When one thinks of America’s baddest units to serve in the Vietnam War, chances are the U.S. Army Special Forces (SF, aka “Green Berets”) and Rangers, along with the U.S. Navy SEALs, come immediately to mind.
However, not so many people realize that even the “kinder, gentler” U.S. Air Force (USAF) had its own band of rough and ready ground-pounders who took the fight to the Communist enemy in Vietnam. We now recognize the USAF’s Combat Security Police (CSP) units.
Among other things, the Vietnam War ushered in a new type of threat to U.S. airbases in forward deployed locations. Clearly defined front lines and safe rear areas were absent. Thus, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and Viet Cong (VC) targeted air bases on a regular basis and destroyed a large number of aircraft early in the war. Ergo, the USAF was forced to redirect its attention from internal security to providing a well-trained, well-armed, and highly motivated combat security police force capable of repelling raids by experienced enemy sapper units.
Thus, it came to pass that the 1041st USAF Security Police Squadron (Test) was formed at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. Designated by the codename "Operation Safeside,” the 1041st USAF SPS (T) first arrived “in-country” at Phu Cat Air Base on January 13, 1967. A year later, it would be succeeded by the 82nd Combat Security Police Wing’s 821st Combat Security Police Squadron (CSPS) and 822nd CSPS (the 823rd CSPS would follow in 1969).
When I was a 1st Lieutenant attending the Security Forces Officer Course at Lackland AFB, Texas, back in 2004, one of the noncommissioned officers in my instructor cadre stated that these CSP units actually had the highest kill-to-loss ratio of any American military unit in the Vietnam War. Alas, I haven’t been able to find any independent corroboration of that lofty claim. Nonetheless, the CSPs definitely made an impact.
This was most starkly demonstrated on January 21, 1968, during the Tet Offensive, more specifically during the concurrent defense of two key South Vietnamese airbases: Tan Son Nhut Airbase and Bien Hoa. The excellent 2014 book Sky-Cops and Peacekeepers: Uniforms and Equipment of the USAF Air Police and Security Police, tells the story better than I can, starting with Tan Son Nhut:
“The only thing between some 1500 VC and the flight line was bunker 051, manned by five Security Policeman [sic]; Sergeants Louis R. Fisher [actually, Louis Harold “Lou” Fischer], William J. Cyr, Charles E. Hebron, Roger B. Mills, and twenty-one-year-old Alonzo Coggins … Soon Fisher, Cyr, Hebron, and Mills were all killed. Coggins would survive but was badly wounded. He took cover among the bodies of his dead buddies … Before they stopped counting, Airmen from the 377 SPS noted 962 enemy bodies inside and immediately outside the TSN perimeter.”
Meanwhile, at Bien Hoa:
“At 0320 hours, CSC received notification that Bunker 10 was under a vicious attack by approximately 1,500 enemy troops. At Bein [sic] Hoa there were 350 SP’s and 75 augmentees to blunt the attack, a nearly five-to-one advantage for Charlie … Security Police casualties were two dead, including an augmentee and 10 wounded. Inside the base perimeter, 139 VC were killed and 25 taken prisoner.”
Multiple well-deserved decorations (sadly many of them posthumous) for heroism were awarded to SPs as a result of these two battles: twelve Silver Stars; twenty Bronze Stars with “V” for valor; one Legion of Merit, awarded to Col. Billy Jack Carter; and one Air Force Cross, the USAF’s second-highest decoration, and the first of its kind to be awarded to a non-aviator, Capt. Reginald V. “Reggie” Maisey (regrettably, his Medal of Honor nomination was disapproved).
Today, the Louis H. Fischer Award is awarded to the top graduate of the USAF Security Forces Academy Security Apprentice Course (i.e., the enlisted Air Force cops’ technical training course). Mind you, merely being the top graduate of the class doesn’t automatically guarantee a trainee the Fischer Award; you have to earn a 97 percent academic test score average, receive zero derogatory paperwork, pass all evaluations on the first attempt, qualify as an “Expert” with the M17 (SIG P320 9mm) service pistol and M4 carbine (back in my day it was the Beretta M9 pistol and full-size M16A2 rifle), and be recommended by a primary instructor cadre and military training leaders.
(A top graduate of a given class who doesn’t meet these stringent requirements instead receives the Top Performer Award, which is still a tremendous honor in its own right.)
I myself was a recipient of the Sgt. Louis H. Fischer Award back on February 4, 2000, when I graduated from the Security Forces Academy with the inaugural Team 11 of the 343rd Training Squadron. I was twenty-four years old at the time, and now, twenty-five years later, I still consider that one of the proudest achievements of my entire life.
As far as current units are concerned, the legacy was proudly revived at Moody AFB, Georgia, on March 27, 1997, in the manifestation of the 820th Security Forces Group, which was officially renamed the 820th Base Defense Group (BDG) on October 1, 2010. According to the Moody AFB 23rd Wing Public Affairs Office, the 820th BDG serves as “the Air Force's sole unit organized, trained and equipped to conduct integrated base defense in high-threat areas.”
(For anybody wondering about the semantics, the name of the Security Police career field was officially changed to Security Forces on Halloween Day 1997. Personally, I’m not fond of the newer moniker; in my opinion, “Security Forces” as opposed to “Security Police” makes us sound like the East German Stasi or Saddam Hussein’s Mukhabarat, as “SF” makes us sound like wannabe Green Berets as opposed to the Blue Berets that we actually are. But I digress.)
To the old-school CSPs and present-day 820th BDG SF troops alike, a hearty “HOOAH!”
Christian D. Orr is a Senior Defense Editor for National Security Journal (NSJ). He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch , The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, and Simple Flying. Last but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS). If you’d like to pick his brain further, you can ofttimes find him at the Old Virginia Tobacco Company (OVTC) lounge in Manassas, Virginia, partaking of fine stogies and good quality human camaraderie.
Image: Shutterstock.
