Brennans War, Vietnam 1965-1969
Introduction
They were the 9th Cavalry Blues, striking by helicopter into the heart of the Vietnamese jungle. They brought the battle to the enemy – and saw more deadly combat in a month than most line troops did in a year. Brennan was a bright, quiet Midwesterner. Somewhere in the swift relentless savagery he got hooked on war. Three years over and 400 assaults later, Matthew Brennan came home. His story is a firsthand account of life and death in Vietnam, from the point of view of an elite air cavalry assault soldier. In the tradition of the greatest military memoirs, Brenna’s War lays bare the courage, the cowardice, the strategy and the chaos that is war – and the state of mind that was Vietnam.
Review
Even though the book was first published in 1988, few books have made as much of an impresion as this one. I just loved reading about the development of the air cavalry (I always have to think about the famous beach surfing scene in Apoclypse Now). Few writers are able to describe personal drama, without becoming boring after the while. Matthew Brennan is an exception to this rule. Matthew Brennan began the war as a private and ended as a junior officer, recording more than 400 helicopter assault landings over 39 months in South Vietnam. His lifestyle, marked by PTSD, was filled with tragedy, extreme violence, deprivation, boredom, and occasional release through alcohol or drugs.
For much of his time in Vietnam, Brennan was part of the 1st Squadron/9th Cavalry, also known as the “Headhunters,” a unit that earned three Presidential Unit Citations. What sets his memoir apart is its penetrating insights into the shift in U.S. Army battlefield tactics during the transition of high command from General William Westmoreland to General Creighton Abrams.
Through multiple tours of duty from 1965 to 1969, Brennan’s perspective on the Vietnam conflict evolved from enthusiasm to disillusionment. His misgivings mirrored the army’s pivot from an offensive to a defensive posture, which aimed to reduce American losses but ended up creating more problems. Vietcong and PAVN troops responded with increased rocket fire and sapper attacks on U.S. bases, exacerbating issues like drug abuse, race riots, and other violence in the camps. The erosion of morale and trust in leadership became evident.
Brennan critiqued the chaos of “pile on” tactics popularized by General Abrams, a view contrasting with official press releases. In September 1968, Bernard Weinraub of the New York Times noted that General Abrams “stressed more flexible tactics in sweep operations, including the ‘pile on’ in which units rush into an area when an engagement with the enemy begins and attempt to crush or cut off any enemy withdrawal.”
Colonel George Patton, who commanded the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment from July 1968 to April 1969, addressed the “pile on” method in his exit statement and a two-part article for Armor magazine in 1970. Patton later stated that, “The slogan, ‘Find the Bastards and Pile On,’ was the regiment’s motto prior to my arrival at the unit in July of 1968.”
Brennan described the “pile on” doctrine as the work of “some frustrated military genius,” noting that the coordination of 9th Cav landings was lost in a chaotic mix of different helicopters. He lamented that the 9th Cav rescue operations, once involving a formation of slicks escorted by a minimum of four gunships, had turned into confusion by 1969.
Another unwanted change was in the “pink” teams, consisting of one scout helicopter (hunter) and one helicopter gunship (killer). The Bell UH-1 “Huey” gunship was replaced by the Bell AH-1 Cobra, or “snake,” which was faster but lacked flexible door guns, restricting its field of fire. The snakes flew high, unlike the Huey gunships with door gunners, leaving the low-flying scout ship, typically a Hughes OH-6 light observation helicopter (LOH), vulnerable to enemy fire.
Scouts were essentially used as bait to draw fire and set up a counter-attack by the snakes. Patton claimed this low-high arrangement was supposedly best practice, but Brennan noted that it led to higher losses for the scouts and a significant decline in enemy personnel killed by the pink teams.
This book is essential reading for those interested in the ongoing battle for memory of the war.
A final note: I read this book several times over a period of years, but the last time is quite a while ago. Nevertheless, I am still dumbfounded by the fact the author was not able to sleep, because of the absence of exploding artillery shells and gun fire. This book is one of my favourites and even though there are more well known books, you will not regret reading this fantastic book.