The Phoenix Program: The Secret Unit Within MACV-SOG 

The real hunt for red October when a political officer took over a soviet missile frigate to Norway.

Do a video on The Joint Communication unit and one on Intelligence Support Activity unit too.

I have a video about the ISA, you can check that on my channel. I will checkout the Joint Communication unit!

Sounds interesting! I will look it up, thank you!

A good follow-up might be MACV-SOG operator Billy Waugh's later career as a CIA contractor, which according to his biography included training Al Qaeda operators in 1990s Yemen. I was in Yemen in 1997, helping setup Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's front company in Taiz city & I was taken to 'the Base' one mile from Al Qaidah town. My American work colleague who set up that visit was a Vietnam veteran who was, I believe, trained by Billy Waugh.

In order to understand that, you should have a subtle understanding of MACV-SOG..

@@the-spy-network True but SOG started in 1964 before the Phoenix Program started in 1967.

@@the-spy-network The two programs had nothing to do with each other.

You're right, they deserve every bit of attention as well as the SOG does.

Another program never mentioned was locals from Laos and Cambodia trained by the CIA for missions where they were given a special drug which made them want to kill anything in sight, then dropped behind enemy lines. Those who made it back had to be caged until the drug wore off. They would then be used again . At the end those involved in these missions, no one knows what happened to the members of these units.

We made Superman look like Clark Kent.

I never mentioned the Phoenix program. They never told us where we were being dropped. Yes they were to disrupt the supply lines, but there were also other missions.

Dang.. I think I missed that part unfortunately. Thank you!

@@the-spy-network and while many of the activities were controversial---the South Vietnamese would ID some guy--usually a political or tribal or business rival....and say "he's VC," and that was that. There are many many exgeratted claims about the Phoenix Program that many anti-war reporters and journalists to this day reported.

That is some nice information about a very tiny detail! Thank you for your explanation! 🙂

Smith & Wesson Model 76 was later used because of Sweden. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_%26_Wesson_Model_76

Good catch......several Swedish guns showed up as well as their version of the K-Bar. Plausible denial.....

@SailfishSoundSystem another good catch....snipers in those days typically used a .308 Remington or .30-.30 Winchester magnum. Night vision scopes showed up for the first time not just starlight-starbright.

I preferred the AK.

Laos and Cambodia are frequently mentioned in CIA documents about the Phoenix Program. So there were not particular cross border operations at all and they are wrong?

Funny, they never told us where they dropped us but i suspect a majority of my missions were Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam.

If I did not explain the origins of MACV-SOG the video didn't make sense to me. So I chose this on purpose, but sorry to hear that you didn't like it. Better luck next time, hopefully.

@@the-spy-network A bit more abbreviated with a bit more subject info would have been better.

Duly noted @@wernervanderwalt8541

In the mid 60's i was assigned to a flying unit called Talking bird in England. They were used for many disaster operations and were successful. This included the Mau Mau uprising in 1966. After i left the unit they tried to use it in Vietnam, landing a C-130 in the jungle's of Vietnam. Twice they flew missions and landed in Vietnam. Both times they suffered 85% casualty rate. After that the idea of using this group for missions in Vietnam were scrubbed. The missions worked great for natural disasters but were a complete failure in Vietnam.

I will look it up! Thanks :)

You're actually the first that tells me this. And I was not aware of making a mistake there. Thanks for noting it down and sticking through with watching the video.

👍🏻

Absolutely insane if you think about it...

Yeah, my dad was drafted in April 1968 and spent a year in Nam as a LRRP for the Phoenix Program. He doesn’t talk about it much but he gave me a book to read about it. Suffice it to say he didn’t have a very good Vietnam experience.

I know someone who was with Army 5th Special Forces attached to MACV SOG and he was also an instructor at RECONDO School in Vietnam for a while which was a course to train LRRPs. He was actually interviewed for the History Channel's RECONDO School episode narrated by Tom Selleck. Larry is a total bad ass but at the same time cool, calm, and collected.

@@the-spy-network The thing with youth is you are young, dumb, and think you are invinciple.

Wow, thank you for sharing and your service! These types of stories are always best told by the ones who lived through them.

Absolutely, there were some absolute insane things done there.

​@@the-spy-networkespecially losing!👍

@@hughzapretti-boyden9187 We did not lose. Our govt surrendered the war, The soldiers did not.

@@rondodson5736 you got run out of the country by boys in pyjamas & sandals! American revisionist history is legendary!😂

The fact that MACV- SOG actually got into cross border ops with north Vietnam and even into China is absolutely amazing

My team was dropped not being told where and only had map coordinates to navigate by. I suspect missions were in Laos, Cambodia and maybe even North Vietnam.

