Will you be looking at 'The Hunter' which ran in Our Fighting Forces #99-106? As far as I know, this was the only DC series set in the Vietnam War, and certainly the only one to run while the war was in progress.

I am curious about the series because I have been collecting the run of 'Hunter's Hellcats' which succeeded 'The Hunter' as the lead feature of OFF, and was actually a prequel series to 'The Hunter'. 'The Hunter' ends with the Hunter brothers Phil and Nick returning from Vietnam, and while they are recuperating in hospital, their father Ben starts telling them of his exploits leading a Garrison's Guerillas style group during WWII.

Yes to Our Fighting Forces and Hunter and , yes, to Todd Holton, Super Green Beret!

How can you not include a comic with a kid who transforms into an adult Green Beret and goes to kill Commies in Southeast Asia> It's like a John Birch Society dream!

I also intend to look at a little curiosity, from the era, called Nguyen Charlie, by Corky Trinidad, which appeared in Stars & Stripes.

And don't forget the final scene of the movie where John Wayne stands on the east coat of Vietnam, watching the sun set into the sea!

Thanks for that intelligent and articulate piece of analysis, codystarbuck .

Many of the issues you describe also apply to the Australian experience, with a few twists. As well as being seen as propping up the corrupt South Vietnamese regime, there was resentment that Australia was being used as a lackey by the US to fight it's war, especially as this was the first (and only) time conscripted Australian soldiers had been sent to fight on foreign soil. Additionally, there was lingering resentment in some quarters that we were for fighting for the US; who had been 'late' to WWII.

I think the healing process started earlier in Australia, possibly because we were in Vietnam for a shorter period. The turning point was probably the official Welcome Home Parade in 1987 (a short description of which can be found here). However, even so, it is still a work in progress. Only this year, the New South Wales branch of the Returned & Services League of Australia officially apologised to Vietnam vets for the treatment they received from some members--primarily WWII vets--who, when they showed up to the clubs after returning from Vietnam, contemptuously told them that they hadn't been in a 'real' war. This treatment caused many vets to never return to the RSL clubs.

Last time, we discussed the emergence of the Green Berets as subjects of war comic adventures, starting with the syndicated newspaper strip, The Green Berets, credited to Robin Moore and drawn by Joe Kubert. As outlined in that installment, the Green berets had become folk heroes in the public mind, thanks to magazine articles that lauded their capabilities and drew ancestral lines with America's frontier fighters, like Roger's Rangers, as well as the commandos of World War 2. Moore, himself, did much to build that myth with his own novel, The Green Berets, based on two years training alongside and then going out into the field with Special Forces, in Vietnam, in 1963. The popularity of the novel and of similar magazine articles and other media features made the Green Berets synonymous with war heroes of WW2 and fabled bands of special units, like Merrill's Murauders in Burma, Carlsobn's Raiders in the Pacific, or The First Special Service Force, a joint US and Canadian brigade, known as the Black Devil's Brigade, by the Germans. Soon, the image of the Green Beret was everywhere that soldiers were seen, whether in novels, magazine articles, pop songs, and even children's toys and play gear. Child-sized green berets were sold as playsuits, alongside kid versions of military weapons. GI Joe got Green Beret accessories. Green Berets were featured on covers of mens adventure pulp magazines, alongside WW2 commandos, sadistic Nazi torturers, Asian killers, and scantily clad (or, rather, unclad) women. It it this focus that informs our next entry.

Tower Comics started up in 1965, just as Robin Moore's novel became a bestseller. The company was started by Harry Shorten, a writer who started out working for Louis Silberkleit's Columbia Publications, writing pulp stories. from there, he followed Silberkleit into comic books, for MLJ, where he co-created the heroes The Shield and the Black Hood. Around this time, he and artist Al Fagaly started a comic strip, There Ought To Be A Law, which proved to be a hit an earned Shorten quite a bit of money. Shorten wanted to put the money to work for himself and decided to invest in publishing, starting Midwood and Leisure Books, publishers of cheap paperback pulp novels, following on the model of Beacon Books, with titles aimed squarely at men, with a stable of authors that included Donald Westlake, Robert Silverberg, Lawrence Block, Paul Rader and Richard E Geis. The stories ranged from semi-erotic romance fiction, to crime novels, to two-fisted adventure and even stories of lesbian lovers, which, though written for men, had a following with actual lesbian readers and even featured some of the first sympathetic portrayals of lesbians, with happy endings, rather than downward spiraling tragedies that permeated the genre.

