AUSSIES & KIWIS IN VIETNAM: A LEADERSHIP LESSON

 AUSSIES & KIWIS IN VIETNAM: A LEADERSHIP LESSON 

 

One recent Saturday morning I watched a move entitled “Danger Close,” which dramatizes one experience Australian and New Zealand soldiers in the Vietnam War of the 1960s and early 1970s. Although we Americans tend to think of Vietnam as totally our disaster in an Asian land war, we need have allies like the Aussies and Kiwis fighting with us in addition to the South Vietnamese. 

In August 1966 as I was turning 16 years of age, an Australian army regiment complimented by a New Zealand detachment was based in the southern area of the then South Vietnam. The area was near the coast of the South China Sea and had jungle broken by numerous former rubber plantations which was a remainder of the French colonial era. Their fire base had artillery to support the infantry in the field. 

One night the base was hit by a barge of mortar rounds fired by the enemy. The base commanders decided the next day to send out a company-size patrol to find and destroy the mortars. Company D was selected, commanded by Major Harry Smith. Smith was a career military officer. He had served in the Malaysian Emergency of the 1950s in which British imperial forces had kept the future Asian states of Malaysia and Singapore from communist domination. Smith then was assigned to Australian special forces and when he came to command Company D earlier in 1966, he brought the commando mindset with him for enhanced training and preparedness for any situation. 

Thus, Company D was the best trained unit in the regiment, a state or readiness not always appreciated by his soldiers. The unit was a mixture of volunteers and draftees with an average age of 20. And Smith’s superior officers in the regiment also did not appreciate Smith’s affinity for special forces. Major Smith wanted the assignment for the mission, and he got it. The unit had 109 Australian soldiers and a 3-man artillery spotter team of New Zealand soldiers. 

In the field about 5 miles from the base on a hot and humid day Company D found where the mortars had been fired with no enemy in sight. Proceeding onward to attempt to engage the enemy, the unit was ambushed by regular North Vietnamese (RNVN) soldiers. Smith’s company was a mess of a situation because the company’s platoons were separated at the time. The forward platoon was overrun by the enemy. 

Air support was nonexistent because of heavy rains. Artillery support from the base was very active and helpful to Company D to keep RNVN soldiers from effectively attacking the two other platoons. The attacks were so violent that ammunition became scarce. Helicopters dropped extra ammo on top of the company, so much so that the soldiers had to dodge the falling ammo boxes. 

When the regiment became cognizant. His commanders ordered Smith to retreat and return to base. He refused. Smith requested the armored personnel carriers (APCs) to come to him for relief. His superiors initially feared that doing so would open the base to RNVN attack, but they finally relented. 

The APCs wanted an hour to assist Company D. In the meantime, the unit suffered repeated attacks from what was estimated at 2000 enemy soldiers, a ratio of 20:1. When all seemed lost for the unit, Smith encouraged his soldiers with the words, “Remember who you are.” Realizing that they were skilled and trained soldiers kept them from being annihilated. When the APCs arrived, the enemy was driven away. When Company D returned to base, the body count was 18 dead while the enemy lost about 245 dead on the field. 

I use many military lessons for leadership because when people are locked in a life-and-death struggle, leadership usually determines success or failure. Take my previous post about the Irish company at Jadotville, Commandant Quilan made the difference in that not one Irish soldier was killed despite overwhelming attacked by a force of a 20:1 numerical advantage. Or take the engagement on Little Round Top at Gettysburg in July 1863, when Colonel Chamberlain of the 20th Maine Regiment ordered his soldiers to fix bayonets when they ran out of ammunition and then charge the enemy, he also made a positive difference.  

So, here are the leadership takeaways from Major Harry Smith- 

1. Training those for whom you are responsible is essential. 

2. Keeping one’s wits about himself in times of crisis keeps one’s unit morale high. 

3. Offering encouragement to the troops is essential. 

4. The mission comes first. 

SAINT PAUL'S REVOLUTIONARY LETTER TO PHILEMON

Tucked in between Titus and Hebrews towards the end of the Christian New Testament is a letter from Saint Paul to Philemon, a wealthy man from Colossae whom Paul had led to be a follower of the Resurrected Christ and who was learning the implications of being a Christian in his own contemporary culture. The letter, Paul’s shortest and most personal, was probably written sometime during the timeframe of AD 60-61.

The subject of the letter is a slave named Onesimus. He had run away from Philemon, his master, and had perhaps stolen money or possessions from his master in the process of becoming a fugitive. I believe that it was by divine design that Onesimus fled to the imperial capital city of Rome and despite the teeming urban population there ran into Paul. Onesimus, like Philemon, became a Christ follower through Paul. Now Paul is returning Onesimus to Philemon with the letter.

