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Operation Wandering Soul: Ghosts in the Vietnam War?

The Vietnam war was unlike any other major engagement the United States had ever fought. In the Viet Cong they found an adversary who eschewed the normal patterns of warfare, refused to engage in open battle, and used the territory to every advantage against their foe.

Against such a resourceful and agile foe, the U.S. was forced to adopt their own unorthodox tactics to meet them, and beat them, at their own game. And one of their most unusual and daring tactics was the use of ghosts to haunt the Viet Cong soldiers.

Named “Operation Wandering Soul ”, the plan was simple: undercut the morale of an enemy you cannot see, so they cease to be an effective fighting force without the need for direct engagement. In this way, the U.S. military hoped to defeat the enemy and force their surrender before a shot had even been fired.

The proposal was simple in execution: a broadcast would be made into the jungle consisting of screaming and shrieking human voices. The soldiers who heard the voices, uncertain of their source, would be paralyzed with fear.

So, did it work? Ultimately, it is hard to say. But one of the recordings, somewhat prosaically dubbed “Ghost Tape Number 10” survives to this day. Listening to it, you can see how unsettling it would be to hear these sounds, were they to appear from nowhere in the deepest jungle .

Operation Wandering Soul

It was just after dusk on the night of 10th February 1970, when the jungle around the U.S Army Fire Support Base, Chamberlain in Hau Nghia Province of South Vietnam was filled with spine chilling and frightful sounds. The darkening night was filled with unearthly wails and moans, seeming to come from everywhere.

Intermingled with the screams were recognizable human voices, conveying a frightful message. One such voice, tortured and pleading, said “My friends, I have come back to let you know that I am dead… I am dead !” from the darkness.

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The voice further continued in Vietnamese, saying, “It’s hell…I am in hell ! Don’t end up like me. Go home, friends, before it is too late!” The U.S. Army followed this dire warning with a chorus of other strange and disturbing sounds such as sobbing women, banging gongs and a child’s cry for their father.

It is easy to see how the Viet Cong soldiers who took shelter in the darkness of the jungle could believe these sounds came from the wandering souls of their dead comrades. The entire jungle beyond the American perimeter came alive with the terrifying voices, surrounding the Viet Cong soldiers hidden in the darkness.

The U.S were also canny enough to tap into local folklore . The Vietnamese believed that the spirits of dead soldiers that couldn’t return to their homes for proper burial were cursed to remain on Earth in torment.

There is some evidence that the Vietnamese actively held these beliefs, and there were apparent recovery efforts made by the Viet Cong after hearing these voices. These attempts to retrieve their dead suggest that they believed the voices they heard.

In this, the U.S. had chanced upon a very effective psychological weapon to use against their enemy. So long as the Viet Cong believed the voices, the U.S. would have an advantage.

Absolutely Secrecy 

The entire plan rested on the Viet Cong not realizing that the voices were an American trick. American soldiers used portable speakers at various points both along their perimeter and deeper in the jungle, to mask the source of the sounds.

The recordings have been carefully tailored weeks before. A Saigon sound studio was purposed to make the recordings, which were then professionally edited to maximize the realism of the voices.

It was part of a Top Secret U.S. Military Psychological Warfare Campaign. This secret plan was organized by the 6th PSYOP Battalion of the U.S. Army in collective cooperation with the U.S. Navy .

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The sole intention of this campaign was to demoralize the enemy battalions and to force them to desert their positions. Scaring the enemies would offer the U.S. army an edge over their strategies. And that seemed to work pretty well.

The PSYOP battalion expanded their range across South Vietnam after the first trial. The American units employed similar types of recordings between 1969-1970, with mixed results.

On one occasion, the sound of a tiger’s growl was added to a broadcast, recorded from Bangkok Zoo. The recording, complete with the sound of the dangerous jungle cat was then transmitted at a South Vietnamese hilltop controlled by the enemy. Hearing this terrifying noise, around 150 Viet Cong abandoned their positions and fled.

But in some other cases, the Americans decided to play recordings on speakers mounted on helicopters, supported by leaflet drops. Faced with a more obvious source of the broadcasts and realizing they came from the Americans, the helicopters were often fired upon and the plan met with limited success.

But it definitely worked in some cases. There were occasions where the tapes turned out to be so effective that there are reports of Vietnamese troops being terrified. The civilian population were also deeply frightened upon hearing the tapes.

A Vital Edge in an Unorthodox War

Hence, in this way, Operation Wandering Soul was executed and helped Americans gain an edge over the North Vietnamese soldiers. The idea, now proven, was adopted and adapted by the U.S. in their more recent military actions.

One American soldier, a PSYOP officer, recalled the operation and said that, even when the enemies saw through the cunning strategy, the soundtrack would still leave them anxious and afraid to engage. And so as an effective anti-morale tool, Operation Wandering Soul was a success.

Top Image: Unearthly shrieks in the night proved an effective psychological weapon. Source: Hektor2 / Adobe Stock.

By Bipin Dimri

Operation Wandering Soul (Vietnam War). Available at  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wandering_Soul_(Vietnam_War)

Disembodied Voices Were Blasted Into The Jungle By The U.S. In Vietnam To Spook The Enemy. Available at:  https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/42927/ghosts-stories-were-used-by-the-u-s-in-vietnam-to-spook-the-enemy

Operation Wandering Soul – Ghost Tape Number 10 and the Haunted Jungles of Vietnam. Available at:  https://militaryhistorynow.com/2013/10/30/trick-or-treat-the-strange-tale-of-ghost-tape-no-10/

Operation Wandering Soul (Vietnam War). Available at:  https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Operation_Wandering_Soul_(Vietnam_War)

OPERATION WANDERING SOUL US blared haunting sounds into jungle and used ‘ghosts’ to spook enemy in Vietnam war. Available at:  https://www.the-sun.com/news/3965990/us-blared-ghost-track-vietnam-war/

Bipin Dimri

Bipin Dimri is a writer from India with an educational background in Management Studies. He has written for 8 years in a variety of fields including history, health and politics. Read More

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THE "WANDERING SOUL" TAPE OF VIETNAM

SGM Herbert A. Friedman (Ret.)

Note: The book “SOUND TARGETS,” Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, 2009, used portions of this article and quoted the author and Ed Rouse the webmaster. This article has been translated into French and reprinted with the author’s permission by the Association of Collectors of the American-Vietnamese Conflict. The website “MILITARY HISTORY NOW” sampled this article for a story called “The Strange case of Ghost Tape No. 10.”  In 2015, Perception Pictures based in Brisbane, Australia, produced a short film set during the Vietnam War that dramatizes Operation Wandering Soul, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tTTiESgSS48 .  I was appointed the military and PSYOP advisor on the project. In November 2015, I was interviewed by the radio podcast "Here Be Monsters" about the Wandering Soul operation. In May 2016, I was contacted as a reference source by a producer preparing TV documentaries entitled "Ancient Assassins" for the Discovery Channel’s ‘American Heroes’ (previously “Military”) channel. In December 2016, “Wandering Soul” was rewritten in Australia as a full-length motion picture. In June 2017, I was interviewed as a reference source for the BBC World Service radio show called "Witness" about the Wandering Soul Campaign. In July 2017, I was interviewed by the BBC World Broadcast show  "History Hour" about both the Wandering Soul and historical psychological operations. The Weekly Pegasus, the newsletter of professional readings of the U.S. Air Force Military Information Support Operations Working Group recommended this article in their 28 October 2017 issue. Parts of this article were used in the non-fiction / memoir book titled SKUNK ALPHA, the saga of Swift Boat PCF-79 during the Vietnam War. The website “Letters to Cicero” used stories, poems, anecdotes, photographs, and newspaper articles from this article in a series titled “Letter to Tacitus” that discusses the treatment of wartime dead. In October 2020, the producer of WNYC's Radiolab interviewed me regarding the strange and surprising stories of cassette and reel-to-reel tapes used in the Wandering Soul campaign. The same month the Norwegian blog, "The Grim Reaper" requested the use of images and text from this article that they called "Operasjon Wandering Soul" to be used in a blog called "The Evil of War" about "eerie" events during wartime. In 2021 I received a thanks for my help to a young student who did a short film on this operation. Sean David Christensen sent the address: https://vimeo.com/297855334 . In October 2021, I received a copy of the book Black Entry from Regis P. Sheehan. He used this article for a chapter titled "Wandering Souls." In May 2022, Six West Media working on a new series for the History Channel currently entitled Mysteries of War asked if I would be willing to share the photographs seen in this article for a production on the Wondering Soul? I gave permission. In January 2023, I was contacted by 72 FILMS that was producing a 6-part documentary series on the Vietnam War. They read this article and later heard my interview on Radiolab�s podcast. They asked for my help. In December 2023, I was contacted by Business Insider. �I�m a video producer at Business Insider working on a video about the Vietnam War for our YouTube show 'How Real Is It,' where we ask experts to break down the accuracy of movie and TV scenes. I am reaching out to ask permission to include the photo of the loudspeakers mounted on helicopters I found from your article Operation Wandering Soul.�

PSYOP soldier with backpack loudspeaker

One of the more interesting superstitions of Vietnam is the belief in the wandering soul. 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 passed away. This sort of belief is not unique to the Vietnamese. I spoke to a South African soldier fighting the Marxist guerrillas of the Southwest Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) at the same time and he told me: When I was in the army in South West Africa and Angola in the 1970's the air force used to drop leaflets on the guerrillas that said, “You will be killed and a hyena will eat your bones.” It was culturally upsetting to the Ovambos who made up most of the SWAPO ranks. They believe if their bones are buried by the family they will become honored ancestors, but to have their bones eaten by a hyena meant they would go to their version of hell.

Tradition has it that the young Buddhist boy called Kien Muc Lien in Vietnamese was born in India. His name was Maudgalyayana (in Sanskrit language) and he was one of the closest ten disciples of Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama). He is famous in the Buddhist monasteries in Vietnam and other countries where people study Buddhism. He reached enlightenment at an early age. His mother was not so lucky. She was evil, and upon her death, she was sentenced to spend eternity being tormented by demons and ghosts and in constant pain from hunger. Kien Muc Lien magically sent food to his mother. The demons were enraged and turned it into flames before she could eat. The son then asked Buddha to help him care for his mother. Buddha told him to hold a special ceremony. The boy held the ceremony, called "Vu Lan" (Wandering Soul) to pray for his mother’s soul; and ask that her sins be pardoned. His wishes were granted.

Vu Lan Day is absolution of the soul. This is especially true in the case of parents. It allows their wandering souls to return home safely. The Vietnamese celebrate this holiday with many ceremonies including the floating of lights down the rivers at night to guide the lost souls to Nirvana.

It is held on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month every year at the Hoi An pagodas. The holiday is so popular than many tourists visit Vietnam during this time of the year to see the ceremonies. They set aside a day for the wandering souls and offer food for deceased relatives whom they believe might wander into the homes of their offspring.

Ann Crawford says in Customs and Culture of Vietnam, Charles E. Tuttle, Rutland, Vt., 1966: "Wandering Souls' Day is the second largest festival of the year. (Tet is the first.) Though it falls on the 15th day of the seventh month, it may be celebrated at any convenient time during the latter half of the month. It is not just a Buddhist holiday but also celebrated by all Vietnamese who believe in the existence of God, good and evil. They believe that sinful souls can be absolved of their punishment and delivered from hell through prayers said by the living on the first and 15th of every month. Wandering Soul's Day, however, is believed to be the best time for priests and relatives to secure general amnesty for all souls. On this day, the gates of hell are said to open at sunset and the souls fly out unclothed and hungry. Thus plenty of food is left at family altars."

The United States Military Assistance Command Vietnam issued a Fact Sheet 7 entitled Vietnamese Beliefs in Spirits and Trees dated 1 December 1969. It seems very similar to the Crawford writings above. It says about Trung Nguyen (Wandering Souls’ Day):

The festival is celebrated throughout the country, in Buddhist Pagodas, homes, businesses, factories, government offices, and Armed Forces units. Many Vietnamese believe that every person has two souls; one is spiritual (Hon), and the other material (Via). When a person dies, his soul is taken to a tribunal in hell and judged by ten justices. When punishment is rendered, the soul is sent to heaven or hell, as a reward or punishment for the persons conduct on earth. On Trung Nguyen the gates of hell are opened and the errant spirits return to earth where they wander aimlessly in the hope of finding a cult being offered to them. They cause misfortune if they remain unsatisfied, so the object of the Trung Nguyen is to provide ritual offerings for the errant spirits to propitiate them and grant them rest in death. To appease the errant spirits a family heaps offerings on the alter dedicated to the Spirit of the Soil, which stands before the house. The head of the household begs the permission of the spirit to make ritual offerings to the errant spirits. A mat is then placed upon the ground and offerings of rice, fruit and rice alcohol are put on it. The errant spirits are summoned to partake of the offerings by striking a gong or two pieces of wood. Members of the family hold burning joss as the kowtow, after which they burn votive papers on the altar. This ritual is performed outside the house because of fear that, given the opportunity to enter, the errant spirits might install themselves on the altar of the ancestors.

The day is so important to the Vietnamese that American propagandists often mention it in their leaflets and radio broadcasts. For instance, leaflet 23 dropped over North Vietnam says in part:

Faithful to the ancestral traditions, the people of South Vietnam are praying for the dead on the “Day or Pardon for the Dead.” As we sadly turn our thoughts toward the withering North, no sticks were burned on Vu Lan Day and no comfort was given to the wandering souls. How many wandering souls need our prayers and your prayers on this day of “Pardon for the Dead?” Comrades, demand that the Communist party stop its war of aggression in the south so that no more innocent souls have to join the already great number on innocent souls now wandering in this war-torn country of the South.

Death Certificate for a North Vietnamese Soldier

A death certificate for a NVA soldier who died at the age of 19 having joined the Army two years earlier. He had obtained the rank of Squad Leader. There is no information on where or how he died. The certificate simply says, “Died in the Southern front.”

This belief in the Wandering Soul is a strong one and even today, we find news stories about it. The following was written by Mark McDonald and was published by the Mercury News Vietnam Bureau under the title of "Remains of the War" in 2000.

The death certificate has been typed onto thin brown paper, with thick carbon-paper keystrokes. The document is creased and smudged from three decades of folding and weeping, but this much remains clear: Le Duy Hien, age 26, was killed on May 5, 1968. Hien is one of some 300,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers still missing in action from what is known here as the American War.

In marked contrast to the U.S. effort, the search for Vietnamese MIAs has largely been left to the families of the missing. Even now, 25 years after the end of the war, their relatives can be seen all over Vietnam, mostly on weekends, trudging forlornly through the sprawling military cemeteries reserved for the liet si -- the martyred. They go from headstone to headstone, pausing briefly at each one, looking for the name of a lost son, a dead husband, a missing brother.

‘Strangers have buried you in careless haste, no loved ones near, no friend, no proper rites . . . and under the wan moon, no kindly smoke of incense wreathes for you,’ the Vietnamese poet Nguyen Du wrote in his elegy, ‘A Call to Wandering Souls.’ To reach out to Le Duy Hien's wandering soul, the family holds a somber memorial ceremony every May 5 -- the date on his official death certificate. However, the family has been unable to follow the Vietnamese custom of digging up his bones after three years for cleaning and re-burial, and it causes Hien's mother no small amount of grief that her son's soul is still at large. ‘She believes Hien is not at rest,'' says Le The Luan, Hien's younger brother, who is now 54. ``Like all Vietnamese families, she wants to have us find his remains so he can be stable and at peace.’

The biggest problem for Hien's family is right there on his faded death certificate: On the dotted line that states where the young North Vietnamese sergeant went down, it only says, `’On a battlefield in the south.’ Sadly, Hien's family has no clues to his possible whereabouts. They know he headed off down the Ho Chi Minh Trail after being drafted, but he wrote the family just one letter, a letter that gave no details about his unit, its location or ultimate destination.

Therefore, Le Duy Hien's body remains undiscovered -- and his soul remains at large. His mother receives a small monthly payment from the government because, under Vietnamese law, all MIAs from the American War are now considered dead. The money, however, barely covers the cost of the incense she burns for him every day.

A Vietnamese told me a story that really makes clear the respect that the Vietnamese have for the dead. He said:

Near my office there was a restaurant where I normally had my lunch. I noticed that there were three small tombs in the garden without the names of the dead but carefully taken care with fresh flowers. I asked the owner who they were. She said that they were three young NVA soldiers who died while retreating during the Tet Offensive. One morning she opened her door and saw the three dead soldiers. When she complained that the bodies could cause disease for people, an ARVN officer told her to temporarily bury the dead soldiers in her garden. He said, “Later, after everything is quiet, we will send someone to take care of the bodies.” The woman buried the three men in her garden. She said one night, she dreamed that three young boys visited her and said thanks. They were in civilian clothes but had Northern accents, so she guessed they were the dead soldiers. She said that somehow after she buried the three soldiers, her business prospered despite the war. She strongly believed that it was the spirit of dead soldiers helping her. In 1975, some officials of the new Communist regime came and asked her to let them remove the remains to a military cemetery, but she refused and said that there were no dead soldiers in her garden, only three relatives that died during the war. Without evidence of the dead soldiers, the local authorities gave up. She said since their parents never knew where and how their children died she considered the three soldiers as her sons.

The Vietnamese are great poets and there are many poems that honor these wandering souls. One was written by Linh Duy Vo. It is entitled "The Wings of Freedom" and is dedicated to the South Vietnamese Freedom Fighters. Part of the poem is:

Four thousand years, countless perils The blessed South Vietnam still exists But your broken wings hurriedly bid farewell You perished without whispers... Gray clouds sadly enveloped your wandering soul Dark oceans mourningly embraced your wings.…

An older and more traditional poem was written by Nguyen Du in the 19th Century. It is entitled “Calling the Wandering Souls.” Some of the poem is:

Year after year exposed to wind and rain, on the cold ground they lie, sighing. At dawn, when the cock crows, they flee, only to grope their way again when night comes.

Of course the Communists retaliated and this anti-Government poem was published by the Da Nang City Propaganda Committee in 1967:

Oh fellow citizens, brothers and sisters dear! Oh the whole mankind's Conscience! Listen to the screams of thousands of slain people; They won't survive; but they don't want to die! Thousands of wandering souls fly in the entire space. They bear their eternal implacable hatred!

The concept of wandering souls can also be found in their modern literature. One of the most popular books in postwar Vietnam was written by Bao Ninh, a former North Vietnamese soldier. The Sorrow of War was published by the Writers Association Publishing House in Hanoi in 1991. The author tells of an area called the jungle of screaming souls where the North Vietnamese 27th Battalion was wiped out except for ten survivors by American and South Vietnamese troops. He says:

From then on it was called the jungle of screaming souls. Just hearing the name whispered was enough to send chills down the spine. Perhaps the screaming souls gathered together on special festival days as members of the Lost Battalion, lining up in the little diamond-shaped clearing, checking their ranks and numbers. The sobbing whispers were heard deep in the jungle at night, the howls carried on the wind. Perhaps they really were the voices of the wandering souls of dead soldiers.

During the American involvement in Vietnam, an attempt was made to use this belief against the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. Since it was clear that they would die far from home, their bodies probably never found or never properly buried, it was certain that they would become a wandering soul after death.

Editing the recording

The operation was code-named "Wandering Soul." Engineers spent weeks recording eerie sounds. They were similar to the sounds employed during a scary radio show or movie. Very creepy and designed to send shivers down the back. These cries and wails were intended to represent souls of the enemy dead who had failed to find the peace of a proper burial. The wailing soul cannot be put to rest until this proper burial takes place. The purpose of these sounds was to panic and disrupt the enemy and cause him to flee his position. Helicopters were used to broadcast Vietnamese voices pretending to be from beyond the grave. They called on their "descendants" in the Vietcong to defect, to cease fighting. This campaign played the sounds and messages all night in order to spook the superstitious enemy. Despite eventually realizing that they were hearing a recording beamed from a helicopter, the enemy gunners could not help but fear that their souls would some day end up moaning and wailing in a similar fashion after death.

Both the 6th PSYOP Battalion of the United States Army and some units of the United States Navy broadcast the messages .

In general, the messages were as follows:

Girl's voice: Daddy, daddy, come home with me, come home. Daddy! Daddy! Man's voice: Ha! (his daughter's name). Who is that? Who is calling me? Oh, my daughter? My wife? Daddy is back home with you, my daughter! I am back home with you, my wife. But my body is gone. I am dead, my family. I…..Tragic, how tragic. My friends, I come back to let you know that I am dead! I am dead! It's Hell, Hell! It is a senseless death! How senseless! Senseless! But when I realized the truth, it was too late. Too late. Friends, while you are still alive, there is still a chance you will be reunited with your love ones. Do you hear what I say? Go home! Go home, my friends! Hurry! Hurry! If not, you will end up like me. Go home my friends before it is too late. Go home! Go home my friends!

