Charles Shaw grew up in Brooklyn and Nassau County on Long Island. He attended several different high schools, including Chaminade and Sewanhaka, where he had the opportunity to take several college-level classes. He learned about West Point through popular television shows and movies in the 1950s, and from a teacher who had graduated from the academy in the 1940s. He had earned an NROTC scholarship to Columbia University, but accepted a slot at West Point two weeks before R-Day. While at the Military Academy, he was part of the nascent parachute team, which had been started by a prior-service Cadet in the Class of ’61. The first year the team was in existence, every member had to be airborne qualified. By the second year, non-airborne Cadets were permitted to join, and Shaw began jumping. Upon graduation, he commissioned into the Infantry, and after completing Airborne, Ranger, and Jump Master school, he was assigned as a Platoon Leader in C Company, 2nd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment. Following his assignment at Ft. Bragg and completion of the MATA (Military Advisor Training Academy) Course, he deployed to Vietnam, where he was assigned to the 43rd Ranger Battalion under the 9th ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) Division in the IV Corps area. He was assigned to Vinh Long, east of the headquarters in Sa Dec. Initially, he worked for an incompetent ARVN commander, but his second commander, Captain Nguyen Van Hiep, exemplified all the leadership traits that made his Rangers want to follow him. Shaw’s Ranger unit was employed primarily in an emergency response role, and when contact was imminent, they were a competent and dependable unit. Returning from Vietnam in the summer of 1965, Shaw was assigned to the new Advanced Infantry Training unit, Tigerland, at Ft. Polk, Louisiana. There he was responsible for training young Soldiers and providing them with lessons learned from his experiences in Vietnam. After Ft. Polk, he returned to Vietnam, where he was assigned to A Co, 4th Battalion, 39th Infantry, in the 9th Infantry Division. He quickly learned that his unit was the worst company in the Battalion, quite possibly in the Division, and he determined to fix the leadership issues. After he got the NCO leadership on his side, the company began improving, saving lives in the long run. When he was promoted to Major, he left the company and joined the Brigade Staff, running the “Reliable School” for incoming Soldiers among other tasks. As the Division began redeploying to the United States, he took command of an ad hoc Battalion of short-timers to lead them in rotating back to the United States. Following his second tour in Vietnam, he returned to Ft. Benning, Georgia, before joining a PSYOPS unit at Ft. Bragg. From there, he became a Foreign Area Officer (FAO) specializing in Thailand. Following several years in Thailand, his final assignment was at Central Command (CENTCOM), where he put his FAO skills to work in countries across Africa. In this interview, he talks about his childhood, his West Point experiences, and his career in the Army. He discusses working with the 43rd Battalion of ARVN Rangers, highlighting their professionalism and contrasting it later with the poor state of the company he later commanded in the 9th Division. He compares working with the Vietnamese to working with other Americans, and examines what he learned in both situations. He describes his experiences as a FAO, and the importance of cultural understanding. Finally, he expresses what West Point means to him.

VIDEO DETAILS

conflicts	Vietnam War
topics	West Point HistoryLeadershipARVNCamaraderieTeamworkMilitary TechniquesUSMA 1962
interviewer	David Siry
date	03 April 2019

BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS

name	Charles Shaw
institution	USMA
graduation year	1962
service	Infantry
unit	C/2-504 PIR, 82nd Airborne Division; 43rd Ranger BN, 9th ARVN Division; A/4-39 Infantry, 9th Infantry Division
specialty	Vietnamese Ranger Advisor
service dates	1962 1987

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 PACIFIC STARS & STRIPES

Saturday, April 11, 1970

Besieged Dak Seang: 'Scar' That Fights Back

by Spec. 4 Jack Fuller
S & S Vietnam Bureau

TAN CANH, Vietnam -- "They're crazy. You come in there in a gunship and they fire at you, knowing that they'll get a world of fire back, but they fire anyway."

That's how Spec. 4 Robert Barber, 24, who has been flying as a gunship crew chief into the valley where the Dak Seang Special Forces camp lies embattled, describes the North Vietnamese army troops circling the camp.

The Dak Seang camp, under attack was described by pilots as a scar -- charred and flattened by shelling, littered with the green-camouflage canopies of parachutes that eased resupply loads to earth. A landing strip -- unused since March -- stretches just outside the thick perimeter.

