Vietnam military op: "Operation Wandering Soul"

I hadn't heard of this till recently. Of course there was you tubeage on it.
The Army thought this would be psychologically devastating to the Viet Cong.




"It is the Vietnamese belief that the dead must be buried in their homeland, or their soul will wander aimlessly in pain and suffering. Vietnamese feel that if a person is improperly buried, then their soul wanders constantly.
They can sometimes be contacted on the anniversary of their death and near where they died.
Vietnamese honor these dead souls on a holiday when they return to the site where they died."

U.S. engineers spent weeks recording eerie sounds and altered voices - which pretended to be killed Vietcong - for use in the operation, with the intended purpose of instilling a sense of turmoil within the enemy. The desired result being for the soldier to flee his or her position.
Helicopters were sometimes employed to broadcast recordings, the voices in which called on their "descendants" in the Vietcong to defect and cease fighting.
The extent of the operations success is unknown. The Vietcong usually encountered return fire if they reacted to the recordings, thus nullifying the intended outcome of the operation.

The extent of the operations success is unknown. The Vietcong usually encountered return fire if they reacted to the recordings, thus nullifying the intended outcome of the operation

Doesn't make sense.

Reminds me of US spec ops forces using heavy metal and country music to pester the Taliban several years ago. Link

a reply to: EA006

the intention of the recordings was to cause them to leave their positions and run away (desert) but when they did that they would be killed by the americans, so they just stayed where they were defeating the purpose of the recordings.

a reply to: Tardacus

I got that bit.
It was the: "The extent of the operations success is unknown", and the "thus nullifying the intended outcome of the operation".

The extent of the success was zero.

Psyops are always an interesting subject.

originally posted by: EA006
a reply to: Tardacus

I got that bit.
It was the: "The extent of the operations success is unknown", and the "thus nullifying the intended outcome of the operation".

The extent of the success was zero.

That's the conclusion I too reached. If the intended outcome was nullified, doesn't that mean it was unsuccessful?

originally posted by: ColeYounger

originally posted by: EA006
a reply to: Tardacus

I got that bit.
It was the: "The extent of the operations success is unknown", and the "thus nullifying the intended outcome of the operation".

The extent of the success was zero.

That's the conclusion I too reached. If the intended outcome was nullified, doesn't that mean it was unsuccessful?

Me too. It sounds the most stoopid, condescending piece of the brown stuff imaginable..echo chambers Eh! Oops! I forgot to mention the sounds were coming out of Heli's and disappeared when the heli's had gone. No wonder the viet's shot at them...don't gimme those negative waves man!

a reply to: ColeYounger

Watching Vietnam movies I always thought about setting up hidden speakers in the jungle to play weird music and sounds through the night to mess with their heads.

a reply to: ColeYounger

Psywarops were around before Vietnam, but honed there to a fine degree. The longer a war goes on the more brutal both sides become.

I imagine the audio "spooks in the forest" noises were probably hard to hear over the wup wup of the rotor blades. And a lot less frightening in general.