In the article, First Lieutenant Jerry Valentine of the 5th Air Commando Squadron flying an AC-47 “Gooney Bird” from Binh Thuy Air Base says in part:

The tapes are best. We’ve got one we call the Wandering Soul” tape. It lasts about four minutes. It starts with Buddhist funeral music, then this spooky wailing voice. Then a little child is crying, the child is crying for its father. Then a Vietnamese woman comes on and tells how her husband was killed fighting for the Viet Cong. And all the time, this eerie background voice , wailing about death. It’s a real beauty – guaranteed to raise ground fire anywhere. It even sends chills down my spine. It’s so effective that even the government restricts use of it – they only let us use it on extreme occasions.

Vietnam Veteran Chad Spawr, a former PSYOP Team Leader of the 6th PSYOP Battalion in Vietnam from 1968 to 1969 told me about his experience playing the tape:

There was a tape that we used; it was an audio tape, called “Wandering Soul” that played on some of the cultural aspects of the Vietnamese. One of the important tenants of Buddhism is that when a person dies within a very short period of time they have to be buried in consecrated soil in a family plot…Very haunting, very eerie, it was done with voice and echo chamber. It was very effective…I’d go out on a night ambush patrol with an American infantry unit with the 1st Cavalry and set up a small speaker in a tree and direct that toward an area where we suspected enemy troops were and I’d play that tape for a couple of hours. There were a couple of occasions when I did that where we’d get a prisoner later and the interrogation would indicate that they’d heard the tape and they were frightened by it, so I know that it had an effect, I know that it had an effect.

One evening after a full day in the villages, my interpreter and I left the compound about 0100, and moved to a small grove of palm trees about 300 meters north of the compound. My interpreter climbed a tree, and hung a speaker from a large palm frond, with the speaker pointed into the general area north of the compound toward the villages. We connected the speaker to a small amplifier and tape player, and began playing "Wandering Soul." At first, there was no reaction to the broadcast, but then we began taking some random sniper fire from one of the villages. We finished the broadcast, and the interpreter did his own improvisation of the tape, this time speaking to the "people" as if he was a "Wandering Soul." He pretty much made it up as he went, and after a few minutes, we again began to receive random sniper fire. This broadcast lasted about 15 minutes after the tape had finished, after which we retrieved the speaker, and returned to the MACV compound. We repeated this nightly broadcast for the next three or four nights, but we varied the location of the broadcast in case the local Viet Cong had staked out our previous broadcast locations. We also varied the broadcast volume so it would sound closer on one night, but farther away the next night. Aiming the speaker had a similar effect. We did, however, receive random incoming but inaccurate fire as a result of most of the broadcasts. Since it was only my interpreter and me, we could move quickly and quietly, more so than if we took along a squad of the local troops, who weren't very noise disciplined. On either the fourth or fifth morning, at first light, we left with a small patrol to enter the village where the sniper fire had originated. We found several shell casings (7.62 x 39mm) from an AK-47 or SKS rifle probably hidden in some ground litter, but nobody knew who fired it or where the rifle was hidden. My interpreter then told a few people that the "lost spirits" were sure to return if the shooter and/or the weapon were not surrendered to our patrol. We continued searching the few houses in the village, and as we were preparing to leave, an elderly lady told my interpreter where to find the rifle. It was hidden under a small trough in a pig sty. We dug out a very nice Chinese Communist SKS with bayonet, a few rounds still in the internal magazine, with a rare sling attached. My interpreter then told her that the spirits might return, but they would be of no danger to her or her family members. Interestingly, as we packed up to leave the local Vietnamese District Chief came to see us off, and told us he was glad we were leaving. When I asked him "why," and he replied that the "Wandering Soul" broadcast not only unnerved his own men, but left his wife and children upset, even though he explained that it was just a tape designed to discourage VC morale and perhaps enhance decisions to defect or stop fighting. They could not reconcile the concept of the broadcast voices and a taped recording. They couldn't understand the technical side, and being very superstitious to begin with, they believed the "message" of the tape.

In 2020, Chad spoke more about the Wandering Soul mission in Perspectives , the Journal of the Psychological Operations Association. He added a bit more that he remembered in the years since he spoke to me:

We began hearing about the broadcast area being haunted by spirits of the dead. Local farmers were reluctant to work the fields near where the broadcasts had originated. Unfortunately, other audiences, including� "friendly" villagers and some RF/PF militia soldiers, had heard the broadcast, and were reluctant to engage the enemy. They believed the actual spirits were wandering lost and were in great anguish and pain. This was not an intended effect. About two weeks later, we repeated the broadcasts from yet a third location, but this time the local VC seemed ready to respond. We had no sooner begun broadcasting than sniper fire was received, and it was quite accurate. The tree line we were using was quickly peppered with incoming fire, including at least one RPG round. We ended the broadcast, reported the incoming fire incident, and returned to our patrol base. A joint US-RF/PF sweep of the village the next day netted a number of spent AK rounds, one damaged SKS rifle, and some old French tactical web gear. Our RF/PF partners reported that there was fear in the village about the ghosts in the nearby rice paddies and tree lines, but that the local VC cadres were not fooled and opened fire to demonstrate that they could "drive off the spirits."� Not sure if the spirits were driven off, but I was! Spirits may not be real, but incoming 7.62x39 and RPG rounds are definitely real.

A U.S PSYOP soldier stands watch as an ARVN soldier broadcasts a surrender appeal.

In July 2017, Alex Last interviewed Rick Hoffman, a member of the 6th PSYOP Battalion Vietnam for the BBC radio show WITNESS. When asked what the rest of the Army thought of about the Wandering Soul and PSYOP in general, Rick said:

The rest of the Army looked at us with skepticism. They did not understand what we were doing. They saw us as some kind of magic show. To my knowledge the first time the Wandering Soul tape was ever used was on a Swift Boat down in the Delta. They drifted down into a VC concentration and launched the tape and my understanding is that they got 13 defections afterwards. Whether you were doing the ghost tape or dropping leaflets out of a C-47, you got shot at a lot.

Sometimes the tapes worked on American soldiers too. One Vietnam veteran told me:

Our job was to hide, watch and report mostly. We tried not to make any noise. However, we were on one Operation that I remember hearing the most godawful moaning and wailing and clashing cymbals coming from loudspeakers on an aircraft circling us. A great cacophony of noise alien to the Western ear but powerfully evocative to the superstitious farm boys turned Viet Cong guerrillas. It was Buddhist funeral sounds I was told later. It kept me awake and scared the hell out of me. Members of the 5th Air Commando Squadron conduct a strategy session prior to dropping leaflets over South Vietnam in 1968.

Bob Cutts mentioned the tape in Stars and Stripes of April 28, 1968:

First Lieutenant Valentine was the "old man" of the 5th Air Commando Squadron C Flight, the Binh Thuy AB unit that flies all PSYWAR missions over the Mekong Delta, in planes armed only with 10.000-volt speakers and tape recorders. He said:

We are always getting scrambled for stuff like that. We never know where it will be, sometimes we just go out at night and harass a VC unit. We just fly over them all night, keeping them awake and letting them know we know where they are. Night missions are the most frightening but the most interesting. In the daytime you cannot see them shooting at you. But at night, you see all these big yellow balls coming straight up at you. The tapes are best. We have got one we call the "Wandering Soul" tape. It lasts about four minutes. It starts with Buddhist funeral music, then this spooky, wailing voice. Then a little child is crying, then the child is crying for its father. Then a Vietnamese woman comes on and tells how her husband was killed fighting for the VC. And all the time, this eerie background voice, wailing about death. It is a real beauty, guaranteed to raise ground fire anywhere. It even sends chills down my spine. It's so effective that even the government restricts use of it, they only let us use it in extreme occasions.

Another official tape coded number 6 is entitled “Come home to your family that fears you will die.” The message is 180 second long. The first 20 seconds is the sound of women and children crying. Then two announcers speak:

Oh, why is there such mournful crying? These are the sounds of sorrow coming from the homes you have left. The heart-broken cry of a young wife who has lost her husband. The sad cry of a mother whose son will not return. The pitiful cry of a little child whose father has been killed, cruelly robbed of life in the so-called “war of liberation,” the very war in which you now participate. It is also the sad, sad cry of families whose sons have died so senselessly for Communism.

There is then 20 seconds of children playing and laughing.

Oh, why didn’t you return to your family? Your children are waiting for you. Listen! There little voices ask for you. Where is daddy? Where is daddy? How can you be indifferent to those young children? They no not where you are or what you are doing. Make your decision now! Why don’t you return at once to rejoin your family? They are waiting for you. Oh, the child’s laugh is such a dear sweet sound. But the child’s cry is such a sad and mournful sound.

The tape ends with 20 second of crying sounds.

One wartime news story tells of the operation at Fire Support Base (FSB) Chamberlain. It was published in Tropic Lightning News, 23 February 1970.

If you were a Wolfhound of the First Battalion, 27th Infantry, 25th Infantry Division, and were at Fire Support Base Chamberlain on the night of February 10 you might have sworn the place was being haunted by poltergeists, ghosts that is.

Loudspeaker Team

The moans, groans and weird sounds began at eight that night, a likely time for the cloudlike forms to reveal themselves. Of course, ghosts are nonexistent, or are they? In this case the ghosts and weird sounds were furnished by the Sixth PSYOP Team and the S-5 Section of the 1/27th Wolfhounds who were conducting a night mission at Chamberlain. With the help of loud speakers and a tape of ‘The Wandering Soul,’ a mythical tale of a Viet Cong gone to Buddha, the mission was a success. "The Wandering Soul is a tape about the soul of a dead Viet Cong. It describes the wandering of this soul about the countryside. The dead VC tells his comrades to look at what has happened to his soul and that he will never be at rest, always wandering,’ said Captain William Goodman of Philadelphia, the battalion S-5. ‘Buddhists believe very strongly that if they aren’t properly buried and properly mourned, their soul will wander through eternity,’ added First Lieutenant Peter Boni of Boston, the officer in charge of the Sixth PSYOP Team. ‘We play upon the psychological superstitions and fears of the enemy. The method is very effective," Boni said. "The tape makes the friendly villagers return to their homes, and any suspecting persons who remain are questioned,’ Goodman said. A quick-reaction sweep following the tape by the l/27th Recon Platoon netted three detainees, one of whom was jailed. ‘It was the first time this type of tape has been used in the Third Brigade and reviewing the results we plan to use this method again," Boni said.

John Pilger made many short films in Vietnam. In 1970, his movie The Quiet Mutiny mentioned the Wandering Soul Campaign. The narrator says in part:

The Green Machine plays games like the Wandering Soul. The Wandering Soul is a tape that is used by the operating battalions and separate brigades to broadcast a rallying appeal to the Viet Cong. The tape itself is a weird one, with a funeral dirge in the background and a father talking to his family, saying that he has died on the battlefield and he is trying to rally his comrades to return to the just cause. The Vietnamese people worship the souls of their ancestors and the Wandering Soul message is very different, conceived in an echo chamber by the U.S. Army and broadcast by helicopter over the jungle where the gooks are supposed to be hiding. We drop about 800,000 leaflets a day over the jungle. We tell them "what's happening to them in their battles�" �We tell them also that you are going to be killed in the future and we ask them "why?" We tell them to desert their unit and how they will be treated once they rally. How they will be well-treated. The object of dispersing our leaflets by helicopter is they will take a bunch and throw them out by hand most of the time. Occasionally wishing to get a more direct result they will take a whole carton and drop it out trying to hit someone.

Tiger Roar Recordings

Sometimes the Wandering Soul tape was used in conjunction with other sounds to multiply the fear in the heart of the enemy. A former member of the 6th PSYOP Battalion told me, "You know what we did on 'Nui Ba Den Mountain' in 1970? The 6th PSYOP got an Air Force pilot to fly to Bangkok, to get an actual recording of a tiger from their zoo. We had a Chieu Hoi (a rallier to the national government from enemy ranks) come down the mountain and tell of a tiger that was attacking the Viet Cong for the past few weeks. So, we mixed the tiger roar onto a tape of 69-T, 'the wandering soul', and a 2-man team got up on the mountain, played the tape and 150 Viet Cong came off that mountain.

Years later a Vietnam veteran told me:

Tigers used to be found within 20 miles of Danang and were a problem when I was there in 1965-1966. We captured a Viet Cong who was leaving hill 1025 because of tiger predation. I think at that time there were about 125 tigers left in Vietnam.

I have tape 69. I cannot swear this is the tape they mention above, but perhaps the tape simply indicated the addition of the tiger's roar. It would fit where it mentions the "dangers of your present life."� A tiger's roar right there might be meaningful. The tape is 54 seconds long with a male speaker. It starts and ends with a recording of Ho Chi Minh's voice:

The war may still last five, ten, twenty years or longer.

The narrator then adds:

Can you survive under the hardships and dangers of your present life? Can you ever find peace again? Yes, you can, by crossing to the protection of the Government of Viet Nam's Chieu Hoi program where you will receive a warm welcome, good treatment, and a chance to build a new life. Remember, Ho Chi Minh himself said the war may still last five, ten, twenty years or longer.

Author's note: According to military records, there were 4 known deaths caused by tigers in Vietnam, two from the 4th Infantry Division in the Central Highlands and two members of the U.S. Marine Corps. There were many close calls, where Americans were in the jaws of a tiger before the big cat was shot and killed. Tigers are such an interesting subject that they almost deserve a short article of their own. An American PSYOP soldier in Laos told me that the Laotian Army had a tape they used when the Pathet Lao were on the run. They would follow the retreating force and play the tiger roars all night keeping the enemy from getting any sleep and at a high state of nervousness.

What, no Green Beret?

Another soldier told me about a cub his Special Forces unit found in 1968 and raised. The tiger became a pet and drank beer along with the soldiers. They often walked him around their compound on a leash. He was sometimes used for interrogation when a Viet Cong prisoner was threatened to be fed to the tiger and he would be brought right next to the prisoner's face and pinched in such a way to make him roar. The Special Forces intelligence was extremely accurate and treasured at Langley! Because the tiger could not be set loose being used to humans and easy prey, they eventually had the CIA fly him to a zoo in Australia where he lived a happy life and sired many cubs until his death in 1985.

Before we leave the subject of tigers, I should mention Richard L. Holm who wrote Recollections of a Case Officer in Laos, 1962-1964: No Drums, No Bugles. He mentions an operation regarding tiger urine:

The Viet Cong sometimes used sniffer dogs, which caused lots of problems. One of the reports that we forwarded mentioned that the presence of tigers in each area appeared to make a difference. The VC's dogs seemed to be less effective if they smelled tiger excrement or urine. We had no way of knowing if this was true. At Headquarters, an office in the Directorate of Science and Technology decided to try to produce a countermeasure. Years later, when I was about to retire, I learned that the office had analyzed samples of tiger urine and excrement from the National Zoo and manufactured a substance that resembled and smelled like what the tigers produced. But it did not fool the dogs in the Panhandle of Laos.

Wandering Soul Tape

Captain Albert Yanus of the 5th Special Operations Squadron played the Wandering Soul tape from a HC-47d flying out of Bien Hoa AFB. The 5th SOS utilized HC-47d’s, O-2’s, and U-10's at Ben Thuy for leaflet and speaker missions. Their official motto was “The truth shall make them free,” and their unofficial motto was “Better to bend the mind than destroy the body.”

He sent me a picture of the tape and the letter of instruction that accompanied it. Notice that the label on the tape box says “Wandering Soul! Play only at night.”

The instruction sheet is from the II Field Force Vietnam , 6th Psychological Operations Battalion, dated 24 June 1968. The tape number is 059-6T with the targets the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army. The Southern dialect text on this 3-inch tape is:

Funeral Music - crying:

Children: Daddy, Daddy, come home to us. Father: Oh my children! Oh my wife! My dear children! Here I am. I come back to you! Oh my darling. Oh my darling, here I am coming back to you. But I’m dead! What a pity. I have come back to you to let you know that I am dead. I have died needlessly. But it was too late, when I finally realized that I was wrong to join the Viet Cong. Friends…you are still alive. You still have a chance to see your loved ones. Rally now! Do not hesitate any longer. You still have time to rally! Rally now to save yourselves, my friends. If not, you won’t be able to escape from death. You will be killed like I was. Rally now. Rally! Rally immediately before it is too late.

The British Broadcasting Corporation produced a show called Witness, with the title “US Psychological Warfare in Vietnam.” In it, a former Captain of the North Vietnamese Army talked about hearing the tape on the battlefield:

…We had weaknesses, we missed our homes. We are human like you…But worst of all, each night the Americans sent over helicopters broadcasting recorded tape of babies crying and women’s voice pleading in Vietnamese for us to come home, or a child’s voice saying “Mommy is crying, she can’t sleep; she loves you and misses you.” It went on like that all night. Can you image what it is like for a soldier in a tunnel that has been away from his family for years? At night, hearing those voices, it certainly affected the spirits of our fighters. Those recorded voices made us think of what we missed, but afterwards we were more determined to fight

LTC Raymond Deitch, 6th PSYOP Battalion Commander

Raymond Deitch, former commander of the U.S. Army 6th PSYOP Battalion was interviewed on the History Channel Secrets of War series, episode 51 , Psychological Warfare . Talking about Operation Wandering Soul he said:

It exploited the belief among many of the Vietnamese people that once a person is dead the remains must be placed in an ancestral burial ground or that person will forever wander aimlessly in space forever.

South Vietnamese Nationals make a recording

A male voice was recorded through an echo chamber that represented the soul of the dead soldier. In some cases, the recording was actually too persuasive for its own good. The tape was so effective that we were instructed not to play it within earshot of the South Vietnamese forces, because they were as susceptible as the Viet Cong or North Vietnamese Army.

It was not only the Vietnamese that were superstitious. Kenneth Conboy says in Shadow War – The CIAs Secret War in Laos about an operation to convince the Pathet Lao that one of their dead generals was talking to them:

Ghost music and recordings allegedly in the general’s voice were played from airborne loudspeakers; on one of these flights, the broadcasting aircraft passed too close to a Royal Laos Army garrison, causing the spooked Royalist troops to desert en masse.

Other American troops have mentioned the superstition of the local people:

The Cambodians have a Buddha cloth. It was about a 10 x 10-inches white piece of cloth. It had Buddha symbols and marks all over it. It protects one in battle. In one case a soldier wadded it up and strongly squeezed it in the palms of both hands. He broke out in a sweat. He said the cloth was first class and very powerful. The Hmong troops have a kind of belt they tie around their waist. It is magic. No harm can come to you while you wear it. The Hmongs also have ceremonies. They will ask a soldier friend of the Hmong to take off his shirt and using a special magic knife make a cut on each pectoral muscle, each shoulder, and each shoulder blade, just enough to draw blood. Then they take ointment from a small tin and spread the ointment into each cut. As they do this they blow into the cuts and chant prayers. The purpose was that no harmful metal could enter the soldier's body.

The PSYOP-POLWAR Newsletter of 20 November 1969 mentioned the Wandering Soul campaign briefly:

The First Infantry's Divisions G-5 staff used 'Wandering Soul' broadcasts of eerie sounds intended to represent the souls of enemy dead who have not found peace (i.e. by being buried in the village family plot). Communist troops, of course, knew perfectly well that the sounds were coming from a tape recorder on an enemy helicopter, but the idea was that the sounds would at least get a Communist soldier to think about where his soul would rest in the likely event of his being killed far from home.

Huey Helicopter with mounted loudspeakers

Duane Yeager mentioned the operation is an article entitled "Winning Vietnamese minds was what the U.S. Army's 4th Psychological Operations Group was all about," in Vietnam Magazine, December 1990. He says:

As with the leaflet catalog, PSYOP units also produced and maintained a library of audiotape propaganda messages for support of tactical operations. As one Viet Cong commander complained, these audio messages were hard to ignore, for the sound even penetrated through the earth to VC hidden in underground tunnels. One of the most effective such tapes was 'The Wandering Soul,' an eerie tape, played mostly at night, that constantly reminded NVA soldiers of the hardships they were enduring, home, and the loved ones they had left behind.

The 29 October 1965 overseas edition of Time discusses the strange PSYOP campaign:  

Tucked away in their hammocks beneath the dripping rain-infested canopy, the Viet Cong guerrillas could hardly believe their ears. Out of the night sky came an ominous, warbling whine, like bagpipes punctuated with cymbals. It was Buddhist funeral music - a dissonant dirge cascading from the darkness. Then a snatch of dialogue between a mother and child: "Mother, where is daddy?" "Don't ask me questions. I am very worried about him." "But I miss Daddy very much. Why is he gone so long?" Then the music and voices faded slowly into the distance and the platoon settled back to a restless sleep.   It was, of course, only one of many sights and sounds that the Viet Cong are greeted to every day, courtesy of JUSPAO - the Joint United States Public Affairs Office, which handles psychological warfare in South Viet Nam . Funeral dirges howl nightly over Viet Cong redoubts from the loudspeakers of JUSPAO planes, along with the tape-recorded cries of little children, and weird, electronic cacophonies intended to raise terrifying images of forest demons among the superstitious terrorists. During daylight hours, JUSPAO's eight aircraft dump tons of leaflets on the enemy - 3,500,000 a week, ranging from safe conduct passes to maps showing the best way to get out of Red territory. Says one of JUSPAO's "psywar" adepts; "We are the world's worst litterbugs."

