Not a Gentleman's War by Ron Milam

Author:Ron Milam
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2009-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

THE GRAY AREAS: AMBUSHES AND GUERILLA WARFARE The ancient Greeks seldom used the element of surprise as a tactic. It was not considered “noble” to sneak up on an opponent or to kill him when he was unsuspecting. Clashes had to be in the open, in daylight, and each fighting unit had to be allowed to see the other. Even hippeis, the ancient Greek cavalry, which had maneuverability, did not ordinarily employ ambush techniques. They were used more as a means to project force onto the battlefield against massed infantry troops than to surprise fixed armies with mounted charges.19 With the advent of guerilla warfare, sneak attacks were probably understood but not tolerated among leaders due to the ethos of war. The ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu wrote of the use of deception in battle, but not of ambush. He believed that knowledge of the enemy was as important as courage, but he did not endorse outright killing by surprise.20

Ambush, therefore, may be considered a more “modern” tactic, and all military units employ some type of surprise maneuver designed to lure an unsuspecting enemy into a trap. Native Americans used such tactics against the overwhelming firepower of European settlers in the seventeenth century. It presents a new gradient on the killing scale because the enemy soldier, while still armed, will be surrounded in a killing zone and destroyed before he can make effective use of his weapon. The infantry soldier is confronted with killing a combatant who momentarily is a noncombatant. This kill will not have the same exhilarating “feel” to it that a frontal confrontation would have, because the noble kill of combat requires fairness and equality of risk, which could not exist if the enemy never knew the attack was imminent. But ambush is effective and decreases the likelihood of casualties on one side.

But is ambush of a military unit an atrocity? The victims are by definition armed. And any soldier who wants to achieve victory in modern warfare knows he must seize the advantage wherever it may be found. During the Vietnam War, the guerilla tactics of the VC, which included ambushes that were often initiated by booby-trapping trails, were absolutely necessary if they were to succeed against the superior firepower of American forces. And the American response to VC ambushes was to use the same tactic whenever possible to gain the element of surprise. But it was considered one step closer to destruction of a noncombatant, even though a weapon was seized after the kill was completed. The use of the ambush in Vietnam presented other issues that ultimately led to racial attitudes that U.S. officers and soldiers developed toward the enemy. “The hit-and-hide tactics of the Viet Cong were seen as cowardly rather than competent and resourceful and the Viet Cong were viewed as ‘not real soldiers.’”21 Reminiscent of colonists’ attitudes toward Native Americans who fought from behind trees rather than engaging the Europeans in the linear warfare style developed on the Continent, the VC were seen as the modern-day “savages.

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