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MAJ Mark E Cooper
to remember
Rheault, Robert B., COL.
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Contact Info
Home Town Boston
Last Address Rockland, Maine
Date of Passing Oct 16, 2013
Official Badges
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Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
Breaking: Ave atque vale, COL Robert Rheault
COL Robert B. Rheault, who was one of the most respected, and most mistreated, commanders in Special Forces history, passed away today (16 Oct 13) at 1100. He was 87 years old and leaves a wife, two daughters and a son; his first wife passed away in 2006. This obituary is written primarily from memory and may be subject to revision.
COL Rheault was a member of the Class of 1946 at the United States Military Academy, where his friends and classmates included George S. Patton III, who would also serve in Vietnam and retire as a Major General. Like Patton, Rheault came from a well-to-do family; he, too, might have worn stars, even though he had committed to Special Forces, then an infantry officer’s career-killer. Rheault held the key commands for a Special Forces officer during the Vietnam war: he led the 1st Special Forces Group on Okinawa in the 1960s, and commanded the 5th Special Forces Group in Vietnam briefly in 1969. He had been the Group XO from October, 1964 to May of 1965.
Soon after his change of command around Memorial Day of 1969, he was relieved by GEN Creighton Abrams (20 Jul 69), arrested and confined to quarters. Abrams, who hated Special Forces (and all paratroopers, actually… and halfbacks. We are not making this up) had overreacted to the news that several counterintelligence / HUMINT officers who were covered as members of 5th Group had identified and disposed of a double agent. This was Abrams’s chance to “get” Special Forces, and he seized it with unseemly haste.
A series of show trials ensued, which have generated at least two books, but the evidence was far too flimsy to support a charge against Rheault (the prosecution of the other officers also crashed and burned). The vindictive Abrams had to settle for destroying the officers’ careers, and Rheault left the Army. In the years to come, he led the Outward Bound school in Maine and remained fit and youthful-appearing. He enjoyed the company of other Special Forces veterans, but would not listen to questions about his relief — or hear a word of criticism against General Abrams. He showed the sort of loyalty up the chain of command that too many Vietnam-era officers, Abrams certainly chief among them, never considered showing down the chain of command.
Rheault’s relief and confinement, and the kangaroo court-martial that Abrams convened, led to the above-mentioned books (A Murder in Wartime by Jeff Stein and Those Gallant Men by John Berry) and an incredible amount of Special Forces lore, including tales of a hostage rescue mission that was mounted by officers and men of the 5th, and made it as far as rehearsals, but stood down on the explicit command of the colonel himself, smuggled out of durance vile.
It’s an unfortunate thing that the history books will record the name of Creighton Abrams when they’re documenting Vietnam, and be silent on Robert B. Rheault.
But tonight he dines in Valhalla. Where Patton père et fils are probably making Abrams fetch him his mead.
Other Comments:
Vietnam War/Advisory Campaign (1962-65)
From Month/Year
March / 1962
To Month/Year
March / 1965
Description This campaign period was from 15 March 1962 to 7 March 1965. During this period, direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam conflict increased steadily as U.S. trained Vietnamese pilots moved Vietnamese helicopter units into and out of combat. Ultimately the United States hoped that a strong Vietnamese government would result in improved internal security and national defense. The number of U.S. advisors in the field rose from 746 in January 1962 to over 3,400 by June; the entire U.S. commitment by the end of the year was 11,000, which included 29 U.S. Army Special Forces detachments. These advisory and support elements operated under the Commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, a position established 8 February 1962. The object of American military assistance was to counter the threat to the government of the Republic of Vietnam posed by the insurgency of an estimated 30,000 regular communist Viet Cong and civilian sympathizers among the population. Despite what appeared to be considerable successes in consolidating the population in a series of defended strategic hamlets, and in establishing local defense forces, the U.S. equipped Army of the Republic of Vietnam repeatedly demonstrated an unwillingness to close with the enemy. A corrupt government and bitterly contending Vietnamese political factions further hampered a coherent prosecution of the war with American advisors, who nevertheless continued their efforts well into the period of large scale commitments of U.S. Army forces to the conflict.