Speaking of JUSPAO, their PSYOP Circular Number 7 dated 4 November 1968 mentions “Significant Dates” in Vietnam. It says in part:

Trung Nguyen (Wandering Souls) Day is the Vietnamese All Souls Day. According to Vietnamese beliefs, every human has two souls, one spiritual, the other material. When a man dies, his soul is judged by a tribunal. Once judgment is made, the soul goes to Heaven or Hell as reward or punishment for his conduct during his lifetime. On Trung Nguyen Day, sinful souls can be absolved from punishment or delivered from Hell through prayers for them by the living. On this day the gates of Hell open at sunset and the damned souls go out, naked and hungry. Those who have faithful descendants living on earth come back to their homes and villages. Offerings for them are placed on alters by their families. Those who have no relatives on earth or who are forsaken by the living wander, hungry and helpless, through the air on black clouds, on rivers, from tree to tree or in the villages begging. Offerings of food are on altars in the pagodas, the markets and other suitable places in the villages, towns and cities.

Helicopter Tape Deck Playing a Propaganda message

The full message of one such tape is archived under audiotape 1965AU2346, “No Doze Chieu Hoi.” The pill of the over-the-counter alertness drug “No Doze” contains 200 milligrams of caffeine, so certainly the name of this tape is a gag implying that the tape would not allow any Viet Cong to doze while it was being played. The message is a bit different than that translated above:

Buddhist funeral music. Child: Mother, where is daddy? Mother: Do not ask me darling, I am very worried to death. Child: But I miss Daddy. He is away so long a time. What kind of business does he do that keeps him from coming back to mother and to me? Do you miss him Mother? Mother: God! Stop asking me darling. Child: Do you really miss daddy? Tell me. Mother: Yes…I miss daddy. Child: You miss daddy. I miss daddy too. Why doesn’t he come back? He must not miss you and me. He surely left us Mother. Mother: Do not say so. He is coming back. Child: Do not lie Mother. How often have you told me he is coming back and he has not. Daddy lied too. He said he would be away for a couple of days and… Mother: Leave me alone. Go play. Child: No I won’t go play (crying). I won’t go play. Daddy…daddy…daddy…come back with me and mother. Daddy…daddy… Strange and eerie noises. Bugle: Attention weary soldiers of North Vietnam . We know the hard times you face. Not enough food, not enough medicine. Your leaders have misled you. They are taking you down the road to sure death. Do not die far from home because of their lies. Return to the open arms of the Government of Vietnam . The choice is up to you. Death or the open arms of the Government of Vietnam . Death or Chieu Hoi! Bugle.

This dirge and others like it came from the fertile imaginations of officers like Captain Blaine Revis, who served with Military Assistance and Guidance Group, Vietnam (MAAGV) from April 1963 to May 1964 and later served as Commander of the 29th PSYOP Detachment, a 27-member special unit attached to the 1st Air Cavalry Division in 1965. Revis told me:

One idea that I presented was to mount loudspeakers on some helicopters and to play tapes of the Vietnamese funerary dirges. (Really strange sounds but very effective in producing a mood of finality and defeat in the Viet Cong) The idea was represented in the movie “Apocalypse now,” but in the movie instead of the funeral dirge they played the “Ride of the Valkyries.” More identifiable to a western audience, I suppose. The dirge is played on a small instrument that looks and sounds like a miniature clarinet. I had noted that when a funeral procession went by and the dirge was played, even people who did not know the deceased became agitated and would sometimes cry openly. When I asked why, they would explain that soon it would be their turn even if they were young. I recommended the use of the dirge to General Kinnard of the 1st Air Cavalry Division along with the painting of the helicopters to look like the beast that carries people to heaven or Hell. I do not know if he acted on the recommendation.

A former US Army master sergeant who acted as a G2 (Intelligence NCOIC) during the war recalls:

It brings back a lot of memories. The tapes were also used in conjunction with, and to assist in the Phoenix Program. It led to some information for the Enemy Political Infrastructure Files (collateral and special intelligence).

Robert H. Stoner reports a Navy operation. He tells of Operation Sea Float/Solid Anchor. This was a joint US-Vietnamese attempt to inject an allied presence into An Xuyen Province, 175 miles southwest of Saigon. Stoner says:

This evening's adventure was to insert and extract a Beach Jumper Unit ‘Duffel Bag Team.’ (This team planted and monitored vibration-and body heat-activated sensors that helped track movements of the bad guys around our base). On the way out, we were to play some ‘Wandering Soul’ tapes the Psychological Warfare boys had dreamed up to terrorize the guerillas. The line was the guerillas would become so frightened, they'd come over to the government side." HAL-3 Seawolves

Aviation Electricians Mate Senior Chief (E8) Bill Rutledge took part in a Navy operation using Army helicopters temporarily surplus from the Army inventory. He says:

The only Navy Helicopter Gunships that ever flew combat missions were assigned to Helicopter Attack (Light) Squadron Three (HAL-3)(the Seawolves), under the operational control of Commander, Task Force (CTF) 116, in Vietnam from 1966-1972. This unit was the most decorated naval aviation unit in history. Navy pilots and enlisted gunners flew heavily armed Army UH1B "Huey" Gunships at low level and in the night covering the Navy Seals, The Brown Water Riverine Forces, and any allied unit in contact with enemy Viet Cong and regular North Vietnamese Army forces. They supported the PBR (Patrol Boat, River) operations with fire support, recon, and medevac services. The unit was tasked with additional responsibilities, including assistance to the Vietnamese Navy units operating in the Mekong Delta.

The Saigon Brass came up with an added mission. We were already dropping Chieu Hoi passes, small Republic of Vietnam Flags and surrender pamphlets during our regular missions. In addition, we were now to place one large speaker in each back door of the Gunship to play a PSYOP Cassette repeating tape while flying over known enemy controlled areas. Invariably, playing of the tape to win the "hearts and minds" of the enemy forces would cause the enemy forces to fire on the helicopter. With the large speakers in the door, it was difficult for the door gunners to return fire. The Saigon-issued mission orders put the aircrews at great risk. We were not there to win hearts and minds. We were there to protect allied forces on the ground and to search for, and destroy any enemy we could find.

Navy Helicopter Gunship

Knowing that every time we used the PSYOP tape we took fire, we installed smaller speakers and bigger door guns. The lead helicopter was armed with a 50 caliber machine gun and dual M60 7.62mm machine guns. The trailing helicopter had a door-mounted M134 6-Barrelled 7.62 minigun that fired up to 4000 rounds per minute and a M60 machine gun. In addition the helicopters were armed with an external rocket pod (seven 2.75 inch rockets) for the pilot and an external minigun for the co-pilot. We then played the tape with the intention of taking fire. The gunners were at the ready. One gunship flew low and another gunship flew high, ready to roll in for the kill at the first sign of Viet Cong activity. Apparently, someone in Saigon found out what we were doing and told us to stop. We did not stop, but used the tape less often. Killing was our business and the PSYOP tapes helped make business damn good. We never saw the result of the PSYOP program but heard rumors of enemy forces occasionally defecting.

The U.S. Naval Forces Vietnam Monthly Historical Survey, June 1968 tells us more about their Psychological Operations:

Psychological and civic action operations continued to be actively pursued during the month. The Viet Gong recognizing the inroads being made by the naval forces continued to intensify their counter-attacks. Forty-two per cent of the broadcasting missions conducted drew hostile fire. The majority of the incidents occurred in the Delta. In one incident PBR and Navy Seawolves wounded 18 Viet Cong following an attack on a PBR patrol conducting a PSYOP speaker mission six miles east of Vinh Long. Captured Viet Cong prisoners and Hoi Chanhs frequently stated that in many units troop morale was low due to lack of food and the B-52 bombing raids. The intensification of the Chieu Hoi program was initiated to capitalize on the reported Viet Cong morale problems. In the field of civic action and US/GVN image building continued with over 12,000 Vietnamese patients receiving treatment during MEDCAPS conducted by U.S. Navy and Vietnamese Navy personnel. In one MEDCAP operation, intelligence was received from villagers on the location of two arms caches and one Viet Cong defense platoon in the Binh Dai Secret Zone.

The U.S. Naval Forces Vietnam After-action Monthly Reports adds:

The Chieu Hoi rate for Naval forces dropped off drastically from the record high at 115 in May 1969 to six who rallied directly to Naval units and six who turned themselves in to other forces as a result of Navy loudspeaker broadcasts. Some of the themes of the PSYOP tapes played in June 1969 were: “Wandering Soul,” “Women and Children Crying,” “Family Separation,” and “VC Fighting a Hopeless War.” In July 1969, a variety of themes were utilized on PSYOP loudspeaker operations conducted by Navy Task Force 115 Units including “Midway Conference,” “Reward’s Third Inducement,” “Wandering Soul,” and the soundtrack from the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine.”

Mile Worthington was a door gunner in the Navy Seawolves. He told me a story about one of his missions that went bad.

We were tasked to do a PSYOP flyover in our gunship. I was pissed because I had to take off my door mounted mini-gun in order to accommodate the 6 loud speakers. This Operation was in conjunction with the Army. We took off and headed for “Snoopy's Beak” with a box of Chu Hoi pamphlets and these speakers and the Army PSYOP trooper and tapes. We got over the place he wanted and started throwing the pamphlets and as soon as he turned on the speakers the whole damn world lit us up. I had been in some fierce fire fights but this got my attention. I pushed the Army guy back, grabbed my free M-60 with my left hand as I was cutting the speakers away with my right hand. Needless to say I pissed this guy off as I kicked the speakers loose and leaned out and returned fire. I could hear him yelling but my instincts as a gunner took over. Then our pilot turned right back into the fight and shot all 14 darts of high explosive and fleschetts. Needless to say, I wanted to fly no more PSYOP missions.

Bill Ogle, a Seawolf helicopter pilot who flew a number of PSYOP missions in 1968-69 recalled playing what he called "The Howling Ghost" tape many times. He said that "On about half the missions a PSYOP officer would fly with us and attempt to direct the mission. We dropped leaflets, magazines, and played the tape. Without exception we drew fire each mission. This was one of the primary objectives of the mission." When not flying the PSYOP missions, the pilot, "Seawolf 57," flew mostly in support of the Navy SEALS.

We mention above how it was possible that a PSYOP tape aimed at the Viet Cong could terrify and demoralize troops of the Republic of Vietnam . Lieutenant Junior Grade Tom Byrnes (USNR) tells of an operation that he took part in as part of Mobile Advanced Tactical Support Base (MATSB) Operation Seafloat in the Nam Can Forest in An Xuyen Province, IV Corps. Tom was one of 8 Naval officers trained at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School  at Ft. Bragg, NC from  September to December 1969.  His 5 enlisted team members received on-the-job training and were mostly former Swift Boat crew members. The tour of duty was 4 months for an officer and 3 months for an enlisted man. He performed PSYOP operations with a 1400-watt broadcast system from Beach Jumper Unit 1. The system was used on Swift boats, Yabuta junks, Army Huey helicopters, or Navy Seawolf  (UH-1B) helicopters belonging to Helicopter Attack (Light) Squadron Three (HAL-3), Detachment One. Tom says:

Operation Seafloat was a group of 12 AMMI pontoon barges tied together and anchored in the Song Cua Lon (Big Crab River) about 6 miles north of the very southern tip of the country. The Ammi is a Navy 90x28-foot pontoon barge developed after World War II for rapid construction of piers, bridges, and small craft facilities. It can be moored in water ranging from 3 to 40 feet in depth. We had about 100 Americans, 20 Vietnamese, Swift Boats, River Assault Craft crews and Navy SEALs. Since we didn't have any infantry, and the area was mud and Cai Duoc trees, boat operations were the order of the day. Sometime late in the summer of 1970 a unit of Vietnamese Marines and their U.S.M.C. Advisors were assigned to work in our area. Since we had the boats, we decided to launch a small amphibious operation in the area where the South China Sea meets the Gulf of Thailand . The idea was for the Swifts to carry the Vietnamese Marines out of the Bo De river and to proceed south, then southwest and to debark them from the Ocean onto the mud beach. We had a Vietnamese-language tape made that said, "Drop your weapons and stand up." The idea was to play it from a 1400-watt broadcast system on a U.S. Army Huey helicopter which would fly over the area just ahead of the Marines as they hit the beach. The landing was a mess since the water was so shallow. The Marines had to wade about 500 yards to the beach through the mud. I was on the Huey and we orbited just outside of the beachhead until the Marines hit the beach. We then went roaring through the area about 5 feet over the trees with the tape blaring the message every 5-8 seconds.   We stayed around for maybe 5 minutes and then returned to Seafloat. At the nightly briefing later that evening we were told the operation was a success and that our broadcast resulted in 5 Viet Cong dropping their weapons and surrendering to the Marines. Unfortunately, the bad news was that it also resulted in several Vietnamese Marines dropping their weapons and raising their hands. We often dropped leaflets from helicopters although most of the local people could not read. This gave them something tangible to hold on to. We followed up with helicopter loudspeaker messages and “Wandering Soul” harassment broadcasts. Whenever we played the tape near friendly Vietnamese they opened fire on us. If there were Viet Cong near us when we played it, they also opened fire on us. We preferred to use it on nights with moonlight. We would use SEAL tiara grenades (Phosphorescent marker rifle fired grenades, not white phosphorous) fired high. When we heard them pop we would start the tape. As the phosphorous started to fall, the breeze would catch it and it would look like a ghost in the sky. It was probably very effective since it gave me the creeps, and I was the one causing it. We also used the Wandering Soul in conjunction with a "Laugh Box" You squeezed it and it gave out an irritating laugh. We would play the Wandering Soul, they would shoot at us. We would shoot back and mortar them with the Swift boat’s or the Heavy Seal Support Craft's (HSSC) 81mm mortar, then play the laugh box over the1400 watt broadcast system. We often added country or rock music, or messages from ralliers to their villages. We ultimately caused 823 Viet Cong to rally to the Government side. With the exception of one man, everyone on the team was wounded at least once. All but one of the wounds were shrapnel, and all but one were non-life threatening.

A Patrol Craft Fast (PCF), also known as Swift Boat

Miami Herald writer Guy Gulotta recalled his experience with PSYOP in a feature piece entitled “Master of the Game,” written for his newspaper in 1989. Guy was a Navy reserve lieutenant (junior grade) assigned as commander of a small navy Patrol Craft Fast, also known as a PCF or "Swift Boat." He was stationed on a semi-permanent base on pontoons moored in the Cua Lon River in 1970. The base was known as Sea Float. Some of his comments are:

The object of our game was to win the hearts and minds of the local people by killing all the "Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Communist aggressors" we could find. Charlie and the Swift Boats were like two youth gangs in a vacant lot. If it moved, zap it. Thus it was that we had little enthusiasm for periodic "PSYOP" (Psychological Operations) designed to further our cause with the Vietnamese. It tended to muddle things up, dilute the action with the impurity of a political campaign. Besides, in our area the only Vietnamese we knew about were waiting to tear our heads off; there wasn't any point in preaching to them. My crew pointed this out to me the first time we were instructed to cruise the canals playing tapes of "The Wandering Soul," a howling banshee sermon promising eternal damnation to any Viet Cong who didn't lay down his weapons and join up with us right away. Nobody on the boat understood the words, but any boat that played it usually got hit with rockets. "The Wandering Soul," as Seaman Sherwood J. Drumheller told me, "is Number 10," and dropping off the chart. Unfortunately, I pointed out, we were the only boat on duty that had a functioning PSYOP system - a loudspeaker. "We’re going to have to play something," I said. "Great," said Drumheller, who was 19 and the only normal person on the boat besides me. He favored Steppenwolf, Credence or the Stones, but would also go with Santana because "some of the words are foreign." Boatswain's mate Hogan, who was from Lubbock, and had no known first name, hated Steppenwolf, but offered Buck Owens or Dolly Parton in exchange. "Not heavy enough," I concluded. I chose Ike and Tina Turner (Workin' Together), pointing out that Tina, like Dolly, was a girl, and she sang Honky-tonk Woman (Stones) and Proud Mary (Credence), which, incidentally, was about a river boat. Besides, she had a voice that could melt steel; Charlie would love it. And it worked. For six hours in the middle of the night Tina Turner ripped through the forest like a chain saw, and we didn't hear a single gunshot or see a single muzzle-flash. "The Wandering Soul" was never heard again on the Cua Lon River.

A Gunner's Mate 3rd Class by the name of "DJ" Skully tells about his first exposure to the Wandering Soul tape. He was a member of River Section 534, later River Division 534. He was patrolling the Ham Loung River in the area of Mo Cay and Ken Hoa Provinces as part of Operation Gamewardens. He manned the aft 50 caliber machinegun on a fiberglass Mark II Patrol Boat River (PBR). The time period was late December 1967 to early January 1968. Speakers were mounted on the boat's engine cover armor plating. He said:

I first heard the tape around midnight. Pitch black. We idled along the river bank. Now that I have heard it again I wonder, What the F**k was I doing? Amazing! Freaky! I don't remember the tape being used again by our unit after the Tet Offensive in 1968.

In Brown Water Black Berets , Coastal and Riverine Warfare in Vietnam by Thomas J. Cutler, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, 1988, the author provides another opinion of the use of psychological operations along the rivers in his interview with Navy Lieutenant Dick Godbehere who served on a  Patrol Boat, River (PBR):

He disliked psychological operation patrols because the PBRs had to move slowly in order to allow the messages to be heard, which made them very vulnerable to attack, and because listening to the taped messages over and over challenged his sanity.

The Wandering Soul tape did not just appear full-blown on the Vietnam scene. There were earlier variations. One former operations officer of the 10th PSYOP Battalion (1968) told me:

I do not remember that Wandering Soul reverb tape at all. I note that the time of that tape follows my tour by 1 year. Our tapes were of Vietnamese funeral music and most were the standard fare sent to us from Group.

He recorded Arthur Brown's "Fire" from 1968 and used the "demonic" portion repeatedly in an endless loop. He mentioned that the tapes often enraged the Viet Cong and led directly to their death:

Our C-47 'Gabby' aircraft came back one night and I waited for them at Binh Thuy for an after-action report. After all, this tape was my baby and they were beta testing it. The pilot stormed in, spoke briefly with the Commanding Officer and then came to talk to me. He said that they would never play that tape again. He had received incredible ground fire the moment they turned it on.

SP5 Tom Zangla took this picture of Spooky in action from the 525th Military Intelligence Group MACV Team 21 Compound near Pleiku, Vietnam, in May 1969.

He had stumbled on to a Battalion-sized Viet Cong force and they were bold enough to attack our aircraft. That's an important intelligence point. It was rare for a Viet Cong unit to engage our aircraft unless they were absolutely sure of their strength and security. Of course that was what I wanted. Over the Commanding Officer's objection I scheduled our C-47 for a repeat visit over the same target. The next night they went up again, but what I wasn't told until later was that Spooky (a gun ship) went along with our aircraft and flew the speaker mission in opposing orbit and all blacked out. When our aircraft played the recording, the ground fire erupted again and Spooky "hosed em" with all three cannon in full cyclic rpm.

This sounds very much like an early aspect of Project Quick Speak where we tried to get the enemy to react to our tapes so they could be engaged. He concludes:

This incident happened but was never officially reported. The crew felt damned good about seeing the ground fire halt instantaneously as Spooky answered back. It was no fun being an unarmed flying target. As I remember it, no one worried too much that what we did was against Group regulations.

The 8th PSYOP Battalion played a different kind of sound tape in Vietnam according to SP4 Vaughn Whiting in an article entitled “Madison Avenue, Vietnam” in Esprit magazine , June 1969:

A hundred miles from the nearest railroad track, the crashing sound of a steam locomotive shakes the jungle night. Whistles shriek. Bells clang. Steam escapes from open valves in a hissing crescendo that makes men cover their ears. A quiet little valley near the Cambodian border suddenly sounds like the Rock Island Line in the days before diesel engines. But Charlie never sees the train. The sound comes from loudspeakers aboard a low-flying C-47 on a psychological operations mission with only one object: Mess up Charlie’s mind, mess it up so badly that he will shoot at the sound out of pure frustration and give away his position. When that happens, a Spooky gunship, which has been circling just out of sight, glides in with its miniguns ablaze and quiets the valley for the night. Night after night, these C-47 teams, called Gabby Spooks, fly over areas where they think large enemy units are camping and broadcast their repertoire of ear-splitting raucous sounds. Sooner or later the racket proves too much for the hungry, sleepy, homesick soldier below. One of them breaks discipline, rushes into a clearing and take an angry potshot at Gabby. Then it’s all over.

Joint Vietnamese-American PSYOP Loudspeaker Team prepare to take off. Note the bundle of leaflets on the floor of the aircraft.

