The Montagnards

     The montagnards, a name that was given to them by the French (which means "mountain people"), have had a long history of being abused, discriminated against, and generally mistreated by the majority population in Vietnam.  Originally they were the main inhabitants of the Indochinese peninsula.  However, they were pushed out by the newly arrived people who gradually took all of their land and forced them into the Highlands of Vietnam and Laos, where most Vietnamese and Laotians do not want to live.  Sort of like what happened to the Ainu on the Japanese islands, and, what happened to our native population here in America.
     They had no rights what so ever.  They had no representation in the Vietnamese government, and periodically even their "badlands," were taken away by Vietnamese settlers.  When a large influx of refugees arrived from North Vietnam and the government didn't know what to do with them, they simply dumped them in the Highlands, with no regard to the montagnards, who these new refugees displaced!  The Vietnamese called the montagnards moi, which means animal or creature!  Some Vietnamese who lived in urban areas believed that the montagnards, the moi, had tails like monkeys!  With such negative views and discrimination practiced by the general population,  you can just imagine what it was like for the montagnards, the original inhabitants of the Indochinese peninsula!
     During the French Indochina War, both the French and the Viet Minh (communists) recruited the montagnard tribes to fight for their side.  Both sides promised the montagnards autonomy after "they" won the war.  They promised them all sorts of things.  The communists naturally promised them complete equality, since they were promoting a classless society anyway.  So, there were montagnards that fought for Ho Chi Minh and the communists as well as the French.  Interestingly, there were more that fought for the French.  The French raised complete battalions of montagnards, trained them in modern warfare, while Ho Chi Minh used them mostly as scouts.  Once the French were gone, the montagnards were left in a limbo.  The country was divided in half.  Since most of the Vietnamese Central Highlands are in the South, most montagnard tribes ended up in the south under the corrupt regime of the South Vietnamese, who called them moi!  The montagnards' salvation, or so they thought, were the newly arrived Americans.
     The CIA was the first to utilize montagnards for their needs.  When the Army Special Forces appeared on the scene in the late 50s and early 60s, they immediately began to recruit and train the montagnards in the Highlands for the CIDG (Civilian Irregular Defense Group) program even before it was called by that name.  It seemed that the little dark skinned montagnards were naturals as jungle fighters.  Having been abused and pushed around by the Vietnamese all these years, they were only too glad to take up arms and be trained by Americans to defend themselves against the VC (Viet Cong), after all VC were Vietnamese!  Although, there were communist montagnards as well.
     The Special Forces discovered that there were still quite a few montagnards who were veterans of the French Indochina War and these were the ones that were generally picked to be the leaders, the NCOs and officers of the newly formed montagnard companies, battalions, and even regiments.  The difficulty in training them for modern warfare was mainly with the younger montagnards who had no previous training.  Since they were illiterate, it was sometimes very difficult to convey certain ideas and concepts.  For example, how do you teach someone to handle a mortar, to elevate or lower the mortar tube a specific number.  If you told the montagnard to lower the mortar or raise it by 150, he would have no idea what you were talking about, since montagnards did not have a numerical system, or any other kind of written system!  Therefore, numbers meant nothing to them!  It is truly a credit to the ingenuity of the American Special Forces soldiers to have developed various systems to teach the montagnards how to raise or lower the mortar tube the required amount.  I won't go into details, suffice it to say that a system was developed whereby a string with different colored knots was used to designate numbers.
     The largest montagnard group is known as H'mong, also as Meo tribe.  At one time, before the war, it is said that there were several million H'mong scattered throughout Vietnam, Laos, and even Thailand.  There are various H'mong tribes known as Blue H'mongs, White H'mongs, etc., based on the color or pattern of the material in their clothing that they preferred.  The largest H'mong group resided in the Highlands of Laos, and this is the group that CIA had worked with from the earliest days and particularly during the so-called "Secret War" that took place in the 1960s.  CIA sponsored Mobile Guerrilla units of H'mong tribesmen were constantly infiltrated into Laos to fight the Pathet Lao.  The Special Forces trained the H'mong as well as montagnard tribes in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, notably the Rhade and Koho tribes and had almost 10,000 montagnards that were well trained and armed. 
     Once the montagnards received military training and got the "hang of things," so to speak, it seemed there was no limit.  The Mobile Guerrilla Forces (MGFs)and the Mobile Strike Forces (Mike Forces) were all airborne trained!  Special Forces started a jump school (parachute training) and qualified the montagnard units!  Considering that some of them had never been even been in an aircraft, it is amazing how quickly they accepted and adapted to the modern concept of parachuting out of an airplane!  We had more difficulty with some of the Cambodians and Laotians, getting them to jump out of an airplane, than with the montagnards.
     As I alluded earlier, only the Chinese Nungs were superior in their ability to learn methods of modern warfare than the montagnards.  But considering the society from which they came, the fact that most of them fought with crossbows and spears before we introduced them to modern weaponry, it is amazing how easily and quickly they became accomplished in their use!  The montagnards loved the M1 and M2 carbines with which most of them were armed, the carbine was light, highly portable, and in the jungles, where shooting distances sometimes were measured in feet, the relative low power of the carbine's ammunition was not a problem.  Later, as the war dragged on and the M-16 was introduced, they took to the new "black gun" just as easily.
     Depending on the tribe, most of the montagnards had dark skins, however, there were many that were lighter skinned.  Some could pass for a Vietnamese or a Nung.  But majority were dark skinned, one of the reasons that the Vietnamese called them moi.
     The montagnards "took" to the American Special Forces quite readily.  There were a number reasons for that.  For one thing, the Special Forces A Team lived with the montagnards, away from urban areas or large military bases.  A camp was set up and 12 Americans moved in and had the montagnards and their families move into the camp as well.  They all lived under same conditions!  Another unexpected factor that drew the montagnards closer to Americans was the fact that we had dark skinned soldiers, namely African-Americans.  The montagnards were fascinated by the African-Americans and would gleefully point at them and then themselves and say "same," meaning that they were dark skinned as well.  It wasn't long before African-American soldiers were referred to as "big montagnards" by the montagnards themselves!  So, to them, since Americans treated all skin types equally, we must be OK and could be trusted.  In that regard, they were like children and trusted us completely without any reservations!