Nearby is a burnt-out village that was once the home of relatives of Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) fighters who help man the camp.

The CIDG dependents are now underground in fortified bunkers. And there are others, including 11 members of a Vietnamese band and drama group who played an engagement there March 31 and never got a chance to leave.

Military sources say the band, an extension of the Saigon government's political warfare campaign, now works as a first-aid unit. "They're working in their secondary MOS (military occupational specialty)," one American said.

Along the wooded ridges and in the tree-specked valley, Vietnamese forces are pressuring the NVA to take the pressure off the camp.

The NVA is fighting back. "You take fire from some trees and slam them with rockets," one chopper pilot said, "then you make another pass and they fire again. They’re dug in. That's all you can say."

Though it was learned [that] U.S. and Vietnamese intelligence sources showed some increased activity in the Dak Seang area before the beginning of the month, the April 1 eruption came as a surprise to some helicopter pilots.

"We got a call to go into the camp as support for a medevac," said 1st Lt. Pat Cooper, 25, who broke in as a gunship pilot over Dak Seang. "We just expected to go in, pelt the positions and never hear about it again. It didn't work out that way."

"When we got there the camp was taking heavy indirect fire and the medevac had to wait to go it. Finally, there was a lull in the shelling and the chopper set down. All hell broke loose. On the radio they were yelling, 'We're taking ground fire. We're taking automatic fire.' That's how it started."

Pilots say it's easier working near Dak Seang now. But as one crewman put it, "it is definitely not 'no sweat'."

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PACIFIC STARS & STRIPES
Sunday, April 12, 1970

Battle in 11th Day
Viets Bolster Dak Seang Force

by Spec. 4 Jack Fuller
S & S Staff Correspondent

TAN CANH, Vietnam -- Fresh Vietnamese infantry troops slammed into the bitter fighting around Dak Seang Special Forces Camp Saturday as the battle for Dak Seang valley bled into its eleventh day.

A battalion of ARVN infantrymen were air assaulted outside the camp's perimeter to help Vietnamese mobile advisory (MIKE) Forces dig out an estimated 1,500 enemy soldiers who continued to harass the camp, according to II Corps commander Gen. Lu Lan.

Meanwhile, the first group of survivors of the savage bombardments and brutal ground attacks were lifted from the camp and brought to the forward command post here, 13 miles to the southeast.

One Green Beret who had been in the camp since fighting erupted April 1 said 560 Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) troops and their 700 dependents within the camp were out of direct radio contact with Tan Canh command post for three days after a rocket destroyed part of the radio gear. An emergency radio beamed messages to planes flying above the camp during those three days, he said.

Sgt. Daniel Noonan, 22, a medic in the camp, said people left the camp's bunkers only on medevac, forward observation and resupply missions during the heavy fighting. "The Mike forces," he said, "sat out there for days drawing fire away from us, giving us a little rest."

Even as he left the camp, Noonan again faced enemy fire. "I was on the outside waiting for the chopper, "Noonan said, "when a mortar hit on our east perimeter. The chopper dropped in, I dove on board, and a mortar round hit right under our tail." The chopper returned here safely with no casualties.

Noonan was helping rocket shrapnel victims on a medevac helicopter the first day when the enemy opened up the massive attacks. "That chopper pilot (W.O.1 Danny Floyd) had guts. He was taking hits all over -- mortars, AK-47 rounds, everything." Noonan said. "But he waited there until we got everyone in. If I see that guy again, I'll buy him a beer."

Noonan said that the situation in and around the camp "looked good now."

"I have a feeling that the enemy has exhausted all the potential of his first wave and is preparing a new attack with replacements from across the border," Lan said.

Though fighting continued around the camp Saturday, the pace of activity diminished, according to Lan.

He said he expected the second wave to come within a week.

Lan said the siege of Dak Seang was a typical seasonal move against an isolated Green Beret camp. But he added that this year the siege came sooner than usual.

"Often the enemy seems to want only to get a headline," Lan said. "In this one I think he really wanted to overrun Dak Seang."

Lan said 104 Vietnamese and Mike force troops lost their lives in the battle, 35 of them within the camp's perimeter, while another 430 were wounded.

Lan put enemy casualties at 896 killed in ground actions and 472 killed by air strikes.

The U.S. command said that one American and one Australian adviser were killed in action and 11 Air Force personnel were killed on re-supply runs into the camp.