There are numerous reports of the Viet Cong opening fire on the loudspeaker aircraft. Specialist 4 (SP4) John (Snake) Orr of B Company, 6th PSYOP Battalion (Bien Hoa) told me that during his Vietnam tour he was assigned to and supported at different times the 101st Airborne Division, the 1st Infantry division, the 1st Air Cavalry (almost 600 hours flying speaker and leaflet missions) the 9th Infantry Division, and the 25th Infantry Division. John said that the 9th Infantry Division was the only unit that thanked him. He said that in general, most of the infantry patrols were unhappy to have his team tagging along. He suspects that they considered his PSYOP troops just dead weight who they hoped could shoot straight in a firefight. John preferred flying to ground operations; though he admits that he took a heck of a lot more bullets in choppers than he ever did on the ground. He adds:

I played the Wandering Soul tape many times during 1969-1970; until it got my aircraft all shot up. The damn tape drew fire every time. I never understood the lack of fire discipline on the part of the enemy. My light observation helicopter was an easy target and I always got very worried of the time lag between the first green tracers coming up and our protecting Cobra attack helicopter’s response. It could be worse on the ground. I had an encounter with an officer who tried to convince me that my two-man team should set up a all-nighter with the tape and 1000-watt speakers in a hostile deserted village with a 200 foot high South Vietnam flag colored helium balloon attached to my speakers.  I believe he fully intended that it would draw fire; though he professed that it would draw in Chieu Hoi’s.  As team leader, I refused to put my team in jeopardy and that got the major and me in a little trouble. Loudspeaker equipped helicopter in Vietnam

In Sonic Warfare: Sound, Warfare, Effect, and the Ecology of Fear , The MIT Press, 2010, author Steve Goodman mentions the Wandering Soul and similar devices. I have edited the comments for brevity and he says in part:

During the Vietnam War, we still confused sonic power with high volume, for example, in the so called “Urban Funk” Campaign where we mounted supersized oscillators on top of attack helicopters and blasted Victor Charlie with heavy metal at 120dB. We called that weapon the “Curdler” and it was a very primitive system. The Curdler, or “People Repeller,” was an oscillator that could deafen at short range. When used with a public address system and a 350 watt sound amplifier, it was possible to direct intelligible speech to a range of 2.5 miles. The Curdler was also capable of unleashing siren frequencies of between 500 and 5,000 hertz and of inducing panic. We also used high frequency nighttime wailing sound in a weapon we called the “Wandering Ghost,” intended to spook the Viet Cong by playing on certain Buddhist beliefs and that weapon was a big step forward because we came to realize that there is no sound more powerful than the one that conquers your true heart with deep vibrations.... Ultimately what we are talking about is a weapon that uses harmonic infrasound amplified by the power of Evangelical Christian faith to summon and deploy a voice that sounds like it comes from right inside your head, but also sounds like it is coming from everywhere else. A voice that comes from everywhere and nowhere, from everyone and no one, and when you hear it, you will obey no matter what it says because the real weapon that brought down the walls of Jericho was the voice of God.... As journalist John Pilger reported in his book Heroes, [South End Press, Cambridge MA, 2001] The 1st Air Cavalry PSYOP officer was a captain. He was a stereo-and-speakers buff and what he loved to do was to fly in a helicopter low over the jungle and play his tapes to the enemy. His favorite tape was called “Wandering Soul,” and as we lifted out of Snuffy he explained, “What we’re doing today is psyching out the enemy. And that’s where Wandering Soul comes in. Now you’ve got to understand the Vietnamese way of life to realize the power behind Wandering Soul. You see, the Vietnamese people worship their ancestors and they take a lot of notice of the spirits and stuff like that. Well, what we’re going to do here is broadcast the voices of the ancestors—you know, ghosts which we’ve simulated in our studios. These ghosts, these ancestors, are going to tell the Vietcong to stop messing with the people’s right to live freely, or the people are going to disown them.” The helicopter dropped to within twenty feet of the trees. The PSYOP captain threw a switch and a voice reverberated from two loudspeakers attached to the machine-gun mounting. While the voice hissed and hooted, a sergeant hurled out handfuls of leaflets which made the same threats in writing.

Historian Eric B. Villard found a Staff Sergeant Matt Glasgow article titled "Division Psyops Teams Waging Winning Battle in Other War" in the 1st Cavalry Division Newspaper . Curiously, my pal Chad Spahr who was a member of the 6th PSYOP Battalion is quoted in this clipping. He is mentioned in this Wandering Soul article several times. and talks about loudspeaker operations in this news clipping. Some of the text is:

A new weapon has been added to those employed by the 1st Cav during a firefight - Psychological Operations. Under recently initiated operations, the enemy is not only faced with the awesome cavalry fire power but he must cope with attacks upon his sense of security, purpose, and wellbeing - Each of the division's brigades is now equipped with a 1000-watt loudspeaker, a two-man psychological operations team, and a standby helicopter in addition to an arsenal of leaflets - "Other times we use funeral music...We ask them if they want to die here, away from the families and their place of birth. In their religion it is important to be buried in the place where they were born.

Thomas C. Sorensen mentions the use of ghostly PSYOP messages in The Word War , Harper & Row, N.Y., 1968:

Low flying loudspeaker planes awakened the enemy at night with somber Buddhist funeral music, followed by the recorded voice of a child pleading for his daddy to return home - or perhaps weird electronic cacophonies to frighten the superstitious who believed in forest demons.

The Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office booklet National Catalog of PSYOPS materials mentions one such tape numbered 3A. The tape is 49 seconds long and the message is spoken by a woman. It opens with 10 seconds of Buddhist funeral music and ends with two more seconds of the music. The message is:

Each day that passes brings you closer to death. All men must die sometime. But if you stay with the Viet Cong, you will soon die by bombs or bullets. It is much better to spend the rest of your life among your family and friends. Come home! Make your plans to leave the Viet Cong now. Come home before you die. Come home!

A former 1st Infantry Division sergeant who served several tours in Vietnam from 1968 to 1970 remembers the taped funeral music. He comments:

The damn reverb effect of the recording is eerie. I saw and picked-up leaflets and once heard Funeral Music played over the valleys around Landing Zone Mary Ann. A Kit Carson Scout told me what the music was. This was a ghostly sound. Hell, listening to that made me want to Chieu Hoi myself. It must have been effective as hell in the jungle at night.

The Vietnam Archive Oral History Project Interview with pilot Captain John Hodgin mentioned the mission where strange sounds were played from C-47 loudspeakers:

We had what was called a NO DOZE Mission. This was usually over places where the Viet Cong were coming in from the Ho Chi Minh Trail. It was over the troops, not the villages. We would go up somewhere around 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. at night over where we knew the Viet Cong troops were massed, and fly over their area all night with screams and funeral music, just to keep them awake. Screaming, babies, people, and in the background funeral music. If they ever shot at us, we would back off and then the gun ship with the Gatling guns would come in there and just wipe them out. We then go back and broadcast again. We would stay there all night for as long as you can fly, maybe eight hours with that music. It was loud inside the plane. We had earplugs we had to use. Of course, we had our headphones over the top of the earplugs. It was all Vietnamese I had no idea what they were saying. We did that at 3,000 feet, which kept a lot of the rifles from hitting us. Back during that time, the Viet Cong also had those .50 caliber machineguns which were the first things really that could reach an airplane and tear it up. We had a standing policy that if we got shot at with a .50 caliber, we left. You can see the machinegun tracers. When they are coming your way, it looks like they are going so slow with the tracers because they are coming straight at you. They would usually not reach you. Every now and then there would be a big white flare go "Phoom!"� And go right on by you quick. You say, "Uh-oh that's one of those," and you would get out of that area.

Sergeant Jerry Sopko, 1st Platoon, Delta Co, 4th Battalion, 503rd PIR of the 173rd Airborne, 1969-1970 adds:

I remember those tapes playing along the I Corps - II Corps border area of Northern Binh Dinh Province. At the time, the 4th Battalion of the 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment was working the An Do Valley. Even knowing that it was a PSYOP tape, it freaked you out…especially if you were on an ambush mission that night. I recall a ghostly "woooo—wooooo", and "ah-oooo" kind of wail. I didn't know what it was called; we simply called it "Ghosts."

Another former sergeant wrote:

I can relate to your article concerning PSYOP Broadcasting Propaganda tapes. I was a Field Team Leader, assigned 4 August 1967 to the 6th PSYOP Battalion in Saigon .   I worked for the first few months with the 246th PSYOP Company at Bien Hoa and in late 1967 I was transferred to Cu Chi, attached to the 25th Infantry Division.  I was promoted to Sgt. E5, and reassigned to 244th PSYOP Company where I was a Field Team Leader in Quang Tri   Province , attached to the First Cavalry Division. We did Search and Destroy missions in the A Shau Valley. I spen t many hours in a “Huey” with loudspeakers broadcasting those very tapes.

There is another strange sound tape meant to mess with “Charlie’s” mind that we should mention. The 1969 Army Concept Team in Vietnam publication Employment of U.S. Army Psychological Operation Units in Vietnam says about Operation Tintinnabulation:

Operation Tintinnabulation was a new Propaganda technique being tested by the 10th PSYOP Battalion, in cooperation with the 5th Special Operations Squadron, was recently employed against two VC battalions. Tintinnabulation (which literally means the ringing of bells) involves two C-47 aircraft, one "Spooky" (minigun-equipped) and the other a "Gabby" (loudspeaker-equipped). During the initial phase, the Gabby employs a frequency pulsating noisemaker designed to harass and confuse the enemy forces during night hours, while the Spooky provides air cover. During the second phase, the harassing noisemaker continues, however, emphasis is given to use of Chieu Hoi tapes. The first phase is designed to eliminate the feeling that the night provides security to the target audience, while the second phase is designed to reinforce the enemy’s desire to rally. Targets for both phases are recommended based on the results of daytime ground operations. During a recent operation in Vinh Long Province, a total of 24 missions were flown with over-the-target time of approximately 2 hours per aircraft. The number of Hoi Chanhs in the province more than tripled (122 in September to 379 in December), and ralliers stated that the effects of the night missions caused them to rally. The initial success of Operation Tintinnabulation suggested this concept should be considered for use in other areas.

A November 1968 report states that phase I of Operation Tintinnabulation ended on 14 November. A night operation, this phase utilized the C-47 aircraft and speaker system with the frequency pulsating generator (Noisemaker) and various tapes of eerie music designed to eliminate the feeling that the night provides security to the target audience. Phase II was initiated on 15 November and incorporates the use of loudspeaker and C-47 aircraft equipped with mini-guns to suppress ground fire. Specially designed tapes based on Hoi Chanh feedback are used in this phase. On 19 November, 16 Hoi Chanh rallied and 14 of them stated that the night loudspeaker – gunship operations were a major factor in their decision to rally.

We have seen no data to verify the success of the Wandering Soul operation. I suspect it did not do well. The one continuing factor I find is that in most cases the Viet Cong opened fired when they reacted to the tape. This resulted in them being fired upon. This does not seem to be a successful way to motivate defections.

The Wandering Ghost campaign was not universally admired. Lieutenant Colonel William J. Beck commanded the 4th PSYOP Group from 15 October 1967 to 7 October 1968. He discusses some of his unit’s problems and successes in the declassified Senior Officer Debriefing Report. He complains that there was some frustration at the lack of signs of tangible PSYOP success, and this led to gimmicks like sky-lighting effects, and ghostly loudspeakers:

This aspect, unfortunately has often reduced idea formation on the part of these operators and staff to the level of “gimmicky” and more or less desperate attempts to find a quick solution and dramatic breakthrough. This is not good PSYOP. There is little evidence   that positive, long-range mass persuasion can be achieved by the gimmick route. On the contrary it could probably be easily shown that gimmickry has a reverse effect of conditioning the audience against the emotional effects of well thought-out propaganda. In sum, there is a place for occasional gimmickry and dramatic effect in the PSYOP effort, but these are normally secondary aspects and should be reserved for those circumstances where the long-range program has created an acceptable situation.

Major Michael G. Barger also quotes Beck in his U.S. Army Command and General Staff College 2007 Master’s thesis Psychological Operations Supporting the Counterinsurgency: 4th PSYOP Group in Vietnam:

Lieutenant Colonel Beck, in his Senior Officer Debrief, called the use of gimmickry, such as projecting images on clouds or using ghostly loudspeaker broadcasts, as “more-or-less desperate attempts to find a quick solution” to show “solid evidence of positive results.” Beck asserted that effective PSYOP takes time and instant results are usually the result of other factors that predisposed a target audience to complying with a PSYOP argument. He also pointed out that units could not sustain trickery for long, and once the lie was revealed it would damage the credibility of PSYOP personnel.35 Worse, once gimmickry failed to achieve results, the commander who once overestimated the potential of PSYOP now was even more inclined to relegate PSYOP to an ancillary function rather than integrate it into his combat plans.

Leaflet 4-29-69

Although in general leaflets that showed dead Viet Cong were frowned upon since they were not likely to win the admiration and respect of the enemy, and in fact were known to make them angry and ready for revenge, from time to time the American PSYOP units did prepare such leaflets. To remind the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army of their vulnerability, the 4th PSYOP Group prepared a series of leaflets in 1969 that depicted dead Viet Cong. I will show one such leaflet but the reader should understand that there was an entire series. Some of the leaflets were 4-27-69 “Don’t Die Like This”;   4-29-69 “Don’t Die Tragically Like This”; 4-40-69 “Don’t Die Uselessly for the Communist Dark Plots Like Your Comrades in this Photo”; and “Wishing Longevity to Uncle Ho Doesn’t Mean that More of Your Comrades have to be Killed Dreadfully like This.”

The Psychological Operations leaflet and poster catalog of the 244th Psychological Operation Company, Detachment 2, Quang Ngai, Vietnam, offers a leaflet that fits in very well with this topic. The title is,  "Two Ways of Appreciating Combatants." It depicts a live person with the text, "One, Human" and a dead person with the text , "One, wicked and Abandoned."

The text compares the life of a Communist soldier with that of a Government of Viet Nam soldier. It first says of the Communist, " We think of how these wounds torment your body until the day you die in the nooks and corner of the thick forests and mountains. In a strange mound, no incense where your bodies are buried. Who will think of you?..." It next tells of the ARVN soldier, "For us, if we die in the battlefield our bodies will be carried to our native village and buried there. If we are wounded, we are taken to a military hospital for medical treatment and recuperation."

Leaflet 23-65

This is an early 1965 leaflet produced by the joint PSYWAR Civic Affairs Center of the I Corps Tactical Zone, Republic of Vietnam. The front of this leaflet depicts a dead Communist fighter on the ground. The text is:

Has this man had a proper burial? Will his family ever learn where his grave is?

On the back a living Communist thinks of his family and wonders:

My family needs me. Am I ever going to see my family again? Why should I fight my brother Vietnamese comrades? Death.

Leaflet 116-66

Another early I Corps leaflet. This one depicts a dead Viet Cong fighter on the ground. I am tempted to turn this one upside down so you can see the body better, but the text on the bottom proves that they wanted the body seen this way. The leaflet was poorly cut by the printers and the stains are caused by the glue used to paste this specimen into the unit�s leaflet file. The text is:

Many of you have died tragically on the battlefield and no one will know where your grave is.

The back has a long all-text message. It is a tactical leaflet targeting the 325th Viet Cong Battalion:

TO THE COMBATANTS IN THE 325TH VIET CONG DIVISION,

For a long time, the Viet Cong cadres have taken advantage of you and need you for their cannon fodder. The Viet Cong have no regard for you, and you are making a needless sacrifice. They send you to a battlefield and use their human wave tactics where you tragically die. Now is the time for you to profoundly reflect and hasten to return to the Republic of Vietnam�s Government and to the people to increase the prosperity of the country and the happiness and abundance of the people before you and your family are forever parted. The administrative and military authorities and the people are waiting to welcome you just as they have done to your colleagues who have already returned to the true cause.

Leaflet 134-66

This is another early I Corps leaflet that was used in 1966. The reason I add it is because many of the American leaflets to the enemy used the mother as a theme. This one depicts a mother looking at an empty bed on the left, at the right we see her son, not sleeping, but dead in the jungle. She wonders where his body lies. The text on the front is:

He was here only last year! Where have they buried him!

The text on the back is:

A VIET CONG SOLDIER SPEAKS TO HIS MOTHER

Mother, I considered it certain that I would die in battle, and you would not know of my death. Sometimes I felt that death was perhaps better than this way of life, but I felt sorry for you, mother, who needed my assistance. I dared not let my comrades know of my true feelings, because I feared they might report them to my leaders. Many of my comrades were tired and as sick as I was because of the lack of food and medicine. I�m sorry I had to leave you, mother, but death was better than my life with the Viet Cong.

Leaflet 7-549-68

I liked the image on this leaflet a lot. Two North Vietnamese Army soldiers resting in the bush, one seeming to massage his foot. It reminded me of the military when a couple of American soldiers would sit on their foot lockers, maybe shining their boots and just have a pleasant talk. It was always a very comfortable time. I liked the color of the leaflet, blue being my favorite color. It is a tactical leaflet aimed specifically at the 1st Regiment of the North Vietnamese 2nd Division. The text is on the front is:

FRIENDS, NEVER SUFFER TRIBULATION!

ATTENTION OF DISSENTING SOLDIERS OF THE REGULAR 1ST REGIMENT OF THE NORTH VIETNAMESE REGULAR 2ND DIVISION. We know you are afraid of the prolonged death, and it has made your life in the jungle an exhausting misery. You do not have medicine when sick. More than 500 of your friends were killed in August. Do you want to become one of them? Your fellow soldiers were buried in unmarked graves. You have two choices - to die where you are, or to come over to the Government of the Republic of Viet Nam. You will be warmly received upon returning.

Leaflet 7-567-68

This leaflet depicts the unmarked graves of Viet Cong fighters deep in the jungle. The text on the front is:

UNKNOWN GRAVES

DEAR FRIEND, You are setting foot on ground filled with the bones of countless of your comrades. They fell because they were accidentally or forced to sacrifice for the ambitions of the Communist leaders. They fell because of the outrageous rhetoric of the Communist propaganda machine. There are so many people who have been given beautiful titles by the Party, such as "heroes who destroyed the enemy" and "heroes of production"; but ask yourself, do you remember those people? Soldiers, you will be praised, flattered, and listened to until you are fascinated. But when you fall, your memory is immediately erased, no one in the unit is allowed to mention your name to offend you. Only your family mourns you day and night, but no one knows where you are buried! We, the emotional national soldiers [South Vietnam Army] , do not want this land to be mixed with your bones anymore. We sincerely wish to welcome you at Chieu Hoi Centers.

Leaflet 7-462-70

I want to stop here and add a 7th PSYOP Battalion 1970 leaflet that is interesting. In a way it is almost "black," using an indirect attack to get the attention of the enemy. It does not say "you will be buried in an unmarked grave."� It says that if you should be killed, instead of being buried in an unmarked grave, fill out this leaflet and we will be able to send you home for a proper burial. It seems to serve two purposes. It will identify the soldier of his body is found dead on the battlefield and his name could be used for propaganda, and even more interesting, every time he sees that piece of paper, he will think about being killed in a strange country, something not likely to help his morale. It does not say "if you are killed," it says "when you are killed." The text of the leaflet is:

MEMBERS OF THE NORTH VIETNAMESE ARMY AND LOCAL FORCES, Fill out the blank spaces on the back side of this paper and keep it with you. When you are killed the Vietnamese Army or Allied Force will give you a proper burial with a detailed tombstone which will enable your relatives to find your grave. (If for any reason, you do not want to keep this paper, then write the information on another piece of paper and keep it with you.)

The back of the leaflet has the following places for information to be added:

Full name; date of birth; place of birth; father's name, mothers name; rank, title; unit, wife's name; children's names.

Leaflet T-09

This leaflet dropped along the Ho Chi Minh Trail asks:

Is this a grave?

Unfortunately, it is not. But it is the final resting place, many, many kilometers from the graves of his ancestors. His body cannot be identified, his grave cannot be marked, and his soul will never find rest.

Leaflet 246-117-67

This leaflet almost seems designed for the Wandering Soul Operation. It shows two dead fighters of the Viet Cong C-40 Regiment. The leaflet was requested by the U.S. 196th Light Infantry Brigade. The 246th PSYOP Company printed 100,000 copies for distribution by air. The text on the front is:

ATTENTION MEN OF THE C-140 REGIMENT!

The text on the back says in part:

…These members of your unit fired on the U.S. and other Allied Forces. Their own comrades left them to die without proper burial honors to lie forever in unmarked graves. Their souls will remain forever lonely and lost, never to return home…

Notice the use of the term "unmarked graves" in the text of the leaflet. We will find that term in many leaflets and loudspeaker missions. The Vietnamese would understand that term meant they would walk the earth forever. One loudspeaker mission that used the term was a loudspeaker appeal by PSYOP personnel asking the Viet Cong to rally to the government side as part of the Chieu Hoi program:

Attention members of the V-21 Regiment. You cannot win! You were severely beaten when you attacked the ARVN base camp, located west of the Saigon River in Tay Nihn Province. You suffered more than 289 casualties while the ARVN suffered small losses. You fought well, but against a better and stronger force you did not have a chance. Now many of you are wounded and dying. Do you want to be buried in an unmarked grave? You have two choices: die where you are, or rally to the Government of Vietnam. If you rally you will be given medicine and be treated well. Rally now. Hide your weapon and rally during daylight hours to any ARVN or Allied soldier or GVN official.

Leaflet 246-136-67

This leaflet has a very nostalgic image that was used more than once by American PSYOP troops. A Viet Cong fighter's wife stands alone outside her home while the rest of the family eats. She thinks of her husband out in the bush and wonders if he is still alive. 50,000 of these leaflets were requested by the Vietnamese 25th Infantry Division. The text on the back is:

Wives of the fighters of the in the 165th Regiment.