I believe it straight away. There are multiple comments on the 'brass balls' these soldiers must've had and I couldn't agree more. Aside from the 100% casualty rate at times 😧

Mike Force Podcast

@@scaryterry nah different one I haven’t heard Mike Force

Sog podcast has John "tilt" meyer interviewing fellow sog vets

The non fiction books by John Plaster USAR Maj ret explain a lot about SOG & covert ops in SE Asia.

Exactly, but the outcomes were questionable and shrouded in criticism for obvious reasons. Wiping out villages because of incompliance is absurd, I hope we can agree on that..

@@the-spy-network It was the communist's wiping out villages as a rule, not us.

Atrocities were committed by both sides and both were wrong.

The Phoenix Program was a sub unit of MACV-SOG, tasked with special/clandestine/secretive operations above the already secretive nature of the SOG. This was their patch, or presumably so.

We wore black fatigues, wore no insignia identifying us, nor carried anything identifying us as Americans.

MACV/SOG wore camo or black fatigues on missions with no insignia or anything to identify them as Americans. This was done so if captured they could not be identified as Americans and the govt could deny any knowledge of their operations.

Lol, that didn't occur to me until you said it just now. I think it is..

I think the door gunner doing a M60 barrel change but has not inserted the new barrel yet

MAC V SOG modified or used many custom guns, weapons. The groups had armorers, arms rooms who said they could aquire nearly any gun or firearm within 72hr. 🗃

🤓

Oxymoron ...

It was a special unit in MACV/SOG assigned to work CIA missions.

Very little actual footage so chose to repeat instead of filling with nonsense.......... I will never be able to do it the right way when all people do is sweat the little stuff..........

CCN was a spin -off later of MACV/SOG.

Your grandfather will probably appreciate your interest.

That is very much appreciated! 👌

🥸

😖

My sympathy lies with all the people who suffered during the Vietnam war and i mean from all sides of the war.

I often think about the displacement of animals during the war. I also think of how much the Vietnamese people suffered after we left, especially with the agent orange having been deployed all over the country. Long Binh army base north of Saigon is where they brought agent orange into. After the war the Vietnamese govt had to put the base off limits to everyone because of the agent orange exposure in that area.

As it always was and is, most probably..

The Chinese Mission at Khoangville. Plain Des Jarres... Considered at the time Neutral. listed as a no fire area, 68-69... South of Lima 108 (Muong Soui)

The VC were great fighters and should never be underestimated.

It was secret at the time.. not stating it is a secret now at all.. 🤔

@@the-spy-network , if you do your research you'll find that the Saigon 5:oo o'clock folly's at the MAC V press corps were yapping it up in the late 60's , just talk to any knowledgeable south east asia ( the nam to those that were their) Vet and they will just look at you as if you're a lame retard for asking

Awesome man, thanks for the contribution. 👍🏻

@@the-spy-network i missed the south east asian police action by my age , but i made up for it in beirut and after the corps i did the 22' month's with the nica contras by way of bob poo's CMAG's

I knew my brother was in Laos and Cambodia and Pleiku. I was 10 when he came home 9/67. Officially found out mid 80s. My mom wouldn't hear from my bro for weeks at a time. My cousins wrote letters every week to their mom's, my aunt's. My bro will be 78 in September, enlisted 9/65. I still remember his service number 🇺🇲❤️ Marinemomof3

Thats wild.. 😖

They said MACV/SOG kill ratio was 151 to 1.

Yes, and many others actions that the US also used really underminded the NVA/VC. The Tet Offensive was a major military lost to the NVA//VC...but alas...the media.

To be honest, I do not know. I'm curious as well now. Hopefully someone who sees the comment and knows it will let us know :).

Most SOG members were allowed to carry a weapon of choice, depending on their unit. I preferred the Russian AK and a K-Bar knife. That with my canteens of water and purification tablets were my favorite items.

I don't think I'm stating they're synonymous, right? My point was this being a 'secret' program under the flag of MACV-SOG, which to me still sounds like that was the case.

@@the-spy-network I spoke with my father today and asked him since he was there. He said the Phoenix Project was ran by the C.I.A. and not under the command of MACV . I’m sure intelligence was shared from MACV to the CIA but probably not the other way around, as the CIA wanted to keep it activity know to only a select few.

Well, if true.. you have heard it from first hand so it would be hard to argue that. Eventually everything is a CIA project one way or the other 🫣

@@thomascarpenter7415 There was a MACV/SOG unit assigned to the CIA for covert missions.

Plausible deniability ....

Officially we were not allowed to enter Laos or Cambodia as they were not considered the war zone.

Well, if you compare what I researched and penned down with what's on wikipedia, I might done an okay job 👍🏻

I suppose. Getting all you're information from Wikipedia just seems lazy

@@seanbryan2127 well, try giving it a Google search, you'll be surprised about what you find. But thanks!

