From Essential to Expendable – Montagnards, Kurds, and U.S. Army Special Forces in Vietnam and Northern Iraq

Authors

Jake BrooksFollow

Preferred Name

Jake L. Brooks

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

ORCID

https://orcid.org/0009-0006-9934-5149

Date of Graduation

5-15-2025

Semester of Graduation

Spring

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Department of History

First Advisor

Philip D. Dillard

Second Advisor

Yongguang Hu

Third Advisor

Jonathan S. Jones

Abstract

In the Vietnam and Iraqi conflicts, the U.S. Army Special Forces teamed up with indigenous ethnic monitories to bring the fight to all corners of the battle space, and to take advantage of their immense local knowledge and strategic locations. The Montagnards of Central Indochina and the Kurds in Northern Iraq allied with the Special Forces for a number of reasons: protection from their ruling governments, recognition for their movements for autonomy, increased access to better medicine and equipment, and the opportunity to strike back at their historical enemies. The Montagnards and Kurds taught the Green Berets how to better navigate and survive in the inhospitable terrain and provided them with intelligence and manpower. The Special Forces men brought in more sophisticated weapons and the acumen for modern war. Together they formed efficient and close-knit teams that infiltrated the Ho Chi Minh Trail and pushed Saddam’s Army out of Mosul and Kirkuk.

The Special Forces of the 5^th and 10^th SFG (A) stepped into two markedly different, yet vaguely familiar, situations that required them to work closely with a disenfranchised populous. They were forced to deal with the turbulent past of their indigenous allies in a way policy makers or generals did not. In order to better understand the Montagnards, Kurds, and their roles in our wars, this thesis delves into their culture and political history, not simply their military operations. No matter the outcome of the conflicts, the combination of Montagnards and Kurds with Special Forces provided the U.S. with fierce and determined allies who possessed immensely valuable local knowledge that could not be found anywhere else.