Where is your husband? Is he one of those that have been killed by the might allied forces. More men from the 165th Regiment die each day. They are buried without honor in a grave forever unknown. Dead men cannot return to their families. Tell your husband to rally under the Chieu Hoi Program. Don't let him wait. He will be treated well, given a generous allowance, and be trained in a skill that will provide a better life for his family. Don't let him die for an unjust cause.

The same image was used on JUSPAO leaflet 952. The text now is:

A MESSAGE TO TROOPS STILL IN THE VIET CONG

Whenever the family sits together at the dining table, everyone is emotional and missing you. We remember you have been suffering much and not knowing how you are doing now. We miss the male head of our family and feel the loneliest ever. We send our messages to you via the birds, the winds, and the clouds, with the hope they will reach you, and that you will reunite with us soon. The Open Arms program of the RVN Government.

Leaflet 246-179

This leaflet depicts a group of dead Viet Cong left to rot on the ground after a battle. 100,000 copies were printed at the request of the 25th Infantry Division. The text on the front is:

Bodies of Slain Viet Cong Guerrillas lay abandoned by their Unit.

There must be an end to needless killing. The Viet Cong are losing the battle and desperately need replacements for those who have recently died in battle or who have rallied to the winning government cause. Why torture or force innocent young men into the ranks to die for a hopeless cause. Do not let friends, relatives, or yourself be used by the Viet Cong. Stay at home and avoid the Viet Cong traps. If necessary, more to a Vietnam Government controlled area for a more secure life.

Leaflet 23 was dropped on North Vietnam and shows the South Vietnamese praying for their dead on the "Day or Pardon for the Dead." The people are reminded to "burn a stick of incense in honor of our ancestors." The captions on the two photographs on the front are:

Faithful to their ancestral tradition, the people of South Vietnam are praying for the dead on the "Day of Pardon for the Dead." As we sadly turn our thoughts toward the withering North, No sticks were burned on Vu Lan Day, and no comfort was given the wandering souls.

The message on the back is:

Dear Compatriots of North Vietnam, The Trung Nguyen or Vu Lan holidays are approaching. This is the time when every Vietnamese would pause to burn a stick of incense in honor of our ancestors or as an act of mercy for the souls of those dead who have no one to honor their memories. Faithful to our ancestral traditions, we in the South are burning incense and praying for the deceased. On this occasion, our thoughts go to you and the many sufferings, both material and moral, you are enduring under the ruthless regime of the Godless communists. We know that you are being harassed into abandoning your pious duty of honoring your dead. But our thoughts also go to the many dead who fall every day in South Vietnam under the murderous hands of the Viet Cong. How many wandering souls need our prayers and your prayers on this day of "Pardon for the Dead"? Compatriots, demand that the Lao Dong Party stop its war of aggression in the South so that no more innocent souls would have to join the already great number of innocent souls now wandering on this war-torn country of the South.

Leaflet 4-11-70

Since the Vietnamese felt a need to be buried close to home, the United States printed numerous leaflets that threatened them with an unmarked grave. This 4th PSYOP Group leaflet was printed on 3 April 1970. The front shows “unmarked graves.” There are four clear areas in the grass and apparently we are to think there are four bodies buried in those clear spots. The text is:

Are you doommed for an unmarked grave like this?

Men in the NVA Communist ranks

Many of your comrades have been killed because they blindly followed their leaders’ orders. Their reward was an unmarked grave. How can you and your comrades escape a similar fate? Some have left their units to surrender and be imprisoned. They still have hopes of reuniting with their family when the war ends. Some have responded to the Chieu Hoi policy of the Government of Vietnam for a new life of happiness and security in South Vietnam…If you continue on your present course, you will die and be buried in an unmarked grave. You must think about your families and resolve to return to them as soon as possible. 

At some point Monta Osborne of JUSPAO reviewed this leaflet and said:

This leaflet uses the old theme, employed countless times in Vietnam, that the NVA soldier faces death in South Viet-Nam, with burial in an unmarked grave. A recent study by JUSPAO stated that threats of death leave NVA soldiers unmoved, and implied that the "unmarked grave" theme has little if any validity with NVA soldiers, who tend to feel that "when you're dead, you're dead" and the corpse does not worry about whether its grave is visited by the descendants.

While discussing the above leaflet, one veteran told me that perhaps the enemy did try to recover those bodies. He said:

Some of our troops came across a NVA burial site. They found a bottle with the names and locations of graves inside. It was believed the bottle was hidden so that they could return later and identify and recover the bodies. In another case about 40 NVA bodies were found hidden in an old well after an attack. Again, it is assumed that the enemy expected to come back later and recover the bodies.

Leaflet SP-808

This leaflet shows a young boy being forcibly taken away from the family to be impressed into the Viet Cong. When I say "impressed," I mean the same sort of kidnapping that went on in Continental days when the British Navy would stop American ships and take sailors and force them into the British Navy. On the left we see the boy taken; on right we see the corpses of dead Viet Cong on the field being eaten by vultures. The text at the left and right is:

WHY DOES THE VIET CONG FORCE YOUNG BOYS INTO THEIR SERVICE WHEN FORMERLY THEY TOOK ONLY OLDER VOLUNTEERS

BECAUSE THE VIET CONG ARE LOSING THE WAR!

The Viet Cong regular troops have suffered huge losses in dead and wounded on the battlefield. They need replacements. More and more Viet Cong are returning to the Government cause, creating gaps in the Viet Cong ranks. Replacements are needed to fill these gaps. Viet Cong �human wave� tactics require many people to be sent to their deaths � young people, imperfectly trained, badly armed, make good bullet shields for the northern cadre of the Viet Cong. And if these young conscripted soldiers in the Viet Cong ranks should live for a little while, then the Viet Cong take them from their hamlets and villages, send them far away to other provinces, to die and rot unburied, or to be buried in shallow unmarked graves in the jungles and swamps of the highlands.

Leaflet 3806

This leaflet has two themes. The first is that the soldier will die in Cambodia; the second is that because he will not be buried at home his soul will never find rest. The leaflet depicts a Communist soldier crying on the ground, thinking of what will become of a friend he just buried. The text on the front is:

HE WILL NEVER RETURN TO ANCESTRAL SOIL

He was a courageous soldier that fought "the People's War" So far from home. Like you, he followed his loved ones to follow the "just cause" extolled by the Communist Party of North Vietnam. Yet, who stands by his shallow Cambodian grave so far from home to mourn his courageous death? His family joyfully awaits his triumphant return, not knowing of his fate. His party bosses praise his noble death while sending others to take his place. The "just cause" of the Communist Party has not rewarded him properly. An unmarked grave on Cambodian soil, of preying jungle beasts, await your dying breath.

Leaflet 4454

This leaflet depicts a lonely Viet Cong in the bush thinking of his family at home. The text is:

An image of a North Vietnamese soldier grieving in spring while separated from his family during Tet.

The back is all text:

How many springs have elapsed since you were taken away from your families and unable to enjoy Tet with your loved ones? Have you received Tet greetings from your wife, sons, or other relatives on this traditional holiday? Does this Tet�s find you happier than on previous similar occasions. Do you realize that it is the communist scheme of seizing South Vietnam that forces you to live away from your family and sustain endless hardships while depriving your relations of your company in celebrating Tet? May a time come when you are able to rejoin your families and enjoy Tet with your relatives? Indeed, it may, but will you survive until then? Or will your bodies already be buried somewhere in the wilderness? There is one alternative left to you. Break with the Communists and go over to the people of Free Vietnam. Then you can enjoy a significant Tet every year.

Those Wandering Souls Died in Nameless Graves

Captain Edward N. Voke, S2 (Intelligence) staff officer of the 6th PSYOP Battalion from 1966 to 1967 ran across a poster in I Corps in 1967 that used the Wandering Soul theme. He told me:

I  have a 16 x 10.25-inches poster printed on one side only; black print on white background; probably designed to be posted on buildings and trees. It has the same ace of spades card with skull and crossbones and below it are 4 lines of shaded verse. It is coded “244-298-67,” so it was printed by our 244th PSYOP Company in I Corps in 1967.    

The poster message is:

The owls are calling for the souls of the Viet Cong Those wandering souls without destination Spreading countless horrors to the people Those wandering souls died in nameless graves RETURN [to the National Government] OR DIE

Voke mentions another leaflet which tells of the enemy of their dead lying unburied on the battlefield: He considered this leaflet one of the best he had seen:

One of the most effective leaflets I ever saw was printed after one of the battles in 1966 or 1967. A U.S. Infantry Division Commanding General wrote a letter to the enemy division Commanding General (on regular 2-star stationery; English on one side & Vietnamese on the other), informing him that his North Vietnamese troops had disgraced themselves on the field of battle. The American general said that he had buried the North Vietnamese dead and was carrying for the wounded; and if he could do anything else, to please contact him.  We later heard the full background on that battle. Apparently, the U.S. forces were beating and pushing back the North Vietnamese slowly, and the enemy was pulling back in good order. Then, a North Vietnamese machine-gunner in the center platoon panicked, jumped up and ran to the rear. Seeing this, other troops around him also began to run to the rear and it opened up the center of the North Vietnamese defense. The American forces exploited the sudden weakness and caved in the enemy with terrible losses to the North Vietnamese. If the enemy Battalion Commander knew what caused the rout he probably didn’t want to tell his boss. The American Commanding General’s nice letter let the North Vietnamese Army Commanding General let everyone in the immediate vicinity know of the division’s cowardice. I heard that many copies of the letter were dropped over the enemy’s area of operations. We later heard that the North Vietnamese battalion and regiment commanders were relieved. This was by far the best PSYOP leaflet I ever saw by a US combat unit. General Hay letter

Lieutenant General John H. Hay Jr. discusses the same leaflet in Vietnam Studies – Tactical and Materiel Innovations , Department of the Army, Washington D.C. 1989. Hay says in part:

On 13 May 1970 an agent reported that within Phong Dinh Province some 300 local force Viet Cong were to be recruited and sent to Cambodia as replacements for North Vietnamese Army units that had suffered heavy losses. The information was passed to the U.S. intelligence adviser and the province adviser for psychological operations. By 1600 on the same day, the psychological operations staff had prepared a leaflet capitalizing on the raw intelligence information. The priority target selected for the operation was the area of Phong Dinh Province , which was known to harbor hard-core Viet Cong. The province adviser for psychological operations and the S-5 adviser arranged to have the leaflets distributed throughout the appropriate districts during that night and the next day. Late in the evening on 14 May, the first Hoi Chanh rallied in Phung Hiep District with a copy of a leaflet on the Stationery of the Commanding General of the 1st Infantry Division, red flag with stars and all. By 23 May, twenty-eight Viet Cong had rallied, stating that they had done so because they were afraid of being sent to Cambodia . The leaflet read in English and Vietnamese:

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY HEADQUARTERS 1ST INFANTRY DIVISION OFFICE OF THE COMMANDING GENERAL 22 March 1967

AVDB-CG                                                                                                                   SUBJECT:                  Unsoldierly Conduct of Officers of Cong Truong 9

          TO: Commanding General                   Cong Truong 9                   HT 86500 YK

Dear General:   This is to advise you that during the battle of Ap Bau Bang. On 20 March the Regimental Commander of Q763 and his battalion commanders disgraced themselves by performing in an unsoldierly manner.    During this battle with elements of this Division and attached units your officers failed to accomplish their mission and left the battlefield covered with dead and wounded from their units.  We have buried your dead and taken care of your wounded from this battle.                                                                Sincerely

                                                                        J. H. Hay                                                                         Major General USA                                                                         Commanding

Notice that Volk mentions a time line of 1966-1967 for this leaflet when we spoke in 2007, and General Hay places it in 1970 in the statement he wrote in 1989. This difference could be caused by “the fog of war,” or it is possible that General Hay wrote such a leaflet on more than one occasion.

Chip Decker at left – in the early 1990s at Ft. Rucker, Alabama

Warrant Officer 1 Chip Decker flew the “Huey” helicopter for the 128th Assault Helicopter Co. (Tomahawks) in Vietnam. He told me that in regard to the General Hay letter-leaflet:

I was just 19 years old back then. This is a leaflet I dropped in 1967 in III Corps. It is two-sided with Vietnamese text on one side and English on the other. I kept about a half-dozen as souvenirs but now I am down to just one. I know at least two boxes about two feet square full of the leaflets were dropped from my helicopter. Usually we were working for the Division S2 (Intelligence) or S3 (Operations) out of Di An. We supported the 1st Infantry Division, the 25th Infantry Division, the 99th Light Infantry Brigade, the 173rd Airborne Brigade and sometimes the Vietnamese Army Division. Di An Base Camp (also known as Di An Army Airfield) was located northeast of Saigon, 13 kilometers northeast of Tan Son Nhut Air Base and 12 kilometers southwest of Bien Hoa. I would get a mission sheet to go to Di An these PSYOP guys would jump on-board and ask us to orbit so they could drop the leaflets. One other thing, the air flow around the belly of the Huey would trap leaflets against the helicopters underbelly skin and when we landed back at Division the rotor wash reacting to the ground surface would blow all the leaflets stuck on the belly all over the division helipad! We would also drop the different Chieu Hoi leaflets all the time for the Division and run some of the loudspeaker missions. One other thing, the air flow around the belly of the Huey would trap leaflets against the helicopters underbelly skin and when we landed back at Division the rotor wash reacting to the ground surface would blow all the leaflets stuck on the belly all over the division helipad!

Retired Colonel Alan Byrne of the 4th PSYOP Group told me that in general these personal letters were frowned upon. Although this is not exactly what he talks about here, it is close. He says:

There was another type of leaflet message that we would receive from our field units on rare occasions asking if it was OK to develop and produce them. And we vetoed them every time along with a letter back from our Group Commander to the combat unit commander (Usually a Battalion Commander) explaining why these were not acceptable. There were, however, a few that did get out and printed in small numbers. I seem to recall that a command directive went out directing commanders to cease and desist on any actions of this type. These we nicknamed “Macho Man” leaflets. They were always a direct physical challenge and threat. The language was always very explicit language and they were always from an American commander to the opposing NVA or VC force commander. The general theme hardly ever varied. Our American commander would toss the gauntlet in insulting terms to the opposing enemy commander to meet him alone, on the battlefield. They then, without any weapons, would fight, one-on-one, hand-to-hand, to the death.

Wandering Soul Leaflet Prepared but not Disseminated.

Specialist Fourth Class Charles Kean Jr. Was a member of the 245th PSYOP Company in Vietnam during the years 1966-1967. He was trained as a U.S. Army Illustrator (Military Occupational Specialty 81E2W). He told me:

We never used this one that I drew. I am not sure if that was the final version of the drawing or a work in progress. Perhaps it was refined to show some grass or small trees to indicate that the body was left to rot in the jungle. We heard that there was a superstition among the Vietnamese that their soul could not rest and would be forced to wander endlessly if certain rituals were not followed after death and they were not properly interred according to tradition. The drawing was an attempt to capitalize on those fears. Unlike us, they would leave their dead and wounded on the battlefield when they retreated after a battle. Sometimes it seemed that they would willfully leave their wounded knowing that our medical people back at the base would do all in their power to patch them up and save their lives. The text would have explained that this soldier’s soul was going to wander Vietnam forever because he did not have a traditional burial. We mostly did specialized leaflets for tactical situations. We produced leaflets covering a lot of different dialects and situations. The unit was charged with the task of producing materials that encouraged the enemy to lessen their resistance or surrender.

Leaflet ATF-010-70

The Australian 1st Psychological Operations Unit produced a leaflet with a similar theme of Viet Cong bodies left on the ground to rot by their comrades. About 100,000 copies of Leaflet ATF-010-70 were produced 4 June 1970 and dropped by aircraft. The front depicts a dead Communist guerrilla in the jungle. Text to the left of the body is: 

Unburied Communist dead on the battlefield.

The leaflet targeted the Ba Long Province Viet Cong units. The purpose was to demoralize the enemy by the thought of them never being properly buried at home and wandering forever in the afterlife. The text on the back is:

Soldiers and Cadres of D440, D445, C25, C41, and other Ba Long Province Units Lately, and especially from 4 May to 23 May, the Government of Vietnam and Allied Forces in Phuoc Tuy have found 15 bodies of Communist soldiers lying where they died on the battlefield. Some only had a sheet of plastic over them. Will you soon be killed and left unburied in the jungle?

The VC itself responded to this sensitive matter of disposal of the dead as raised by the Australian leaflets. The enemy’s headquarters, Military Region 7, issued an order that bodies were to be recovered from the battlefield at all costs and given a proper burial.

The leaflets were supplemented with the playing of the “Wandering Soul” tape at night. The Australians used a Pilartus Porter aircraft to fly the missions (it replaced the U. S. Skymaster O-2B aircraft).   They flew at about 1000 feet above ground level just above stalling speed at night without lights. The aircraft engine could not be seen or heard by the enemy on the ground below.

Former sergeant Derrill de Heer of the First Psychological Operations Unit described the Australian use of the tape:

I and others in the unit used the Wandering Souls tape on many occasions. There seems to be a number of versions of it made. In PSYWAR a tape needs to be 20 to 40 seconds long or you may leave an area before the intended target hears the whole message. The Australians only played the tape at night in areas away from inhabited areas and away from areas of South Vietnamese soldiers. The Vietnamese have a strong belief that if you die violently or where you are not known or are not buried in the traditional way your spirit will wander eternally. Hence the tape was made to make then think about their death and perhaps consider returning to the South Vietnamese government side under the Chieu Hoi (Open Arms) amnesty program. As I remember the tape the first half was electronic music with a voice from beyond saying he was wounded and did not know where he was.  He was thinking of his family and children. The music changed to psychedelic music and the voice was more wavering and he was now dead and his spirit was wandering.

De Heer mentioned the operation again years later in a newspaper interview:

We did this during night-time because in the silence of night sound travels further. We’d be drifting in a Pilatus Porter aircraft, with no lights, at about 1000 feet, just above stalling speed. On a ground, they couldn’t hear the aircraft. All they could hear was the message we were broadcasting. The message included a scary voice of a bleeding soldier, alone in a night and yearning for home. The tape that included electronic music, then changed to a more resounding tone, and portrayed the voice of a dead soldier, now a wandering spirit. It finished with a plea for enemy soldiers to rally to the Government of South Vietnam. The sound of tape was chilling, even for non-Vietnamese troops. I had one pilot that simply refused to fly missions when we were going to play that tape. It freaked him out.

The Wandering Soul operation was mentioned a third time by de Heer in his Masters’ Thesis: Victoria per Mentum: Psychological Operations Conducted by the Australian Army in Phuoc Tuy Province South Vietnam 1965 – 1971. Some of his comments were:

The superstition most favored by Australians related to the Vietnamese belief that if a villager died violently or outside the village his soul would wander without resting…One particular taped message produced by the Americans for general use was the message that was referred to as ‘Wandering Souls’. It was discovered later that there were a number of versions of this theme of Wandering Souls made by US forces throughout South Vietnam. The version used by the Australians was a taped message about twenty to thirty seconds in length and contained a spiritual theme divided into two parts. The first part of the message could be described as electronic music with a voice in an echo chamber in Vietnamese saying “they were wounded and they did not know where they were, they were dying.” In the second part of the taped message the music changed to a slightly weirder and psychedelic style of ghostly music making the voice changes to sound like a spirit voice. The voice declared that “I am dead and my soul (spirit) is wandering.” This demonstrated how the victim was no longer in the region of the village and his ‘spirit’ would be condemned to wander forever. The effectiveness of these broadcasts was believed to be heightened during night flights when the aircraft would fly close to stalling speed at about one thousand feet above ground level with aircraft navigation lights switched off. At this altitude, the engine of the turbo-propeller driven Porter aircraft was so quiet that it could not be heard from the ground.

Royal Australian Army Service Corps Private Ken Stevenson told me about his 1969 experiences with the Australian PSYOP unit and his missions where the Wandering Soul tape was played from a helicopter.

He arrived in Vietnam in November 1969 and was sent to Forward Support Base Julia. He told me that Brigadier General Sandy Pearson, the Australian Task Force Commander was serious about the war and intended to continue operations during the Christmas holidays. The Australians assigned him the duty as a driver for the PSYOP unit. He said that many of the Australian regulars sniggered when they heard his assignment announced on morning parade. Psychological operations were considered a joke by most of the Australian troops. They thought it was funny that the new guy got the job of driving the “nut cases” in PSYOP. Ken was a conscript; a trained College instructor. Although a driver, because of his education he was given some more interesting jobs and often worked with the American III Corps PSYOP battalion at Bien Hoa and sometimes helped develop leaflet drops with them. He told me:

I usually worked with a four-man team; a Lieutenant Dick Williams, a Staff Sergeant Pete Erio, a clerk Private Norman, and me as the official driver. The Officer in Charge was Captain Mike Nelson. We had a Vietnamese Army interpreter named Sergeant Cu who was also a school teacher in civilian life. We even had a movie van. At that time we used Huey helicopters from Royal Australian Air Force 9 Squadron at Vung Tau with mounted speaker banks. The Pilatus Porter planes were not in Viet Nam when I was there. I took part in Wandering Soul missions and even brought a copy of the tape home. Those missions were exciting; I felt that I was actually doing something significant. I remember that on one night mission the pilot said after about 5 minutes, “We're going to drop you back at Nui Dat and then fake the log when get back to base, are you OK with that?” Like the targeted Viet Cong, he too was scared witless. He was spooked out by the eeriness of the tape and the fear of being a few hundred feet over the canopy in the dark. We were quite low, actually “sitting ducks” if some dedicated Viet Cong cadre decided to take us on. On the bright side, I don’t remember ever drawing fire during a mssion. As I said earlier, PSYOP wasn't seen as a traditional Army role so Headquarters seemed to be just humoring us. Most Australian Army effort apart from combat went into Civil Affairs and the engineers.

