the obvious without adding anything of value. This was Special Forces, not the regular army; they did not need to be spoon-fed intelligence.

Major Witten smiled at the feisty response before continuing, “Yes, they secured the entire country in twenty-four hours. Now it appears they are getting ready to gobble up a couple more countries.”

“So, what does that have to do with us and our JCET?” Chief Lee asked again, a bit annoyed at being led to an answer rather than just told it.

“One of the countries they are looking to annex next appears to be Vietnam.” He paused for a second to let that sink in. “Then most likely they will go after Laos and Myanmar. As of right now, they do not appear to be threatening Taiwan, Japan, or South Korea. Thailand and Cambodia also do not appear to be in their crosshairs either,” he explained.

“Before you ask, we do not know when they are planning to invade, but we anticipate it to be very soon, which is why we are recommending to Group Headquarters that the JCET be cancelled. We do not want you guys to be caught in country if they are invaded.”

“Does this have anything to do with what is going on in Europe?” Chief Lee asked, wanting to see if there was a larger connection. He had friends in 10^th Special Forces Group, which were now fully deployed to Germany as tensions with Russia grew. Nearly half of 10^th Group was already in Ukraine as advisors. “Shoot, half of my unit wants to transfer to Europe to fight the Russians,” he thought.

Major Witten leaned forward, speaking in a lower voice as he responded, “Look, this needs to stay between us. The consensus is split right now. The CIA and State Department believe the Russians are just posturing right now, that at the end of the day, they will blink. However, the DIA and even the Ambassador on the ground in Ukraine believe otherwise, and so does the Secretary of Defense (SecDef). As to China, no one knows for certain. If I were the Chinese, I’d be using the situation in Ukraine to my advantage. Have either of you heard of the term ‘Greater China’?” he asked.

Both men shook their heads to signal, “No.”

“OK, up until 1911, the Chinese national border used to encompass Mongolia, parts of Vietnam, Laos, Taiwan, Myanmar, and the Koreas. They lost a lot of that territory during the two world wars and their own civil war. The intelligence sources on the ground hear that Chinese officials have been saying that they want to unite Greater China once again. Until now, no one really took them seriously or thought they would, but with their recent annexation of Mongolia and the massive troop movements to those border countries, it now looks like they are going to move in that direction.”

LTC Mitchel held his hand up for a second and interrupted, “Wait, I thought you just said the Koreas and Taiwan are also part of this Greater China… they are not moving forces to those border areas like you mentioned?”

“No, they are not,” Major Witten replied. The intelligence reports I’ve read from DIA about this (as well as a report from at least the one from the Beijing Embassy DIA rep, which I believe is probably the most accurate) is that the Chinese do not want a direct confrontation with the US, at least not yet. They are leaving what are traditional US allies alone for the time being, and going after countries we do not have a strong relationship with.”

“It makes sense,” thought Chief Lee. “The US is less likely to get militarily involved in preventing China from annexing Vietnam or Myanmar than they would be if there were action in Taiwan, Japan, or South Korea.”

“OK, so let’s assume the JCET is cancelled. What do you want us to do about this information? Should we start preparing to deploy to these countries, or just concentrate on our allied nations?” Chief Lee asked.

LTC Mitchel jumped in, “Right now, Chief, keep training the men like we are heading to war with China, just like we always do. Whether we get sent to South Korea or Vietnam won’t matter. We’ll still be facing the same enemy. The terrain may be different, but the Chinese soldiers we face won’t be. Also, we are not getting those two replacement captains we had thought we would. Apparently, a lot of the SF qualified officers have been rerouted to 10^th Group to support operations in Ukraine. It looks like you and Chief Limski are going have to remain in command of your two teams for the time being.”

With that, the meeting broke up and Chief Lee went down to the team room to break the news to his soldiers. There would be a lot of broken hearts over not going to Vietnam.