The contents of the letter consist of the usual salutary greetings to Philemon (and probably his wife and son) with an extraordinary request from Paul. If Philemon grants Paul’s request, the implications for Philemon’s assent to Paul will further enable the Christian faith to become a global phenomenon beyond the wildest imaginations of the first disciples of Jesus.

Paul requests Philemon to take back Onesimus primarily as a fellow believer in Christ. Although Onesimus would still be legally a slave belonging to Philemon, in the company of Christ followers, they would be equal in status. Paul could have commanded Philemon to do so but choose to use persuasion. Paul was surely aware that force could not only push Philemon back into the old cultural master/slave relationship but also put Onesimus into possible physical danger.

Paul’s request was a practical application of two powerful biblical statements. The first statement is from Paul’s Letter to the Colossians, “In Christ there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all.“ (3:11) The second theological statement powering Paul’s request is from Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, “For those of you who were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ. There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female.” (3:27-28) While the second statement is more popular today at least from being memorized (and not having to explain what a “Scythian” was), the first statement would have more of an impact on Philemon. He, after all, was not only wealthy but also a leader in the Colossian congregation. My hunch is that Paul knew that other Colossians- Christian, Jewish, and pagan- would see the positive gospel example set by Philemon.

Slavery is a horrible human and economic system whether practiced in the ancient world or not too distanced American history, but they was not similar. The slave system practiced by the ancient Greeks and Romans, among others, was different than the slave system practiced in colonial America and later by the United States for the first 90 years of its existence. In the ancient world, to be enslaved was often the result of life’s fate, like being on the losing side of a war or even selling oneself into slavery for economic reasons. Slavery was a common practice regardless of a slave’s nationality or race unlike the American system which relied almost exclusively on Blacks imported from Africa. The ancient system could also be very harsh as witnessed by the results of the revolt led by the Roman slave Spartacus in 73-71 BCE The Third Servile War, as the Romans named the revolt, was concluded with great cruelty by the Romans towards their revolting slaves. This was the world and culture of Saint Paul as he evangelized the Mediterranean world for Jesus Christ.

We do not know what Philemon actually did with Paul’s request. But the fact this letter is actually in the biblical canon is reason enough for me to believe that Philemon did the gospel action and welcomed back Onesimus as a new brother in Christ.

We can understand through this pithy letter a revolutionary ideal of humankind that Christ is giving the Church. While Paul’s letter deals exclusively with one runaway slave it nevertheless opens the door to very broad implications for those who choose to follow Christ:

1.     Christ calls us to follow Him regardless of our station in life- slave or free, male or female, sophisticated or barbarian. While the Christian New Testament does not condone slavery, the Scriptures do recognize the practice of slavery as one condition of the sinfulness of humankind. The Church in the first centuries of its existence did not have either the political power to end institutional slavery by law or the military power to end it through violence. The latter is antithetical to the teachings of Jesus while the former would short circuit the agape power of the Gospel. McLaughlin (pp. 175- 192) shares that in the Early Church and the American Church gripped in the antigospel clutches of slavery, many slaves themselves were able to look past their often cruel taskmasters, many who claimed at least some degree of religiosity or Christianity, to embrace Jesus as their personal lord and savior. This is evidenced by the fact the Early Church for many decades was comprised of more women, slaves, and former slaves than freed men and that the Black Church grew under the oppressive American slavery experience.

2.     Christ calls the Church to be multiracial, multicultural, and multinational (McLaughlin, pp. 175- 192) as Christ’s saving love propels us Christians to give Him our allegiance over our races, our cultures, and our nationalities. To be faithful follower of Christ, whether alone or in community, is to follow Christ wherever Christ commands us.

3.     Christ calls the Church to be communities of people from all strata of life including urban dwellers, suburbanites, and rural people; the up-and-outs and the down-and-outs, and those who enjoy secular success and those who scrape by the on the margins of society including  “..outcasts, the whores and the cheats, the traitors and killers, the baffled and stunned, the social outlaw, the maimed and hideous and contagious.”  (Price, p. 33) In our communities of faith all forgiven people regardless of backgrounds are spiritually equal as they love another as they are loved by God through Christ.

In human history, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and the Russian Revolution shook the world and changed the global power dynamics, some for the good and some for evil, but none came close to the Gospel Revolution exhibited by Jesus Christ. And those followers of Christ who are seriously guided by Scripture for faith and practice are the true revolutionaries who bring lasting changes the the hearts, minds, and practices of folks on this planet.

 

Resources used:

Rebecca McLaughlin, Confronting Christianity:12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion (2021).

Reynolds Price, Three Gospels (1996).

Holman Publishers. CSB Study Bible: Christian Standard Bible (2017).