The "Wandering Soul" Used in Another Campaign

Long after the war was over the United States began declassifying CIA documents from the Vietnam War. One that caught my interest was this one, a strange use of the American wandering Soul Campaign:

A rumor campaign directed against Communist targets inside South Vietnam (by planting rumors through the South Vietnamese Army tactical radio operator chatter, which we know the North Vietnamese monitors) are being developed. Themes are designed to confuse the enemy about our military intentions, to increase doubts concerning Soviet and Chinese support, and to add to internal North Vietnamese mistrust. In all our activities, leaflets, radios, rumors, and other special operations, we are giving the impression of iron U.S. determination and power. We have already told them that our air and sea power has been greatly increased and new augmentations have been announced. We also hint at powerful, new weapons. And we are playing on North Vietnamese superstitions by claiming that the "Wandering Souls" of their unburied dead in the South are guiding our bombs.

The Wandering Soul Concept used in a Training Exercise

A decade after I wrote this story I heard from an old PSYOP officer who told me about using this concept during his early days when he trained to work in psychological operations:

We were told about the “Wandering Soul” recording when I was attending the PSYOP Officer Course. There is a joint field exercise at the end of the course with 82nd Airborne units playing the role of government forces and Special Forces students playing the role of the guerrilla forces. As PSYOP students we were tasked to develop leaflets and broadcast tapes in support of the government forces. Inspired by the Wandering Soul tape and author John Berrio’s “Dead at 17” poem I decided to do a broadcast having a dead guerrilla lament over his death and his failure to surrender to the government when given the opportunity. This is what I recorded: “Agony claws my mind. I am a statistic. When I first got here, I felt very much alone. I was overwhelmed by grief, and I expected to find sympathy. I found no sympathy. I saw only dozens of others whose bodies were as badly mangled as mine. I was given a number and places in a category. I was called a “Casualty of War.” The day I died was an ordinary day. How I wish I had not joined the guerillas. But I thought I was doing the right thing. I know better now but it is too late for me. It doesn’t matter how I was killed. We were on patrol. I thought I was doing the right thing fighting against the government, now I know better. The last thing I remember was hearing an explosion, I was no longer standing. I could see my own legs six feet away from me. My friends were all dead or mangled around me. My whole body seemed to be turning inside out. I heard myself scream. Suddenly, I awakened. It was very quiet. An officer of the government forces was standing over me. Standing next to him was a doctor. My body was mangled. I was saturated with blood. And pieces of jagged shrapnel were sticking out all over me. How strange that I could not feel anything. ‘HEY! I cried. Don’t put that sheet over my head. I can’t be dead. I’m too young I’ve got too much to live for. I’m supposed to have a wonderful life ahead of me. I haven’t lived yet. I can’t be dead. Why didn’t I surrender?’ They zipped up the body bag. The government treated me with respect. They are not evil like I was told. They contacted my family and asked them to identify my body. Why did they have to see my like this? Why did I have to look at mom’s eyes when she faced the most terrible ordeal of her life? Dad suddenly looked very old. He told the man in charge , ‘Yes – That is our son.’ The funeral was strange. I saw all my relatives and friends walk toward the casket. They looked at me with the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen. Some of my friends were crying. And a few girls touched my hand as they walked away. Please – somebody, anybody – wake me up! Get me out of here. I can’t bear to see Mom and Dad in such pain. My grandparents are so weak from grief they can barely walk. My brother and sister are like zombies. They move in a daze. No one can believe this. I can’t believe it either. I CAN’T BE DEAD. Why didn’t I surrender when I had a chance? Why! Please don’t bury me. I’m not dead. I have a lot of living to do. I want to laugh and play again. I want to go fishing, play ball and raise a family. Please don’t put me in the ground. I promise if you give me just one more chance God, I’ll stop fighting; all I want is one more chance. Please God; I don’t want to be dead.”

The Search for the Dead goes on...

Australian Vietnam War veterans Bob Hall and my old buddy Derrill de Heer were asked by Hanoi to help find the bodies of those soldiers killed by the Australians during the war. As former veterans, both academics, from the University of New South Wales Canbera at the Australian Defence Force Academy, share a deep connection to Vietnam and its people. Mr. de Heer remembers one occasion in 1970 when he was approached by a Vietnamese man for help in seeking details of his son who had been killed the night before in contact with Australian soldiers a week earlier and buried near Phuc Hai village, not far from the beach.

We found the old man's son buried in the sand -- one of four -- and wrapped him in a poncho. It was a clean wound, thank goodness, but I've never seen so much grief in my life.

The Australian practice of burying the bodies of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong personnel and marking the grid reference of the grave sites in unit war diaries proved the key to compiling the digital database. Derrill added:

Since 1972, the terrain has changed, dams have been built, towns expanded, roads built, so putting the burial details on old army maps would have been of no value. What we've been able to do is convert that information of wartime contacts -- latitude and longitude -- and put it on to Google Earth.

The issue of Vietnam's war dead -- estimated at 1.1 million -- is a sensitive one for Hanoi. But Vietnamese families are now demanding to know more about the last resting place of loved ones lost during the brutal conflict.

By 2012 Australian Military researchers had identified the names and burial sites of more than 600 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops killed by Australian and New Zealand soldiers. The fighters are among tens of thousands of Vietnamese listed as missing in action during the war. The researchers have urged Australian Vietnam Vets who have items such as photographs, diaries or letters taken from the bodies of slain Vietnamese to hand them over so that the team at the university can work with sympathetic Vietnamese to locate the families of the fallen. The Australian mission to help find the Vietnamese MIAs has been named Operation Wandering Souls . It takes its name from Vietnamese culture in which the spirit of those whose fate is unknown or who died violently will wander forever.

A Hand-drawn picture of a Mother carried by a North Vietnamese Soldier found in a destroyed village in I Corps by and Australian Adviser on the Australian Army Training Team. The advisor sent it home and it stayed in his trunk until he heard about the Wandering Souls Program.

The son of the mother in the picture was located by articles written in the newspaper and the picture above was returned to the grateful family in North Vietnam by Australians Derrill de Heer and Bob Hall in 2013 as part of their continuing “Operations Wandering Soul” project to return soldier’s artifacts to their families. The son when he identified the pen and ink drawing of his mother told the Australians that the smile never left his face. On the back of the portrait was a family tree showing the eight children in the family. The son wrote to the Australian veteran in Vietnamese and had the letter translated into English, thanking him for keeping the portrait and thanking him for his generosity.  

On 9 April 2012, Australian Vietnam veteran Derrill de Heer turned over the dates and times of more than 4,000 clashes between Australian and PAVN troops as well as data on about 3,905 North Vietnamese Army troops killed to the Information Network on Martyrs (MARIN) in Hanoi. The document comes from the Vietnam “Missing in Action” Project which was initiated by the Australian Centre for the Study of Armed Conflict and Society (ACSACS) at the University of New South Wales Canbera.

The Remains of 25 North Vietnamese Soldiers are Honored

When you write a story you wonder if it is still significant or if the story just gets old and meaningless. This story is still meaningful, and the Vietnamese still search for their dead in 2022. A short film appeared on Facebook featuring Le Hoang Linh , the Vice Head of the English division of Vietnam Television international, the national television in Vietnam. He is also a reporter and a filmmaker. In the film, he shared with the audience a special project that he was working on. He mentioned reading reports of American soldiers digging a mass grave for the dead North Vietnamese troops in the fight for Landing Zone Bird in December 1966. At one point he says about finding a gravesite with the help of some American veterans (edited for brevity):

Now remember, the battle took place nearly 56 years ago and for all that time their families of those soldiers have been living in pain and desperation, not knowing where their loved ones were and what exactly happened to them. I believe that when those bodies can never be found those wandering souls never rest in peace. When they told me they had found the remains of 25 martyrs at LZ Bird who had died in 1966 I cried hysterically.

He goes on to talk about the search for the bodies and recommends that those with knowledge of gravesite get it touch with the National Steering Committee 515 for search, collection, repatriation, and identification of fallen soldiers' remains . About 200,000 Vietnamese remains are still uncounted for.

CONTINUED RESEARCH INTO THE WANDERING SOUL

National Public Radio reported in June 2011, that Steve Goodman, the head of Hyperdub, a London-based record label, opened an exhibit called AUDiNT (Audio Intelligence) at the Art In General gallery in New York City which looks at various military uses of sound. He said:

What we're doing is tracing or mapping these three phases of the history of acoustic weaponry. Firstly, starting with the Second World War, there was a division of the U.S. Army that was referred to as the Ghost Army. Part of what they were involved in was sonic deception, putting loud speakers in the battlefield to create a false impression. So we trace this from the Second World War to the U.S. Army in Vietnam, a division of psychological operations called Wandering Soul . This involved helicopter-mounted loudspeakers playing simulated Buddhist chants, fabricated sounds of the dead ancestors of the Viet Cong fighters speaking to them from the afterlife to try and persuade them to surrender. The third phase is the use of these ultrasound driven directional audio speakers. These speakers can actually rupture eardrums from a distance.

About the same time, Radiolab , a National Public Radio show produced in New York City called me to talk about the effects of the Wandering Soul campaign. Apparently, some of these old PSYOP campaigns still intrigue researchers.

Other sounds used to Frighten or Intimidate an Enemy

There were other types of sounds that have been over the years by the U.S. military to frighten or confuse the enemy.

According to one historian writing in an Internet Forum:

The tape called “Little NVA Sister / Crying Baby.” This tape consists of a little girl pleading desperately for her soldier brother to come home. This was meant to target those young men who had left their parents, their siblings and their home to join the revolutionary cause. This could be effective considering how important on and hieu were. Since an early age, children were instilled with the custom and tradition known as on and hieu . They were taught that they owed their parents a moral debt ( on ) of such great proportions that it could never be fully repaid. So the children were told and expected to constantly try and please their parents and obey them. This was supposed to make them feel better for themselves, having reduced the burden of work on his parents. Anyone who did not follow through with this was rejected. Social standing was so important that it was considered that each person had to do this and try his/her best not to ruin the family position within the village. The hieu on the other hand was all about honoring, obeying and respecting his/her parents. They were always supposed to put their family and parents' needs, expectations and wishes first. This included caring for them. The eldest sons also had an extra responsibility to take care of the family graves.

A similar story of a young girl’s voice on a tape is told by Jerry C. Bowman of the 4th PSYOP Group attached to the 173rd Airborne Brigade. The story was written by Lou Michel of the Buffalo News dated 27 February 2017:

His first battle was at Dak To in the Central Highlands. A commander ordered Bowman and his interpreter to make their way to a village of Montagnards, a French word describing Vietnam’s mountain people who were American allies. “We set up our speakers on a hill and started playing tapes to the North Vietnamese. I asked my interpreter what we were saying in Vietnamese, and he told me a mother was telling a North Vietnamese soldier a baby crying on the tape was not his. It was a psychological game. She was basically telling the soldier that she had cheated on him while he was away at war.” The mind game backfired. “It upset them and they started mortaring the village and shooting rockets at us. It was like the Fourth of July. We had really p-----d them off.” Bowman tried to calm the situation. “I had two other tapes with me, one was the Mamas & the Papas and the other was the Four Tops from Motown. I started playing them and it was echoing all over the place. I guess the echoing kind of confused them and they stopped shooting.

In 1967 Vietnam, a Warrant Officer named Terrence M. Connor fitted a police siren to his helicopter of Troop B, 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division. He remembered that the sound of the siren had frightened him as a kid and believed that the Viet Cong were a superstitious people who would be frightened by the sound of the siren as adults.

Freelance author Joseph Trevithick wrote about other sound devices in an article entitled The Pentagon Once Tried to Make ‘Screaming’ Bombs . He said that beginning in 1964, the Air Force began work on “Pyrotechnic Harassment Devices,” or PHDs. This was an air deliverable unit that generated noise over a six hour period. The Air Force wanted noise-emitting devices that would be small enough to fit inside a pod-shaped SUU-13 dispenser. The planes could drop the screaming pods before speeding away. The early pods spewed out gun shots, whistles, whines and other white noise. The final design had clusters of blank cartridges to simulate gun sounds. Each canister would fire eight bursts of eight shots total over a period of six hours. The bomblet fired each burst at random intervals. Each time, a special bellow would let out a screaming whine. After the device had finished the full cycle, a one pound explosive charge would blow up the whole unit.

The units were not successful. The PHDs were easy to spot from the ground and the screaming sound was not realistic. The technicians recommended that experimentation continue and new types of harassing bombs should concentrate on one type of noise that sounded real. The Air Force then tried a mechanical or pyrotechnic scream generator that could be dropped from aircraft and broadcast any recorded sound. These were called “screaming meemies.” None of these sound systems saw combat in Vietnam.

In 1993, Army psychological operations troops blasted animal screams and industrial noise at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. It was not successful and federal authorities eventually stormed the site, leading to a fire that killed 76 people.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, American troops deployed Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRAD) and similar sound-making equipment. LRAD could blare out uncomfortable sounds to individuals more than 1,500 feet away. Law enforcement and shipping companies have bought used LRADs against rioters, prison inmates and pirates.

THE SHORT HORROR FILM “WANDERING SOUL”

At the very start of this story in the introduction I mention that in 2015, Perception Pictures based in Brisbane, Australia, asked me to be the PSYOP advisor in a short film set during the Vietnam War that dramatizes Operation Wandering Soul. I wrote this article about the Wandering Soul operation back in the 1980s. I had previously been approached by the L.A. Theatre Works, the BBC Radio, and NPR Radio about similar productions. I told Perception that I would be happy to help. Over the next year or so we had some minor arguments; some of the things said and actions taken by the troops, the rank of the members of the loudspeaker team, the dress of the soldiers, and other small details seemed just a bit off, but of course the Australian film makers were going for dramatic effect while I was going for accuracy. I was a bit surprised when it turned out to be a horror rather than strictly historical feature, but I did think it was really well done and they stuck to the spirit of the story. Although I had a copy of their finished product I kept quiet about the production for three years while further negotiations went on about making a full-length movie went on. As I write this in October 2019, they still go on. But, Josh Turner, the writer and director of the short film finally wrote to me and gave me permission to show the short to everyone. So, I am happy to add it to this article that was the inspiration for the film.

The author invites interested readers who may have additional information or personal experiences with the "Wandering Soul" tape to write to him at [email protected] .

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Operation wandering soul: the us military’s use of psychological warfare in vietnam.

• Vietnam War

The US military is no stranger to the use of propaganda and psychological tricks when it comes to conducting war. During World War II , the Allied forces made use of such tactics against the Germans, and by the time the Vietnam War was in full swing in the 1960s, American troops had expanded their deployment of psychological warfare. One way they did this was through the launch of Operation Wandering Soul, which played upon Vietnamese superstitions and beliefs.

The logic behind Operation Wandering Soul

Similar to a number of other cultures around the world, the Vietnamese have their own beliefs regarding what happens after someone dies. It’s believed that those who have passed must receive a proper burial, lest they be made to wander the earth for all eternity and cause misfortune for the living. This is particularly true for those who have died a violent death away from home.

The US military was aware of Vietnamese beliefs surrounding death, with the US Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) having written a report in December 1969 outlining the types of ghosts that could be used in different psychological warfare campaigns.

Officials wanted to put this knowledge to use and decided to develop an operation that would not only demoralize the Viet Cong and troops with the People’s Army of Vietnam (NVA), but also convince them to desert and defect.

The ghostly tapes were recorded in Saigon

For weeks, engineers with the US military spent weeks recording ghostly sounds at a studio in Saigon. South Vietnamese and defected Viet Cong soldiers were also brought in to record their own audio, to increase the authenticity of the tapes.

Among the sounds recorded included the cries of women and children, the banging of gongs, howling noises, voices of Viet Cong “descendants” and iterations of some of the scariest ghosts in Vietnamese folklore. This included the “ tightening-knot ghost ,” which was intended to convince enemy troops to die by suicide after whispering “cổ cổ” – “neck” in Vietnamese.

Targeting the Viet Cong at night

The recordings produced in Saigon were used by the US Army and Navy . They would start blaring the tapes at 8:00 PM and play them all night long, often from Patrol Craft Fast (PCF) “Swift” boats and helicopters. Special infantry and foot soldiers would also be deployed behind enemy lines to play the recordings on speakers strapped to their backs or hung from trees.

The US military also had dedicated battalions for its special warfare operations. One was the 6th Psychological Operations Battalion , which was initiated in Vietnam in November 1965. Its men were among those who utilized the tapes against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese.

One recording, dubbed “Ghost Tape Number Ten,” was typically played in areas where the Viet Cong were known to be hiding. It was allegedly hard to ignore them, too, as they were played so loud that the sound traveled through the underground tunnels that snaked through the Vietnamese jungle.

Was Operation Wandering Soul successful?

There are mixed opinions as to whether or not Operation Wandering Soul was successful. There were a number of Viet Cong defections during the time it was in effect, including 150 who feared being killed by tigers after hearing audio with animal sounds and five others who surrendered during another incident.

Rumors began to spread among locals about certain areas being haunted, with some farmers going so far as to refuse work near where the tapes were broadcasted. According to  The War Zone , the tapes were so effective that troops were advised to avoid playing them near where South Vietnamese forces were stationed. “They were as susceptible as the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army,” said Raymond Deitch, who commanded the 6th Psychological Operations Battalion.

More from us: US Air Force Pilot Richard Ritchie Shot Down Five Enemy Aircraft in Vietnam

That’s not to say, however, that the Viet Cong weren’t aware that the recordings were fake. There was evidence that enemy leadership was worried about the psychological effects of the tapes, and there were instances where the Viet Cong would actually fire at US troops that were playing them. While this initially put the US forces in danger, it also revealed the enemy’s location, allowing them to return fire.

Refugees, Ghosts and a Story About Stories

In Cecile Pin’s debut novel, “Wandering Souls,” the tale of three young Vietnamese migrants transforms into a larger meditation about how and why refugee stories are told.

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By Eric Nguyen

• March 19, 2023
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WANDERING SOULS , by Cecile Pin

There’s a Vietnamese superstition: If you die away from home, your soul will become restless and won’t leave for the afterlife. Instead, you will be cursed to roam the earth as a ghost, hungry and cold, left without the closure to move on. This folk belief is the starting point of Cecile Pin’s debut novel, “Wandering Souls.”

In 1978, three years after the fall of Saigon, a Vietnamese teenager, Anh, packs for an escape from Vietnam with two of her six younger siblings. The plan: Sail by boat to Hong Kong, where the three will wait for the rest of their family, and once reunited, they’ll all relocate to the United States. Anh and her brothers Minh and Thanh successfully land in Hong Kong, but the wait for the rest of their family stretches longer than expected.

Eventually, bodies are found on the beach of a refugee camp. Among them is the rest of their family, who are buried on foreign ground. From then on, the three siblings are one another’s only family, a bond that is tested once they relocate to Britain, where they must not only survive but thrive because “if the three of them did not achieve success here, their family’s demise had no meaning, no overarching resolution.”

“Wandering Souls” begins very much like other novels about refugees. At its center are loss and the difficulties of starting over, the drudgery of survival and the necessity of assimilation. Pin is observant of how immigration shuffles families. Left without their parents, Anh becomes the de facto mother of the household. At 16, she sacrifices her education to work as a seamstress so her brothers can go to school and, she hopes, become prosperous. “She thought their success might make her own sacrifices worthwhile,” Pin writes, “that it would give deeper meaning to the labor she’d done to provide for them over the years.”

But who is Anh beyond her surrogate motherhood? Unfortunately, Pin gives us little opportunity to find out. We see Anh making her siblings’ favorite dishes and we’re with her as she stays up late worrying over the whereabouts of Minh, her delinquent teenage brother, but we know very little about her desires and the dreams she has for herself.

Yet “Wandering Souls” is more than a story of sacrifice and familial duty. The author has greater ambitions, first signaled in the intricate story structure she builds. Slowly, the novel takes wayward paths into the lives of the family’s lingering ghosts who invisibly observe the three siblings, and Pin mixes in fictionalized documents (like a newspaper article revealing Margaret Thatcher’s xenophobic attitudes toward Vietnamese refugees) that showcase the very real conservative politics of the 1980s. And most surprisingly, as the story unfolds, the voice of a new narrator begins to creep in, one that pulls from the philosophy of Martha Nussbaum, the “Iliad” and Joan Didion. Soon it becomes apparent the voice belongs to a writer, one preoccupied with loss: what it looks like, the grief it creates and the meaning — however tenuous — we give it. This narrator shares a telling quote by Didion: “We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images.”

