American Rifle - Alexander Rose [199]
But not for long. On February 7, 1958, in the near-panic that followed the Soviet launch of Sputnik, Department of Defense directive 5105.15 had established the Advance Research Projects Agency (ARPA, though later better known as DARPA, the first letter standing for “Defense”). Proudly unbeholden to established military channels or traditions, ARPA’s job was to develop, evaluate, and fund new technology for the Pentagon.
In the spring of 1961 ARPA embarked on Project AGILE, its task being to supply inventive fixes for use against Communist irregulars in Southeast Asia. (AGILE researchers would conceive a glider for cargo drops in the jungle, vehicles that could skim across rice paddies, shoes invulnerable to underwater bamboo spikes, and a weapon that would harness a cloud of charged particles and explode it using an electrical impulse.)43
Project AGILE was given top priority. The U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG), originally sent to Vietnam in the early 1950s to train the country’s regular forces to withstand a North Vietnamese conventional attack, had underestimated the political and cultural impact of the new forms of guerrilla insurgency pursued by Hanoi after 1960. (“Any good soldier can handle guerrillas,” army chief of staff George Decker had allegedly boasted to the president.) From that year onward, and especially under Kennedy, the American focus switched to coun-terinsurgency, paramilitary training, and special operations.
By October 1961, at the same time that Kennedy upped the number of military advisers in Vietnam, Colt’s lobbying had attracted the attention of William Godel, a senior ARPA official. That month he sent ten AR-15s to Saigon to let Vietnamese allies and their American advisers try them out. The recipients were highly enthusiastic about these marvelous machines, and in the new year of 1962 a further shipment of a thousand AR-15s arrived, this time intended for actual field testing. In July the testers reported that it was the best “all around” firearm in existence.44
Heavily accounting for ARPA’s cheerleading was the fact that none of these hard-bitten veterans in Vietnam had ever before witnessed the kinds of devastating wounds inflicted by the AR-15; none had thought such lethality possible in a rifle, particularly one firing a “varmint” round like the .223. As late as the mid-1980s, photographs of the victims remained classified. As an example of the horrific kills toted up by AR-15, consider the following files from the report:
? “One platoon from the 340 [South Vietnamese] Ranger Company was on an operation... and contacted 3 armed VC [Vietcong] in heavily forested jungle.... At a distance of approximately 15 meters, one Ranger fired an AR-15 full automatic hitting one VC with 3 rounds with the first burst. One round in the head took it completely off. Another in the right arm, took it completely off, too. One round hit him in the right side, causing a hole about 5 inches in diameter.”
? “On 9 June a Ranger Platoon from the 40th Infantry Regt. was given the mission of ambushing an estimated VC Company. [Five VC were killed:]
1—Back wound, which caused the thoracic cavity to explode.
2—Stomach wound, which caused the abdominal cavity to explode.
3—Buttock wound, which destroyed all tissue of both buttocks.
4—Chest wound from right to left; destroyed the thoracic cavity.
5—Heel wound; the projectile entered the bottom of the right foot causing the leg to split from the foot to the hip.
These deaths were inflicted by the AR-15 and all were instantaneous except the buttock wound. He lived approximately five minutes.”
? “On 13 April, a Special Forces team made a raid on a small village. In the raid, seven VC were killed. Two were killed by AR-15