@@the-spy-network I did. Right before watching your video.. which is where I noticed word for word, what you said was the same as what I read. So... Doing research is fine, but if you're going to plagiarize, at least change something

I tried to combine it, with a focus on the Phoenix Program. But apparently I failed and the endproduct was 'lame'.

@@the-spy-network Dumb Ambassadors and arrogant Defense Attaches probably did not help info input DIA, CIA, IVS, USAID, CAS, 53rd SOW, Air America, inflated egos the list is long .. a lot of lying for no reason ,Nixon should have been in jail ....

Rangers today go to Thailand to train with Thai rangers. A tradition that was established there was for American rangers to hold a king cobra free handed.

I think that is a sharp analysis, my friend.

The world is controlled by the Washington DC led military industrial complex...the financial district of London...and the religious sector of the Vatican in Rome. There r secret families that rule above those 3 bodies. That is the true "nobility" or "royal" families.

These operations were so successful that the NVA kept 3 to 5 battalions busy hunting and trying to neutralize them

@@rogerraff6823 OK. And where did it get the US?

Actually the Vietnamese now strongly dislike China and try to avoid contact with them.

He must've had some crazy stories from that era. Thank you for your service!

Not sure if the CIA was in the lead, but they obviously played a very large role in it, so could be.

NOPE, He was not.

You know that's a video game you are referencing, right?

MACV/SOG had members from all four branches of the military. These members were selected for special abilities they had. I had a neighbor who was coast guard, sent to Vietnam and ran boats up rivers delivering navy seal teams on their missions.

My friend who got me to enlist was also assigned to a listening post. His site was overran several time sand lost many men due to it.

Colin was the G3 For the 23 ( Americal Div ) Inf.

In no way was MACV/SOG linked to Mai Lai massacre.

I don't believe I ever said that MACV-SOG was INVOLVED in My-Lai. I merely made the point that PHOENIX was TIED to My-Lai (indirectly, because Phoenix was drafted by the CIA; My-Lai was simply an "offshoot" of that program, carried to its logical conclusion), and I suspect that the fear was that MACV-SOG ops would be uncovered if My-Lai was seriously investigated and prosecuted. So far as I am aware, I don't believe ANY MACV-SOG personnel were, in ANY way, involved in My-Lai itself. If my comment wasn't clear, then I apologize. I know that Phoenix was "turned on itself" and ended up a real mess, largely because of double-agents in the ARVN Cmd, and that Phoenix was a CIA program, like ALL of the operations there. MACV was RUN by the CIA "behind the scenes". So, if CIA ran MACV, and MACV ran the US effort in Vietnam, then the CIA ran Vietnam; if a=b, and b=c, then a=c.... I'm sorry if that's problematic for you; but the TRUTH needs to be known, so that we DON'T engage in that kind of goatscrew again. We owe it to all those that went and served there (and ESPECIALLY those that DIDN'T make it home😢). If you were one of them... Welcome Home.😢

Well.... at the time it seemed they were actually making an impact. But in the grand scheme of things..

One thing is for certain though, Mac V SOG killed many many many n. Vietnamese and VC..thousands more than they lost

That’s actually not true at all lmao. Yes they had a 100% causality rate. But they accomplished a lot of classified and absurd missions. They also have the highest kill:death ratio in a single United States military’s unit ever with 150:1. They r the only military unit that was capable of proving the Ho Chi Minh trail existence, which was a pivotal moment in the war. Do some research before spreading misinformation online. U saying they r a failure cuz the US technically lost the war shows ur ignorance at the topic at hand. It was an un-winnable war just like the war in the Middle East. That does not mean the unit was a failure cuz every fact points to the contrary as them being one of the most valuable units in military history and was the start of joint special operations forces which is now the top ranked units in the United States military and paved the way for both DEVGRU (seal team 6) and delta force. Not only that, the missions and tactics of macv sog still taught and recognized within the special ops community as well. Again do some research before spewing non sense😂

Considering they were thrown into a political war, with the powers that be not willing to let the soldiers win it, these guys went beyond what should have even been asked of them. A 100% casualty rate does not mean they were all killed. It means they were atleast wounded and most were wounded multiple times. Their mission was to gather intelligence ( and SOG stands for Study’s and Observation Group) and they did it pretty well. It does NOT mean special operations group as a lot of arm chair commandos think and say. Their hands, as all US forces in Vietnam were, were tied by a bunch of idiot politicians that made sure their kids only served in state side or reserve units, that neither had the spine nor the will to let them do what it took for them to win and end the war. So if I were you I would do quite a bit of reading and searching so you atleast know some of what your talking about instead of knowing nothing of what your talking about.

youre completely wrong and they had a kill ratio of 158 to 1