Shorten decided to extend his publishing into comic books, as Silberkleit had done and started Tower Comics, with books edited and packaged by Wally Wood and Samm Schwartz, who created Tippy Teen, Tower's answer to the Archie crowd. Wally Wood handled the headlining series The THUNDER Agents, a mix od superheroes and spies, as well as Undersea Agent, about a separate underwater adventurer. If I were to Hazard a guess, I would suspect that Wood packaged their lone war comic, Fight the Enemy. Wood was an ex-Merchant Marine and paratrooper, and had experience in war comics for EC and others. Wood only did one piece for Fight The Enemy, a short biographical segment. Mike Sekowsky was the standout artist, handling the recurring feature, Lucky-7, about the crew of a B-25 Mitchell bomber, in WW2. He also did the covers for all three issues published and one of the stories I will cover.

Fight The Enemy is pretty standard war comic material, mostly in the style of the 1950s war comics, with a lot of gung ho heroic stuff. The covers alone tell you what you're in for.....



That first issue cover is pure 50s war comic, where American soldier heroes fight off Red Chinese attackers, now replaced by an American soldier fighting off the VC.

Inside the comic, we get the debut of Luck-7, as the plane is shot down during a mission in the Pacific, survives in a life raft and ends up prisoners of the Japanese. The plot, swiped from the movie Desperate Journey, with Errol Flynn and Ronald Reagan, has them surprise their guards, steal uniforms and capture a bomber and fly away to Allied lines. That is followed by a desert tale of WW2, which is pretty much the plot to the Humphrey Bogart movie, Sahara. There is a piece about a Korean War ace and another about a commando team which is a rip-off of The Guns of Navarone.

Sense a pattern here?

There is a secret agent feature, about Mike Manly (character, not the artist), with art from Dick Giordano, which is very much in the Mike Hammer, literary James Bond vein, complete with damsel in distress for some bondage and peril. Then, we get our first Vietnam story, title "Chain of Command." The story is told from the point of view of a PFC, who despairs that his platoon commander and sergeant are glory hounds, out to get them killed, as they deal with a VC attack, which includes a machine gun emplacement. In quick order, the platoon commander and sergeant are killed, leaving the corporal in command. He commands the PFC and the rest to support a bazooka man, while he tries to take out the machine gun position with grenades; but, he disappears and the machine gun is still active. The PFC, Striker, is the ranking private, as a Private First Class. he has to take command and tries to outflank the machine gun nest, where he encounters the corporal and succeeds is hurling grenades into the position, silencing the machine gun an ending the firefight.



Striker and the corporal report the story to a Green beret captain, who commends them and says he will pass on commendations to their CO. Striker realizes that everyone has their place in the chain of command and may be called to lead.

This is pure war comic cliche, the reluctant fighter who doesn't know why he is mixed up in things, who finds the bravery to take charge when his superiors go down and lead the charge against the enemy. It is pure propaganda, though there is a lesson of leadership in there, in a rather jingoistic fashion. This is the kind of stuff you got in 50s war movies, unless Sam Fuller was the director. The setting could have just as easily been Guadalcanal, with a Marine or Army platoon on patrol as an American platoon, in Vietnam. Generally speaking, bazookas were no longer used in Vietnam, replaced by the disposable LAW rocket, which was lighter and more portable and used to punch holes through ambush lines and hit suspected bunkers. Th GIs in Vietnam rarely encountered armor, until the Tet Offensive, in 1968, as Russian-made tanks rolled into Quang Tri province. Also, the weapons depicted are all of WW2 vintage, with the corporal carrying an M-3 "Grease Gun" submachine gun and Striker and others carrying the M1 Garand rifle. The M1 was last used in Korea and US soldiers in Vietnam carried the M-14, in the ear6 for the bulk of the war. Some M-3s were used, by support troops and some Special Forces soldiers, as were the Swedish K submachine gun and the Smith & Wesson-manufactured M-76, which was their copy of the Swedish K. Vietnamese troops were often armed with M-1 Carbines and M1 Garand rifles, as were the ROK soldiers (Republic of Korea, aka South Korea).

The story is followed by another set at Iwo Jima, which shows an equal ignorance of the actual fighting and goes with standard cliches and stolen movie plots. This is standard fare stuff; nothing to differentiate it from the numerous war comics of the 50s and early 60s, from any publisher, aside from the art. Of the features, Lucky-7 is probably the most entertaining and Mike Manly is decent hardboiled action; but the rest is forgettable, aside from some decent art. One thing is clear is that the political viewpoint of the comic, and likely the company, is that the US military are heroes, regardless of the murky politics behind the wars, and are always brave and true, in the end. The enemy is always evil and violent, committing atrocities wherever he goes.