What emerges is something special — a polyvocal novel, an essay on inherited trauma and a quiet metafiction about telling stories we don’t own. At times, it’s unclear exactly where Pin is going — for instance, there’s a superfluous thread about American soldiers serving in Vietnam — but we follow because Pin’s novel is less about the story and more about how the story is made . Reading it is like watching a writer at work as she tries to give loss a plot and make meaning out of details. This proves to be more fascinating than the story of three siblings acclimating to their new home.

“Wandering Souls” asks: How should we tell refugee stories? Why should we tell them? And to whom? And, most important, what should we do with refugee stories, especially when years have passed and those who lived them are gone?

Eric Nguyen is the author of “Things We Lost to the Water.”

WANDERING SOULS | By Cecile Pin | 226 pp. | Henry Holt & Company | $26.99

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"The Wandering Soul"

At night, deep in the jungle during the Vietnam War, eerie sounds were used to represent the dead. The U.S. military would broadcast an audio mix called Wandering Soul (also known as Ghost Tape Number 10) to try to persuade North Vietnamese troops to go home. It exploited the Buddhist belief that once a person dies, his body must be buried in the family plot or his soul will wander aimlessly. (01:14)

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Wandering Souls by Cecile Pin review – from Vietnam to London

This powerful debut, longlisted for the Women’s prize, is a heartfelt portrayal of the Vietnamese refugee experience and the tolls of assimilation

“A fter I learned about Koh Kra I couldn’t sleep for three days,” declares the narrator of Cecile Pin’s moving and meticulously researched debut novel. The Koh Kra tragedy occurred in 1979 on a 100-acre swatch of land off the coast of southern Thailand. There, a gang of fishermen intercepted a boat of Vietnamese refugees. Over the course of 22 nightmarish days the women and girls were repeatedly raped, while the men and boys were robbed, murdered or left to die at sea. The Koh Kra massacre is one of the real-life ordeals foregrounded in Pin’s heartfelt and informative portrayal of the Vietnamese refugee experience and the psychological and emotional tolls of survival and cultural assimilation.

The book opens three years after the American troops have withdrawn, with Vietnam in a state of political and economic turmoil. The mass exodus following the Vietnam war resulted in an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 dying at sea, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Wandering Souls examines the human cost of large-scale tragedy through the story of 16-year-old Anh, her 13-year-old brother Minh and their 10-year-old brother Thanh, who are separated from their parents and four younger siblings when the family attempts to make the perilous journey to Hong Kong on two separate boats. Tragically, only Anh, Minh and Thanh arrive at their destination.

What follows is a piercing saga of innocence being rapidly replaced by hard-won experience. The siblings are shunted around refugee camps and detention centres before their application to emigrate to the United States is rejected. They find themselves in the United Kingdom, which “wasn’t part of the plan. It wasn’t in the life [their] parents mapped out for them.” Thatcherite Britain, with its hostility to immigrants, is far more complex and discordant than its cultural image abroad as “the land of The Beatles and The Stones, of Bowie and Queen”.

They struggle to assimilate in 80s east London, idealising the America they never got a chance to experience: “In America there were more of them, a real community of Vietnamese and Asians instead of just a few clusters scattered across London.” Anh, the eldest, takes on the role of caregiver, forgoing her education to work in a garment factory. Minh struggles to find employment and turns to petty crime; it is the youngest and thus the most socially malleable, Thanh, who finds it easiest to adapt. Wandering Souls excels at articulating the culturally and generationally specific sting of the immigrant experience, and interrogating the myth of the model minority, with its resulting effects of soul-searching and alienation. Yet the novel is not all misery and trauma; there are warm, wonderful scenes of camaraderie and affection, the quotidian peace of shared meals and amicable silences.

The siblings’ journey from their hometown of Vung Tham is mostly told from the point of view of Anh, but the hybrid narrative is interwoven with the voice of Dao, their lost youngest brother, watching them from limbo; an account of Operation Wandering Soul, the campaign of psychological warfare enacted by US forces during the Vietnam war; and most intriguingly – to initially jarring effect – an unnamed narrator metafictionally compiling the story. “I am overly wary of writing cliches,” she says, “so much so that I hesitated for weeks before mentioning … rice on the first page.”

Wandering Souls is written in clean, precise prose that is both highly readable and restrained, imbuing the plot with a clear-headed narrative acumen impressive for a debut novel. If the matter-of-factness occasionally veers into slightly flat affect, because of a self-effacing style and refusal to capitulate to sentimentality, this seems due to Pin’s sensitive handling of historical material rather than a dearth of empathy or genuine emotion. On the contrary, Wandering Souls is a poignant saga with its grieving, beating heart firmly in the right place, and heralds the arrival of an ambitious and promising new talent.

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There’s a tradition in Vietnamese culture,’ he said. ‘They believe that you need to give your dead a proper burial in their hometown. If not, their souls are cursed to wander the earth aimlessly, as ghosts.’ He looked down at the bottom of his empty glass, his smile slowly fading from his face, a frown forming in its stead. ‘Their soldiers were dying. Every day, more dead than they could keep up with. Just like ours. They couldn’t afford to observe their burial rites. We thought we could take advantage of that. We wanted to scare those gooks, those Viet Congs, I should say. We thought if we played tapes that sounded like they’re dead comrades, they might get scared, or become demoralised.’

Or perhaps I could go further. I could add twists and turns to build in tension. I could write an emotional rollercoaster. I could explore the boat more, for example. Yes, perhaps I should. Or perhaps I could point fingers. I could blame politics. I could blame war and poverty and pirates and the sea and the storm. But the more I go on, the more I realise that nothing is to blame and everything is to blame, intertwined in a medley of cause and effect, history and nature. I am trying to carve out a story between the macabre and the fairy tale, so that a glimmer of truth can appear.

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Operation Wandering Soul: The Terrifying Ghost Tapes Of The Vietnam War

Psychological warfare is nothing new — it goes all the way to ancient times when Cyrus the Great used it in battle against Babylon. The tactic is generally considered successful if it manages to demoralize or break an enemy in one way or another. There are two forms of psychological warfare: strategic and tactical. Strategic psychological warfare generally involves a large communications operation over a vast audience. Tactical psychological warfare is used directly with combat operations, which hopefully results in surrender (via Britannica ). 

The United States military is not above using psychological warfare. The Army explains that such missions are to share "specific information to foreign audiences to influence the emotions, motives, reasoning, and behavior of foreign governments and citizens," and forms of it include cyber warfare and "advanced communication techniques across all forms of media." One of the key missions of psychological warfare is to deliberately deceive and mislead the enemy.

Propaganda is a form of psychological warfare

Deception during war is not always easy, but some believe it's necessary. Sun Tzu explains in " The Art of War " that all warfare is based on deception. He wrote, "[W]hen we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near."

Propaganda is one way governments can deceive people. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency describes three types of propaganda: white, black, and gray. With white propaganda, the source is known and "gentle persuasion" is used to elicit a desired response. Black propaganda is straight-up lies attributed to false sources. Gray propaganda can be truthful (or not), but the source is never revealed. Leaflets are a common form of propaganda, and during World War II, the U.S. dropped around 8 billion leaflets, which included instructions for enemy soldiers on how to surrender, per Britannica .

Aside from leaflets, propaganda can be communicated through movies, newspapers, videos, and on the radio. During the Vietnam war , the U.S. military also experimented with a rather strange and creepy form of psychological warfare against enemy soldiers, and it centered around particular beliefs the Vietnamese had about the afterlife (via The War Zone ).

The military used ghosts as a psychological tactic in Vietnam

Such beliefs centered around the notion that the souls of the dead wandered among them. One idea, in particular, was that the dead must be buried in their homeland or their souls would drift on the earthly plane suffering in pain.

Another popular belief among the Vietnamese was that the souls of those who suffered violent deaths or those who were buried without a proper burial could also wander aimlessly. In addition, the Vietnamese also believed that random, "errant" souls wandered the earth, causing misfortune among the living (via Psywarrior ).

Armed with this cultural knowledge, the military believed that using ghosts could be an effective tactic against the Viet Cong, reports The War Zone . So it came up with "Operation Wandering Soul," a campaign meant to trick enemy soldiers into thinking that the souls of the dead were attempting to communicate with them.

The military recorded ghastly sounds

The recordings used by the U.S. military in Vietnam included strange cries of women and children, as well as eerie howling noises (via Psywarrior ). Some of the voices reportedly were of dead Viet Cong soldiers speaking to their comrades.

A tape called "Ghost Tape Number 10" is reportedly one example of some of the sounds used, and it includes voices saying, "It's hell ... I'm in Hell!" Other voices reportedly urged the soldiers to leave their positions while others called upon them to stop fighting or defect. A video of some of the sounds reveals a voice reportedly saying, "My friends, I come back to let you know that I am dead ... I am dead." Yet another voice pleaded with soldiers to go home before it was too late (via The War Zone ).

In 1965, the 6th Psychological Operations Battalion of the U.S. Army was initiated in Vietnam. The War Zone staff reports the U.S. Army and Navy utilized many of these recordings until 1970.

They played the recordings all night long

Most of the recordings were broadcast at night from helicopters and Swift boats. Foot soldiers wearing loudspeakers on their backs also snuck into enemy regions, per The War Zone . Some speakers were hung from tree branches deep in the forests. The military would begin playing the sounds at 8 p.m. and play them all night long. According to Psywarrior, the locations varied each night, and volumes were adjusted to make the voices seem closer or farther away.

Simon Adler, host of Radiolab 's "Mixtape," says the recordings were meant to "target the deepest fears of the Vietnamese people," and they seemed to work because word about the chilling noises — or ghosts — eventually got out. In fact, U.S. soldiers heard stories about certain areas being haunted by the souls of the dead. In addition, some Vietnamese farmers were reportedly hesitant to work near areas where some of the broadcasts were heard (via Psywarrior).

Was Operation Wandering Soul effective?

It's not clear how exactly successful Operation Wandering Soul was. Some accounts showed evidence of success. For example, a tape of a tiger allegedly caused 150 Viet Cong soldiers to abandon their posts. Another occurrence resulted in five Viet Cong soldiers surrendering. Other tapes reportedly terrified not only soldiers but civilians, per Psywarrior . 

That said, some reports weren't so positive. In one instance, Vietnamese marines fighting the Viet Cong dropped their weapons while hearing the noises. One report described an incident where Viet Cong soldiers opened fire in the direction of a helicopter broadcasting the sounds; another similar account claimed Viet Cong soldiers shot rockets at Swift boats in response to the recordings.

As a result of being fired upon, U.S. soldiers in the boat stopped playing the sounds and resorted to playing Tina Turner instead. However, when the Viet Cong fired their weapons toward the sounds, they revealed their location, which ultimately worked in favor of the U.S. (via The War Zone ).

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Ghost Tape No. 10: The Haunted Mixtape of the Vietnam War

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Imagine you're a Viet Cong soldier and you start to hear eerie sounds of voices wailing in the jungle. You see no one, just hear these disembodied voices. What do you think?

These sounds were one of the more creative methods the United States military used during the Vietnam War to depress enemy morale and get them to give up. Known as "Operation Wandering Soul ," the 6th Psychological Operations Battalion (6th PSYOP) of the U.S. Army, with help from the U.S. Navy, broadcast spooky sounds fit for a modern horror movie and called it "Ghost Tape Number 10" (listen to the audio here ).

The ruse had its genesis in "Ghost Army" recordings made during World War II to trick the Germans into thinking the Allies had way more Sherman tanks coming their way than they did. But the Vietnam version also capitalized on the strongly held Buddhist beliefs of the region, specifically that the spirits of the dead are doomed to walk the earth in their own personal hell if their bodies are not found and buried appropriately. Vietnamese legends also held that lost souls could communicate on the anniversary of death. What better way to scare the North Vietnamese soldiers than to let them hear from their tormented fallen comrades-in-arms?

With the help of South Vietnamese participants, the U.S. Army created these hair-raising messages. Accompanied by shrieks, screams and moans, an alleged deceased Viet Cong soldier pleads with his comrades, saying things like, "My friends, I have come back to let you know that I am dead ... I am dead!" and "Don't end up like me. Go home, friends, before it's too late!" Helicopters, as well as strategically placed soldiers, carried loud speakers to make it appear the sounds were coming from all over the jungle. Some enemy soldiers realized it was a setup and started shooting immediately in the direction of speaker-laden helicopters; others were definitely spooked.

"Even if the Viet Cong didn't believe there were in fact ghosts in the jungle with them, that this was just a supernatural horror show being put on by the Americans, just the sounds and the message were more than a little eerie," says Nathan Mallett, editor and founder of MilitaryHistoryNow.com, in an interview with The Stuff of Life podcast, for an episode titled " Haunted ."

The ruse was expanded when a South Vietnamese ally intentionally spread a rumor that a tiger was attacking the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong troops. So, the 6th PSYOP added recordings of tiger growls. Allegedly, 150 men fled the mountain on which it was played.  

To this day, paranormal activity fascinates people, and we even seek it out by way of books, television, movies, and haunted houses. Check out the Stuff of Life podcast "Haunted" for more details on Ghost Tape No. 10, haunted attractions and something called Doomocracy.

American troops repeatedly created a "Ghost Army" during World War II to fool Hitler with inflatable tanks and fake camps, as well as blared recordings of infantry and armored units from trucks. Many of the artists involved in these deceptions found later success in fashion, art or design careers — including fashion designer Bill Blass.

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WANDERING SOULS

by Cecile Pin ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 21, 2023

A tender and rigorous debut from the new Didion of the Asian diaspora.

The members of a family of Vietnamese refugees—all wandering souls in their own ways—seek to understand the past while searching for hope in the present.

“Everything will be alright, you’ll see,” 16-year-old Thi Anh promises her younger sister Van one night in 1978 as she and two of her brothers leave Vung Tham for a perilous boat journey to Hong Kong. Her parents have promised to follow with her other siblings, and once the family reunites, they plan to make their way together to an uncle’s house in America. Three months later, though, Anh and her brothers are orphaned, and they must make their way alone through refugee camps toward their assigned resettlement location in England. As the siblings adapt to a new language and culture, they also must struggle against the prejudice tacitly accepted by a Thatcher-ite government that hides its own hostility beneath a hospitable veneer. Framed by the first-person narrative of Anh’s writer daughter Jane in the present day, the novel shifts among multiple perspectives, including that of Anh; her daughter Jane, writing from the present day; the ghost of her brother Dao; two American soldiers involved in the real-life Operation Wandering Soul in 1967 Vietnam; and found historical documents. Pin handles the alternating perspectives skillfully, though Jane’s voice is the most fully lived in and original, offering a tender and rigorous exploration of the stakes of writing about trauma as she tries to “carve out a story between the macabre and the fairy tale, so that a glimmer of truth can appear.” In her meditations on storytelling, Jane recalls Joan Didion, among other literary greats, an invocation that could feel clichéd. Pin earns it, however, as Jane delves into the cultural, psychological, and political stakes of grief and what happens when writing about the past “[rips] open wounds” she never knew she had.

Pub Date: March 21, 2023

ISBN: 9781250863461

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023

LITERARY FICTION | GENERAL FICTION

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New York Times Bestseller

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2024

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.

When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.

Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024

ISBN: 9781250178633

Page Count: 480

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023

FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | GENERAL FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION

More by Kristin Hannah

BOOK REVIEW

by Kristin Hannah

PERSPECTIVES

BOOK TO SCREEN

by Percival Everett ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 19, 2024

One of the noblest characters in American literature gets a novel worthy of him.

Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as told from the perspective of a more resourceful and contemplative Jim than the one you remember.

This isn’t the first novel to reimagine Twain’s 1885 masterpiece, but the audacious and prolific Everett dives into the very heart of Twain’s epochal odyssey, shifting the central viewpoint from that of the unschooled, often credulous, but basically good-hearted Huck to the more enigmatic and heroic Jim, the Black slave with whom the boy escapes via raft on the Mississippi River. As in the original, the threat of Jim’s being sold “down the river” and separated from his wife and daughter compels him to run away while figuring out what to do next. He's soon joined by Huck, who has faked his own death to get away from an abusive father, ramping up Jim’s panic. “Huck was supposedly murdered and I’d just run away,” Jim thinks. “Who did I think they would suspect of the heinous crime?” That Jim can, as he puts it, “[do] the math” on his predicament suggests how different Everett’s version is from Twain’s. First and foremost, there's the matter of the Black dialect Twain used to depict the speech of Jim and other Black characters—which, for many contemporary readers, hinders their enjoyment of his novel. In Everett’s telling, the dialect is a put-on, a manner of concealment, and a tactic for survival. “White folks expect us to sound a certain way and it can only help if we don’t disappoint them,” Jim explains. He also discloses that, in violation of custom and law, he learned to read the books in Judge Thatcher’s library, including Voltaire and John Locke, both of whom, in dreams and delirium, Jim finds himself debating about human rights and his own humanity. With and without Huck, Jim undergoes dangerous tribulations and hairbreadth escapes in an antebellum wilderness that’s much grimmer and bloodier than Twain’s. There’s also a revelation toward the end that, however stunning to devoted readers of the original, makes perfect sense.

Pub Date: March 19, 2024

ISBN: 9780385550369

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024

LITERARY FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION | GENERAL FICTION

More by Percival Everett

by Percival Everett

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Operation Wandering Soul: Ghost Tape Stories from the Vietnam Era

Posted by theblitzcorp.com | Oct 25, 2023 | History | 0 |

The Vietnam War, a conflict shrouded in tales of heroism and enigma, brought to light intriguing stories such as ' the lost patrol ' and the one we're about to explore - 'Operation Wandering Soul'.

During the Vietnam War, the U.S. military launched a psychological warfare campaign known as Operation Wandering Soul. This propaganda effort aimed to weaken the morale of the Viet Cong forces and increase desertions among their ranks. By capitalizing on the belief in wandering souls, the U.S. utilized eerie recordings and altered voices to create a haunting experience for the enemy.

Key Takeaways

• Operation Wandering Soul weaponized Vietnamese spiritual beliefs and funeral traditions through disturbing propaganda recordings.
• U.S. Army engineers and South Vietnamese allies created eerie "Ghost Tapes" of cries, screams, and lamentations.
• Helicopters and ground troops broadcasted the Ghost Tapes over loud speakers in the jungle at night.
• Reactions from Viet Cong forces were mixed, with some firing back in fear and others successfully demoralized.
• The legacy of these psychological tactics is debated, though they exemplify the creativity and controversy of the propaganda war.
• Some recordings may still exist today, intriguing those investigating this unique campaign.

Now, let's dig deeper into how the Ghost Tapes came to haunt the Viet Cong via Operation Wandering Soul during the Vietnam War...

Exploiting Vietnamese Beliefs About the Afterlife

To understand Operation Wandering Soul, we first need to grasp some spiritual beliefs held dear by the Vietnamese people. A key tenet of Vietnamese culture is showing respect for the dead through proper burial rites . Without a proper burial in their homeland, the soul of the deceased is said to wander the earth aimlessly in pain and suffering.

This belief exists across Buddhism, Confucianism, and other faiths in Vietnam. Traditions hold that these " wandering souls " can sometimes be contacted on the anniversary of their death and near where they perished. The Vietnamese honor these dead souls on a  holidays when they visit their death site.

For the Viet Cong fighting far away from their homes and families, the prospect of dying on the battlefield without a proper burial was a great fear. Their souls would be permanently cursed to wander, unable to rejoin ancestors in the afterlife.

American military strategists realized this spiritual vulnerability could be exploited through psychological warfare tactics tailored to these beliefs. This realization spawned propaganda campaigns like the infamous Operation Wandering Soul.

The Origins of Operation Wandering Soul

With Viet Cong forces deeply committed to their spiritual traditions, U.S. forces saw an opportunity for demoralization by playing upon their greatest fears. The propaganda campaign known as Operation Wandering Soul was born from this goal of damaging Vietnamese morale through supernatural means.

The operation originated in 1969 under the U.S. Army's 6th Psychological Operations Battalion . Deriving its name from the Vietnamese concept of " wandering souls " unable to find peace, the campaign focused on unnerving the enemy.

Along with other PSYOP units, the 6th Battalion created eerie battle sounds and ghostly recordings designed to haunt Viet Cong forces and undermine their resolve. The audio recordings would mimic tormented souls warning their still-living comrades.

This followed in the footsteps of earlier World War II "Ghost Army" tactics where Allied forces fooled German troops using fictional radio chatter and the illusion of large troop formations. Vietnam's Operation Wandering Soul took things further by tapping directly into spiritual anxieties.

Engineering Eerie "Ghost Tapes"

To develop an effective propaganda weapon based around " wandering souls ," the U.S. military first had to create the fear-inducing tapes themselves. The 6th Battalion spearheaded production of the so-called "Ghost Tapes."

Creating Demoralizing Recordings

U.S. sound engineers labored extensively alongside Vietnamese translators to craft unsettling audio content. Using state-of-the-art (for the time) recording techniques, they generated a catalogue of horror sounds including screams, moans, howls, and spooky voices.

The goal was to simulate tormented souls crying out from the afterlife. By editing these sounds with audio effects, they took on an even more disturbing supernatural quality.

