Fighting Viet Cong in the Rung Sat: Memoir of a Combat Advisor in Vietnam, 1968-1969

by Bob Worthington

The Vietnam War was not going well in 1968. The January Tet Offensive--a tactical defeat but strategic victory for North Vietnam--showed the U.S. military and the American public that the enemy remained determined, no nearer defeat. Americans grew war weary while politicians and military leaders could not agree on how to win or how to withdraw. Between combat tours, the author served as a U.S. Army company commander--a job he came to despise. Experiencing what he perceived as a degradation in the Army's senior command, he resigned his commission. Yet he needed money to complete graduate school and volunteered to return to Vietnam as a combat advisor. This memoir describes his participation in the fiercest fighting of the war, on the Cambodian border, where he almost died of hookworm and was shot in a night operation. In Saigon to recuperate, he was tasked with creating an advisory team to train South Vietnamese commandos to conduct raids in the swamps south of Saigon, the Rung Sat Special Zone. For seven months they were successful, with Worthington receiving seven combat decorations.

283 pages, Paperback

First published November 10, 2021

Reviews

[Marshall Snyder · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not your typical Vietnam combat veteran memoir. Major Worthington served as an advisor to the Vietnamese military during two tours in Vietnam. This book is focused on his second tour, during which he served first on the Cambodian border and then in the Rung Sat Special Zone. The RSSZ was a tidal estuary athwart the river approaches to Saigon. A well researched book, Worthington provides considerable detail on the role of military advisers. Fluent in Vietnamese, he has a unique perspective on the war in Vietnam. Surviving a near fatal parasitic attack and a gunshot wound, the author left the Army after this tour to attend graduate school. He later rejoined the Army as a psychologist.

[Military Writers Society of America (MWSA)]

MWSA Review

Author Bob Worthington has given us a very good book to read in his memoir Fighting Viet Cong in the Rung Sat. He served two tours of duty in Vietnam as a combat advisor to the Vietnamese military. His experiences gave Worthington excellent insight into the conflict. He has shared those experiences with us in this book. Fluent in both French and Vietnamese, the author got to know his host counterparts in a manner most American soldiers could never achieve. In his two tours, he fought the enemy in different regions of Vietnam, working with both the Vietnamese army and navy.

Although a memoir, much of the book reads like military history as the author explains the how's and why's of conducting combat operations in Vietnam. I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in military history or the conflict in Vietnam.

Review by Bob Doerr (March 2022)