| One of the most ubiquitous and enduring legends to come from the American combat experience in Vietnam is the story of "Salt & Pepper." I began hearing the tales of two U.S. turncoats - one white and one black - shortly after the Tet Offensive in 1968. Recon Marines, ordinary grunts and Intel guys all began talking in hushed tones about seeing two Americans in uniform and carrying weapons working with the NVA in northern I Corps. All the official information on these sightings - mostly in the form of patrol SpotReps or official Intelligence Summaries - were highly classified, but that didn't stop the rumors from building or flying throughout combat units. I did my best to chase down these tales because they just seemed too incredible in my experience to be true. I talked to several men who claimed to have seen these guys operating with enemy forces, but it was mostly long-range sightings lacking in detail or observations at night through image-enhancers such as Starlight Scopes. Interestingly, the descriptions I got all had some common factors. The white guy was a redhead or sandy-haired. The black guy was a big man who always wore a helmet. Beyond that, details got sketchy and divergent. The stories never completely disappeared from hooch bull sessions, but they began to fade among Marines by the summer of 1969. I was still interested, but there was just not much information to be gleaned. I did hear tales about a Special Forces "Snatch Team" formed by SOG Command & Control North (CCN) with a specific mission of reacting to Salt & Pepper sightings with helicopters and other assets dedicated so they could be on the scene in a hurry. I confirmed the existence of this detachment but they also had other missions and could not truly be termed a specific S&P dedicated outfit. By 1970, I was beginning to hear reports of Salt & Pepper sighting by U.S. Army units operating in the Que Son Mountains south of Danang. Most of the reports I have seen come from outfits of the Americal Division that relieved the Marines at Chu Lai late in the war. Alpha and Bravo Companies, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry seemed to be in the forefront of these sightings and made several official reports up through their chain of command. By the time I left Vietnam in the spring of 1970, U.S. Army units were reporting virtually all sightings. I continued to try and follow the story from duty stations outside the combat zone as best I could. During one such post-Vietnam assignment in Washington, DC, I gained access to some classified material and discovered there was speculation that Salt and Pepper might be a Marine and a soldier previously reported as POWs. The report I saw suggested that Salt might be a PFC Fred S. (no last name provided) who was serving with Marine Aircraft Group-16 (MAG-16) when he was reported captured south of Danang in 1964. Pepper was thought to possibly be a PFC William D. Johnson of the 4th U.S. Army Infantry Division captured in 1968 near Kontum. I had put the story on my personal back burner until 1979 when PFC Robert Garwood surfaced in Vietnam claiming to be an un-repatriated POW. I was stationed on Okinawa at the time and had some small role in his return to U.S. military control. The speculation that he might have been involved in military activities against U.S. forces while in captivity re-lit my interest and after some exhaustive post-war research, I finally wrote a novel titled "Duty and Dishonor" that speculated about Salt & Pepper and their eventual return to U.S. control. The book is all fiction, of course, but I called on everything I'd heard and many of the details in the official records to give it the right feel. Is the story of Salt & Pepper finally put to rest? Not by a long shot. It always comes up at every veteran's convention I attend. It's just too juicy a bone for Vietnam Vets not to chew on it. It has, in fact, become the Vietnam War version of an urban legend. We may never know the truth. |
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