I will skip ahead to issue 3, for a Mike Sekowsky tale of a draftee, to look at a topic of Vietnam: The Draft.

The lead story is called "The Draftee" and it stars Green Beret Master Sgt Zack Fight (guess that makes him the Enemy, if you add a comma, after his name) who has to lead a patrol, with reluctant draftee Pvt Davis in tow. Davis has vocal in his wanting out of this war and that he didn't sign up for it.



He is threatened with a court martial and welcomes it, if it gets him out of combat. However, the major isn't having it and sends him out on patrol. He hangs back and deserts the squad and goes looking for a village, but finds the people all dead, after a VC massacre....



He then finds himself facing VC soldiers and tries to surrender and ends up staked out on the ground, to be tortured. The patrol goes looking for him and finds the village and launches an attack to rescue him. They end up pinned down by a mortar and Davis is able to free himself and take a dead VC's MAT-49 submachine gun (a French weapon, left over from the previous war) He draws the attention of the mortar crew and they swing it around to hit his position and the patrol are able to hit the mortar team and neutralize the weapon. Davis is injured in the fight and carried home, along with several VC prisoners and is visited by M Sgt Fight, at the hospital, where he vows to recover and earn his green beret.

This gets into fantasy, as well, with bits and pieces of reality. a post-WW2 draft continued through the 1960s and into the early 70s and was a major bone of contention in the anti-war movement, as a increased US military presence and combat operations meant that draftee soldiers were being sent to fight in Vietnam, against their will, in some cases. What made it an even bigger issue was that voting age was 21, until 1972, after the 26th Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified. Eligibility for Selective Service began with a man's 18th birthday. So, you could be drafted to fight in a war in which you had no vote for or against the political leaders waging said war. This was the major force behind the push for the 26th Amendment and why it succeeded, where things like the ERA Amendment did not. It was so decidedly one-sided that men could be drafted at age 18, yet could not vote in elections. The argument was that if they were old enough to fight and die for their country, they were old enough to vote in elections and determine the leadership of the country. Where we get into fantasy is a draftee soldier involved in a patrol led by Special Forces.

Special Forces is all-volunteer, even during the 50s and 60s, just as Airborne and Rangers were, in WW2. they were elite units and you want the best of the best, not people assigned there, without regard to skills or motivation. Draftees were predominantly sent to regular infantry units and support specialties, depending on MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) and aptitude tests. To qualify for Special forces, you had to volunteer for training, pass the selection course, then undergo airborne training and Special Warfare School, which took about 6 months. Then more specialized training followed, for about another 6 months. A draft term was usually 2 years. By the time you have a draftee trained for Special Forces, he would be leaving the Army. Thus, you had to be a volunteer and such a position usually meant a longer term of enlistment, due to the training requirements. meanwhile, Special Forces carried out very specialized missions. At this stage of the war, they are training and advising ARVN military units and running the CIDG program, to create fortified hamlets to protect the peasants of the region from the VC and NVA. They did lead patrols, but they would consist of their A-team and their Vietnamese counterparts. They did not usually work with regular Army units. Groups like the Special Operations Group (later Studies and Observation Group) carried out deep penetration reconnaissance missions, prisoner snatches, commando attacks, aircrew rescue missions, and other intelligence gathering and special missions. They worked with highly skilled troops out of necessity. So, we are in a mix of fantasy and a distorted reality here; but, politically, we are still in the mode of supporting the war and the US mission. Communism is Evil and Evil must be stamped out. The VC are invaders, trying to subvert the democratic South. Except, the majority of the Viet Cong insurgents were southerners, who were fed up with the corruption of the Diehm government and outside interests dictating the course of their lives. They saw themselves as rebels, like the American colonists, standing up against outside oppression. Ho Chi Minh was a great admirer of the American Revolution; but, a rebuke by the US government, post WW2, turned him towards the Chinese and Soviets, though he had adopted Mao's strategies in fighting firth the Japanese, then the French. You can debate how much of that was ideology and how much was pragmatism, as Mao was a highly effective organizer and leader of guerrilla forces and proved more successful in fighting the Japanese than the Nationalists, under Chiang Kai-Shek. The Marine Raiders, under Evans Carlson, were modelled on Mao's troops, as Carlson had served as an observer of Mao's forces, in China, before the US entered WW2.

