The Combat Man-Trackers of the Vietnam War

Great article entitled "Vietnam's Combat Trackers," by Ken Olsen, in the American Legion Magazine...

Pete Peterson was recruited for the combat trackers while recovering at a U.S. military hospital in Japan during the fall of 1968. It wasn’t a hard sell for the two trackers who shared his hospital ward. Peterson had lost several friends in a firefight with the North Vietnamese while he was sidelined with an ankle injury. “The tracker’s job was to hunt down the enemy,” says Peterson, who had been serving with an infantry company. “I liked the idea of that. I wanted some payback.”

When he returned to Vietnam, Peterson joined one of the elite Army teams charged with finding an enemy known for melting into the jungle, gathering intelligence, and searching for missing U.S. soldiers and pilots. Although the secrecy surrounding the combat trackers has meant their accomplishments were all but lost to history, they were so successful that the North Vietnamese army put a bounty on the five-man teams and their Labrador retrievers. That bounty was a point of pride with the trackers, part of what made the work both arduous and gratifying. Read more here...

Source: Institute of Visual Tracking & Tactical Acuity