We do see that the VC are treated as formidable fighters, with one story calling them born jungle fighters. At this stage, the ARVN had suffered several setbacks and the US had been involved in several engagements, including the major Battle of the Ia Drang Valley, where the US Army 1st Cavalry engaged with the NVA and VC, in an extended firefight, before the enemy forces withdrew. That is an element we have yet to see in any of these stories.. By this point, US military presence numbers in the neighborhood of 400,000 troops, including combat troops and they are actively engaged in fighting with both VC insurgents and NVA regulars. What's more, the Ia Drang fight was the baptism of fire for the Aircav concept, where helicopter-borne troops went into an area, engaged the North Vietnamese, resupplied by air and brought in their artillery support, as well. These 1966 and 1967 stories are still showing older Shawenee (as seen on the cover of issue #1) and Choctaw helicopters, rather than the newer and more versatile UH1H Iroquois helicopters, better known as the "Huey." the nickname comes from their original Army designation, HU-1 (for Helicopter, utility) , or Huey. As is the Army's want, they versed things and put the Utility part at the beginning and it became the UH-1, with the H model being a later variation on the original design. The Shawnee was retired, by 1967. The Choctaw was famous for appearing in a Time-Life essay and continued in Army, Navy and Marine Corps service into the dawn of the 70s.

We now turn to issue #2 and the reason I saved it for last is it features a story about Special Forces, specifically; and, it features art by prolific paperback cover illustrator Boris Vallejo.



Right from the start, we know we are in propaganda territory, right up there with the John Wayne movie. The second page goes even further, calling the Green Berets "super soldiers."



If Captain America existed, he'd be a Green Beret!

After the intro, we see an American truck convoy hit by the VC, who had knowledge of its intended route. A Special Forces A-team is tasked to locate a suspected VC radio transmitter and wipe it out. Intelligence believes that the transmitter is operating in the vicinity of an old Buddhist temple and the team make for the ruins. They arrive just before dark, but the VC also move into the area. the sergeant and another man move in to check out the ruins, when they are alerted to the VC. The sarge orders them to spread out and unload on the VC and make them think they are a much bigger force. The plan works and the VC withdraw into the jungle. The sarge knows that the VC usually has artillery support and his sidekick, Lucky, carries an American flag. he has Lucky place it on top of the temple, to draw the attention of the artillery spotters. They then withdraw and sucker the VC into attacking the position, while the artillery unload on the same target, thus killing their own men. The Green Berets then unload with their own weapons.



They take prisoners and one of them says the transmitter is on a river barge and they move out to locate it. They find its location and take out a sentry, with stealth and a knife to the chest (actually, they probably go for the back of the neck, near the base of the skull or under the jaw, on the side). They then split the team, with part staying to watch the prisoners and the other half assaulting the barge....



the fight on the barge is tooth and nail and Lucky abandons his post with the prisoners and goes to lend a hand, turning the tide. They take control of the barge and fly Lucky's flag, to identify themselves as Friendlies, as they come into an American sector, on the river.

This is probably the closest thing to an actual Special Forces mission we have seen so far, aside from basic patrols. Special Forces teams would carry out deep penetration missions to neutralize enemy observation posts and communications centers, like a sampan operating along the Mekong River, though a river-specific target would likely be handled by the Navy SEALs and riverine units, in a swift boat attack or insertion. The action is fanciful and typical of drama; but not completely out of possibility. The idea of the VC being supported by artillery is likely in relation to pitched battles like the Ia Drang, where NVA artillery was positioned to support the attacking NVA (more correctly called the PAVN, People's Army of Vietnam).

Despite seeing some M-16s in the Mike Sekowsky story, in issue #3, we again see WW2-era weaponry, particularly the M-1 Thompson Submachine Gun. The Thompson was a heavy weapon and was not well suited to the jungle, despite the punch of the bullet. M-3s would be less accurate, but lighter in weight. If a soldier was going to carry that kind of weight, he'd opt for an M-14, with greater range and firepower. Soldiers in Vietnam preferred the M-14s punch and reliability, though the weight made them tiresome on long patrols. The M-16 was far lighter; but, was also lighter in caliber and stopping power. M-14 .308 rounds would punch through jungle foliage and bodies equally, while the M-16s .223 round might not stop a man, even at close range. The rounds were supposed to stumble to create greater impact when they hit, but substandard ammo and problems with propellants caused major issue with the M-16, in Vietnam. Added to this was that the weapons required a lot of care and maintenance, which wasn't exactly the forte of regular Army soldiers, though it was standard doctrine in elite units and the Marines. Still, the M-16 required more maintenance than old standbys, like the M1 Garand and the M-14.

As I say, by the time of these comics, the US was becoming deeply embroiled in the Vietnam War. By 1965, the VC controlled the rural areas of South Vietnam, much as the Viet Minh controlled them during the French efforts to reconquer the country. The PAVN began moving forces in to support them in pitched battles with US troops and had built up an infrastructure in the Central Highlands. The US militarydecided to test the effectiveness of the Air Assault doctrine and sent the 1st Cavalry (Airmobile) to engage the PAVN in pitched battle, while resupplying them via quickly created landing zones, with troops, ammunition and artillery, which was placed on optimal hills nearby, to rain in artillery fire. They also hedged their bets by using B-52 bombers as tactical support. the end result was an engagement between 1900 US and ARVN troops (plus 2 batteries of artillery, multiple helicopter units and 5 B-52 missions, who conducted 95 sorties) against 2500 PAVN, supported by .50 cal machine guns and mortars. The battle lasted 4 days, with numerous casualties and heavy fighting, including hand-to-hand combat. Helicopter medevac and resupply were tested under fire and greatly added to the US "victory", as did the immense firepower unleashed against the PAVN. In the end, the 1st Cavalry withdrew and the PAVN returned to the territory and continued their operations.

The US military from that point on was engaged in outright combat with PAVN and VC forces, but mostly in the south. Bombing missions were sent against the north, which lacked air support; but was heavily armed with surface-to-air missiles and. These air defenses were unable to dent US bombing missions but did result in numbers of American pilots and aircrews being shotdown and killed or taken prisoner, including people like the late Senator John McCain, of Arizona. Fighting often took the form of US forces moving into an area and engaging the PAVN, then withdrawing after the battle and the PAVN returning later. Recon teams were sent in to locate supply lines, such as the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail and call in airstrikes on supply movements. The PAVN moved supplies via primitive methods, such as bicycles, carts and animals, which made them much harder to spot, compared to vehicle convoys of the American Army. Also, the jungle canopy made spotting from the air next to impossible. The Vietnamese carved paths through the jungles and moved tons of supplies and weaponry southward, especially as they built up to the Tet Offensive, in 1968. With no clear strategy to end the war and an unstable friendly government, the US and its allies were being pulled deeper and deeper into what was being called a quagmire.

At this point in time, the few comics that are addressing the war are sticking with standard plots that could be used in any war, while sticking to support for the US efforts as a battle against Communism. It is fair to say that the bulk of the major comic book publishers in the US, at the time of the war, could be seen as politically conservative. They saw their market as children and, after the nightmare of the 50s, they were sticking with that, not rocking the boat. The Comics Code had language that forced companies to present government authority in a positive light, upholding the authority of the government and its institutions, such as police and the justice system. That extended to the US military and pretty much foreign policy. Comic books weren't going to make political statements, especially about US involvement in foreign wars. They might depict a story around such things, as drama, but not as a message piece, except as outright propaganda, depending on the editor and publisher. The editors and creative personnel in comics, at the time, are mostly middle-aged men, many WW2 veterans or post-war military service (but not combat) and aren't out to challenge presidents or Congress and willingly joined an organization that prevents them from publishing such things (except Dell, who had the economic power to flip the CCA the bird and go their own route, coupled with a pretty inoffensive publishing line; and EC, who had been systematically targeted and gave up the fight to produce Mad, on newsstands and go after the Powers That Be). It is, therefore, unsurprising that the comic stories about Vietnam depict US troops as winning the fight and defending the populace from Communist aggression. However, some people outside of comic books saw things differently. Our next entry is a rather unique comic book, which took a very opposing viewpoint to the war.

Certainly the S.A.S. in Vietnam didn't wear berets on patrol. They wore what is known in the Australian Army as the 'giggle hat' (very similar to the American 'boonie hat). These had been in use since WWII, and still issued today, and are standard headgear for fighting in hot and humid conditions. These break up the outline of the human head. For the S.A.S., whose main duties included long-range patrols and insertion behind enemy lines, they had the advantage of not making a noise if hit by branch in the jungle, unlike a steel helmet which would ring and could give away your position. The giggle hat was standard across the army, and photos of Aussie soldiers in combat in Vietnam will show almost all of them in giggle hats, with a handful in slouch hats. Anyone wearing a beret is probably in aviation or armour. (Anyone in a red beret is an MP). Almost no one will be wearing a helmet.