South Vietnamese Army troops also voiced scripts written to prey on the conscience of Viet Cong fighters. Poignant dialogues reminded them of what they left behind, calling on them to " cease fighting " and " return home " while they still could.

Involving South Vietnamese Soldiers

To maximize the impact on Viet Cong fighters, actual South Vietnamese personnel participated in creation of the Ghost Tapes. Their authentic accents and dialects brought an added layer of immersion when combined with the unearthly noises.

The recordings used clever narrative techniques, like a young girl pleading for her Viet Cong brother to lay down arms. This played upon cultural values of family devotion and duty to one's parents.

Other tapes featured a Viet Cong soldier already killed in battle, warning his still-living comrades not to " end up like me ." This sent the chilling message that a doomed fate awaited them.

Through collaboration between U.S. manipulators of sound and Vietnamese speakers, the 6th Battalion compiled a growing catalogue of demoralizing recordings. The eerie Ghost Tapes were now ready for deployment...

Broadcasting the Ghost Tapes in the Jungles

Starting in 1969, Operation Wandering Soul launched into full gear across Vietnam. Helicopters and ground units descended into the jungles, broadcasting the terrifying Ghost Tapes over loudspeakers. The ominous recordings sliced through the natural soundscape, reverberating through Viet Cong hidden camps.

Playing Tapes from Helicopters and Loudspeakers

Modified low-flying helicopters carried banks of external loudspeakers to play the “ wandering soul ” tapes. Under cover of night, the aircraft swooped over dense jungle and passed just above the treetops.

The bellowing speakers drowned the bamboo thickets with unhappy spirits pleading and lamenting. Then, the helicopters would swiftly depart, leaving the unsettling sounds hanging in the air.

Ground infantry also brought portable loudspeakers on search-and-destroy missions, blasting the Ghost Tapes unexpectedly in all directions. Viet Cong trackers could be trailing a U.S. platoon, only to be ambushed by recordings of their deceased comrades.

Adding Animal Sounds for More Fear

Seeking new heights of psychological impact, the inventive PSYOP soldiers expanded the tapes to more than just disembodied voices. Actual animal sounds got edited in for additional shock value.

The 6th Battalion obtained roar samples from a tiger at the Bangkok zoo. Mixing these roars with the " ghost tape " vocals created a message that tigers were preying on Viet Cong troops as punishment for worshipping "false gods."

When played from helicopters around Nui Ba Den Mountain, the tiger roars allegedly caused 150 Viet Cong defections. The eerie tapes proved most sinister when blended with the organic sounds of nature.

Reactions from Viet Cong Forces

Once unleashed across Vietnam, how did the Viet Cong actually react to ghostly recordings of Operation Wandering Soul? With the atmosphere saturated by disturbing propaganda, local reactions ran the gamut from fear to frustration.

Returning Fire on the Source

Some Viet Cong fighters saw through the attempted psychological warfare and understood the sounds had a mundane origin. Outraged by the deceitful tactic, they defiantly fired back when possible at any audible helicopters or ground units.

However, by revealing their location through reactionary gunfire, these soldiers still ended up indirectly playing into the enemy’s hands. The return fire exposed their hidden camps for potential devastating counterstrikes.

Mixed Success in Achieving Defections

While return fire sometimes resulted, in other cases the Ghost Tapes succeeded at frightening and demoralizing the target Viet Cong forces. Instances of soldiers surrendering outright were limited, but morale suffered more broadly.

For some units already strained by jungle hardship, disease, and homesickness, the disturbing tapes were the last straw. The propaganda exploited lingering unease and doubt, helping push disillusioned fighters to "defect" or at least cease fighting.

Exact figures are unavailable, but anecdotal reports suggest a significant uptick in wavering morale that impaired North Vietnamese military operations. However, effects depended on individual unit cohesion and the tape's delivery.

The Legacy of Psychological Warfare Tactics

Looking back with years of hindsight, what is Operation Wandering Soul's lasting impact and reputation? The program pioneered new dimensions of creepy psychological warfare tactics, the value of which is still debated.

Over time, the operation has garnered a reputation for its audacious use of ghostly audio recordings and its ability to exploit cultural beliefs. The psychological manipulation employed in Operation Wandering Soul pushed the boundaries of conventional warfare and raised important ethical questions. Was it a brilliant strategy or an unsettling exploitation of superstitions?

The legacy of Operation Wandering Soul is a complex one. It exemplifies the ever-evolving landscape of warfare and the strategies employed to gain a psychological edge. Whether it is viewed as a groundbreaking tactic or a morally dubious experiment, Operation Wandering Soul continues to provoke discussions about the intersection of technology, culture, and warfare, making it a subject of enduring interest and scrutiny.

Disputes Over the Effectiveness

Due to limited documentation and statistics, the true effectiveness of the Wandering Soul tapes remains unclear. The Army Concept Team behind the operation insisted it helped weaken North Vietnamese Army resolve even if some soldiers saw through the ruse.

Others counter that most demoralizing effects were localized and temporary. Once the shock value wore off, the tapes grew less influential in breaking Viet Cong spirits. Still, the recordings likely put strains on morale that undermined potential military victories.

Comparisons to Other "Ghost Army" Campaigns

Operation Wandering Soul has drawn comparisons to World War II's "Ghost Army" and even later programs like the planned Congo ghost tapes. All demonstrate how spiritual beliefs and superstitions can become weaponized by military propaganda efforts.

However, these attempts at psychological warfare through supposed supernatural forces have proven controversial. Some consider them violations of human ethics and dignity, regardless of their battlefield impact.

Seeking the Remaining "Ghost Tapes" Today

Decades after the Vietnam War ended, fragments of Operation Wandering Soul still fascinate and haunt our collective memory. Enthusiasts continue searching for the original recordings, hoping more lost "Ghost Tapes" might resurface.

Online, you can find the infamous "Ghost Tape Number 10 ," with its wailing " wandering souls " beckoning like siren songs. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg, with more tapes likely undiscovered in archives and private collections.

As sound historian Steve Goodman commented, we remain intrigued by acoustic weaponry and techniques that "conquer your true heart with deep vibrations." The Ghost Tapes of Vietnam, though deceptive, still resonate deeply in their otherworldly cries from beyond.

Frequently Asked Questions

What was the target audience for operation wandering soul.

The Ghost Tapes specifically targeted Viet Cong guerilla fighters operating in remote jungle areas. Exploiting Vietnamese spiritual beliefs, the unsettling recordings aimed to demoralize Communists cut off from village support.

How did the U.S. military obtain the unearthly sounds used in the tapes?

Army engineers spent weeks manipulating recordings to create an eerie audio catalogue. Creepy effects like echoes and sustain added haunting qualities to voices and background noises. Simple yet highly effective for psychological impact!

Did U.S. troops ever witness the tapes causing Viet Cong to surrender?

While mass surrenders were rare, some U.S. platoons did encounter individual Viet Cong defections after playing the tapes over loudspeakers. However, reception varied widely based on the unit's prior morale and degree of Communist loyalty.

What aspects of Vietnamese culture did the Ghost Tapes tap into?

They exploited the deep respect for ancestral traditions and fear of spirits unable to transition peacefully into the afterlife. Losing one's soul to endless wandering was a dark fate to be avoided at all costs.  In short, the soul wanders constantly with no rest or peace.

Are any of the original Operation Wandering Soul tapes available today?

While tapes like "Ghost Voice Number 10" have surfaced online, the full recordings are hard to find. Many remain buried in military archives or stashed away with veterans. Some are likely lost to time but more may emerge as sound collectors dig deeper!

And there you have it - the bizarre and chilling story of how eerie jungle recordings were turned against Viet Cong forces during Operation Wandering Soul in the Vietnam War! Let me know in the comments if you want me to delve into more fascinating military history topics in future posts. I had a blast researching this psychological warfare campaign that played upon Vietnamese spiritual beliefs. Stay tuned for more - and whatever you do, don't listen to the Ghost Tapes alone in the dark!

Why do the Vietnamese honor these dead souls, and how do they do it?

The Vietnamese have a deep cultural tradition of honoring their ancestors and the souls of the departed. This includes paying homage to the deceased during various holidays and ceremonies. During occasions such as the Lunar New Year (Tet), the living offer food, incense, and other symbolic items at ancestral altars to show respect and ensure the well-being of their ancestors' souls. This act of reverence is a way for Vietnamese people to maintain a strong connection with their ancestors and ensure their spirits are at peace.

How does "Operation Wandering Soul" represent the souls of the departed, and why is it significant?

"Operation Wandering Soul" was a unique and haunting psychological warfare tactic employed during the Vietnam War. This operation involved playing eerie audio recordings of ghostly sounds and voices over loudspeakers in an attempt to disrupt and demoralize enemy troops. The significance of this operation lies in its psychological impact on soldiers, as it invoked fear and superstition by seemingly representing the wandering souls of the dead. This tactic aimed to exploit cultural beliefs and further destabilize the opposing forces during the conflict.

About The Author

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Prayer for the conversion of a wandering soul

By crazystocker | Shutterstock

Typically it doesn’t take long to think about someone we know who has lost their way and is spiritually wandering . They don’t know who God is and are not motivated to seek him out.

Sometimes all we can do for that soul is pray for them, asking God to illuminate their minds and lead their hearts back to him.

Here is an excerpt of a prayer from the 19th-century prayer book, Catholic Hours .

Incarnate God, my divine my adorable Redeemer who are the way the truth and the life, bring him or her to the knowledge of your truth. O you who are the Light of the blind, the Refuge of sinners, our Savior and our Sacrifice, O you who gave yourself to be our daily bread, have mercy upon him. You O Lord know what is in man and you know what trammels surround him. You know all his darkness, all his weakness, all his doubts. Have pity therefore upon him, O my Savior, and let the bright beams of your eternal truth shine in upon his mind, clear away the clouds of error and of prejudice from before his eyes and mercifully teach him your truth and to make him your own. Amen.

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Introduction

I believe that something we will all agree on is that all of us are on a journey through life.  This is often said but rarely does anyone speak about where they are going on their journey.  So, I feel like asking you today, where are you going?  What is your final destination?

I believe that ultimately there are two directions you can travel on this journey through life.  Yes, all of us walk different paths through life but these paths can only lead in two directions.  The reason I say this is because I believe that there are only two end destinations that we can reach at the end of our journeys.

As you have heard me say before, the journey through life is not an easy one for anybody.  Regardless of who you may be, there are going to be many hardships that we face in life as we try to reach our destination.  From flat land, to hills, mountains, and valleys, there always seems to be another hill, mountain, or valley on our journey.  In other words, we are seemingly always met with more trials and tribulations on this journey.  So, the hope would be that your end destination is a good one, right?

So, I believe that every single person is always in need of good support, guidance, direction , and encouragement to be able to head in the best direction rather than be a lost and wandering soul on this journey .  To think or to believe you can reach that good destination without good direction, support, guidance, and encouragement would be very arrogant and quite frankly, very foolish.  So, again I ask, where are you going?

Your Destination

When I think about the journey that we are on, my mind always goes back to the children of Israel and their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land ;  it is the best representation of the journey that we are all on to me.  You see, there is a land of promise that has been promised to all people by the Lord.  This land is not a land that is of this world but a good land that is beyond it ( John 3:16; 14:1-6 ).  Are you headed in the direction of that good land ?

Guided to the land of promise

So when I think about the children of Israel journeying to the Promised Land, I think about how they did not have to guess about which direction to go.  We know the story well – God led the children of Israel by day by a pillar of cloud and by night the Lord led them by a pillar of fire ( Ex. 13:21-22 ).  The Lord even directed the children of Israel when it was time for them to rest on the journey and when it was time for them to move ( Ex. 40:36-37 ).  When you think about it, the Lord was as a shepherd guiding His flock through the field and back into the safety of the fold.

As shown by their journey, there were two end destinations they could reach – the Promised Land or the wilderness.  Due to not following God’s direction, a generation of the children of Israel never reached the Promised Land and died in the wilderness.  The generation that was obedient to God’s direction joined Joshua and crossed the Jordan to enter the land of promise.

Again I tell you, there are two destinations that one can reach at the end of this journey.  There are many different paths on this journey but in the end, you’re going to reach one of these destinations depending on the direction you traveled.  You will either reach the land that the Lord has promised (heaven) or a land of destruction and waste – a land of death

Now, if you desire to reach the land of promise from God, you will want to travel in the direction that the Lord guides and directs you.  Some walk with confidence towards that land of promise.  At the very same time, some will confidently walk in a direction away from that land of promise.  Then there are several others who will wander in circles – unsure of which direction to go.

Obscured Direction

Now, how or why does one end up wandering aimlessly on this journey?  I suppose our first answer to this question will fall back to one not believing in God.  Faith certainly plays a role in this matter but I tell you today that the wandering soul is not a soul that is confidently walking in a direction of faith.  The one that is confidently walking in a direction away from heaven is confident in their faith of not believing in God.

The wandering soul

You see, the wandering soul is a soul that is lost and does not know which way to go — they are confused.  So, for the wandering soul, we have to figure out where this confusion is coming from.

When I think about where such confusion comes from for the soul, I consider all of the doctrines present in our world; this has been a subject that I have touched on the past couple of weeks.  There are many doctrines in the world today that speaks to what one should do in order to live.  What this means is that for the wandering soul, there are many advisers that are advising what one should do and it can become quite hard for a confused soul to discern what is helpful or not.

I honestly believe this to not only be true for the wandering soul but even for the soul of one who is confidently walking in the direction towards heaven.  On this journey, there will be times where the path can be filled with fog that can confuse us and throw us off track.  So, I share with you that I am one that turns to my faith and I diligently pray for God to clear up that fog of confusion.

God, as we know, is not the author of confusion – He is the one that clears up the fog of confusion ( 1 Cor. 14:33 ).  So, in my prayers to God, I pray for Him to be with me, to guide me, to give me direction in where He would have me to go.  I also pray that should I fall off course that God puts me back on it.  My desire is to always be headed in the right direction – the direction towards His land of promise.  

I tell you today that we are all – both the one that walks confidently in faith and the wandering soul – is in need of God’s support, guidance, direction , and encouragement while we are on this journey.  Sadly, as we know, the right direction to some is the wrong direction to others while the wrong direction to some is the right direction to others.  This is the confusion of the world.

Going the wrong direction

In Isaiah 30, the Lord clears up for us any confusion as He spoke to Israel to which direction is proper.

By the time of Isaiah, Israel had been influenced by the counsel of others to head in a direction that caused them to stray from the Lord.  We will see that in straying from the Lord, God said that Israel had devised plans that were not of His Spirit.  In devising and committing to plans that were against His Spirit, God said that Israel added to their sin ( Is. 30:1 ).

During that time, rather than put their trust in the counsel (advice) of God in the way that they should go, Israel chose to turn to Egypt .  At that time, Israel was under the threat of the Assyrians – a great and mighty power during that day.  So, Israel was in a moment of great need where they should have sought the Lord.  Yet, they chose Egypt and the strength of Pharaoh in the face of their enemies ( Is. 30:2 ).

Now, let’s keep in mind that the forefathers of these Israelites had received the law and commandments; they had received guidance and counsel from the Lord in the direction they should go in all matters!  Yet, Israel was choosing to ignore God’s direction for their own direction!

Now, where do you suppose going in a direction that is opposite of where the Lord tells you to go will lead you?  For Israel, we will see that this was a choice that led to shame and humiliation ( Is. 30:3 ).  As we know, the northern kingdom (Israel) was conquered and destroyed by the Assyrians ( Is. 30:6-7 ).  When they chose to go in a direction that opposed the Lord’s direction, He considered them to be rebellious children ( Is. 30:1,9-10 ).

The foggy path

So, the one thing I always wonder about this is the “why” – why did Israel choose to ignore God’s counsel?  Why did they not trust in Him?  I suppose that this same question could be asked for many today.  Why do so many refuse to seek or heed God’s counsel?

I certainly believe it is due to the many doctrines that are present in the world today that can cloud one’s judgment.  We were born in a world filled with doctrines of wickedness and we still live in that same world.  By birth and growing up, we were indoctrinated by many of these doctrines and they became part of our way. 

For some of the children of Israel, it became really difficult for them to break away from the ways that some of them picked up from the Egyptians.  During the days of Isaiah, it was hard for many of those of Israel to break away from the doctrines of those that lived in the land of Canaan.  They practiced idolatry, pagan worship and sacrifice, along with fornication – wickedness.  When confronted by prophets of God, they would say to the seers, “do not see,” and to the prophets, “do not prophesy to us right things ( Is. 30:10 ).”

For the one who is a genuine believer, our judgment can also be clouded by the doctrine that comes natural to us.  We have a nature in us that will tell us to do one thing while the Holy Spirit that dwells in us is telling us to do another.  Actually, I have found in our trials and tribulation that our old nature is what obscures and fogs up our direction!  Instead of heeding the voice of the Spirit in our times of great need, we end up rushing with clouded judgment in the wrong direction with all sorts of fear and anxiety.

So I can only imagine how obscured things are for those who are confused by the many doctrines that are present in the world.  Now, the Lord, we should understand, will not allow our vision to be obscured by the fog should we choose to listen to Him.  God will not allow this to happen because He desires for the righteous one to remain on the right path and for the wandering soul to know the right way to go.

Following God’s Direction

To the one who is of genuine faith and to the wandering soul, you are encouraged to get out of the fog of confusion by getting away from all of the various voices that try to advise and influence your direction.  

Breaking out of the fog

You will recall from my sermon last week – Living for the Good Fight of Faith – that I referenced what Paul said to Timothy about certain voices that are present in our world.  Paul told Timothy, and therefore us as well, that there are voices in the world that are proud and know nothing; they are obsessed with disputes and arguments over words that produce only envy, strife, and reviling ( 1 Tim. 6:3-4 ).  From those, Paul said that we, the genuine believer and wandering soul, should withdraw ourselves from them ( 1 Tim. 6:5 ).

In the book of Hebrews, the writer essentially repeated this same statement.  The writer of Hebrews wrote, “Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines.  For it is good that the heart be established by grace , not with foods which have not profited those who have been occupied with them ( Heb. 13:9 ).”  We should let our hearts (spirit) be established by the grace of God and not by the doctrines of man or the doctrine of our old self!

When this statement was written, Christ had come and fulfilled His purpose – the people were now living under grace.  Yet, what was happening was something that happens today – people were letting their hearts be established by the voices of others who were proud and knew nothing.  They also participated in performing certain rituals like offering up sacrifices with the belief that doing those things would please the Lord.  The days of offering up vain sacrifices and performing rituals had long past, but people were still listening to those who were going in the wrong direction!

Listen to God!

Are you going in the wrong direction because you are listening to and following the wrong doctrines?  Break away from those doctrines!  Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines!

To clear up some confusion:  God does not ask for you to participate in any strange rituals of religion.  What God desires from you is genuine faith in trusting in Him and His word.  In my key verse for today, we will see that the Lord said through Isaiah, “Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ whenever you turn to the right hand or whenever you turn to the left.”

21 Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” Whenever you turn to the right hand Or whenever you turn to the left. KEY VERSE – ISAIAH 30:21 NKJV

This word, I want you to understand, was God’s counsel to Israel and His counsel towards us.  When the Lord tells us the way we should move, we should go that way; it’s as simple as that!  His guidance and encouragement comes through the Holy Spirit.  At the very same time, the same Spirit resides in others who are of genuine faith and they may share with you wise counsel as well so be sure to listen to the Spirit when the Spirit speaks!

Do you realize that the children of Israel had to be obedient and follow the cloud and fire of God in order to have reached the Promised Land?  Had they not been obedient, they would have remained lost and never reached the Promised Land.  

What do you suppose that means for we who the Holy Spirit desires to lead to the land of God’s heavenly kingdom?  In order for us to reach the end destination that is the Lord’s kingdom, we need to heed the voice of God; we need to heed His guidance and direction to ensure that we are going the right way.  Should we not heed the voice of the Spirit, we will end up lost and wandering aimlessly until we reach the destination that is separate from God.

Which way will you go

Whether you realize this or not, you are currently being watched and even judged on the direction you go on this journey.  First, you are being judged by all of those around you.  Now, you may actually feel like Paul about this to know that others are judging you.

To the Corinthians, Paul wrote about his feelings on being watched and judged by the Corinthians.  Firstly, Paul found it to be a very small thing to be judged by others as he did not even judge himself ( 1 Cor. 4:3 ).  However, I do want to note that Paul said to the Corinthians that those who judge us should see us as both servants and stewards of the Lord ( 1 Cor. 4:1-2 ).  Are you going in the right direction on your journey?  Those around you will even be able to tell!

At the very same time, you should know that the direction you are taking is also being watched by the Lord who will also have the final ruling over where you will end up.  You see, the Lord will determine who enters into His land and those that will be barred from entrance.  So, if you desire to enter into the land of the Lord, then you should definitely listen to His guidance and direction – He won’t mislead you!

So, Paul was not all that bothered by how others judged him because he knew there was a far higher judge in the Lord.  With that thought in mind, Paul considered that he would do his best to go down the right path right in God’s eyes rather than go another direction.  So, he would seek and listen to the counsel of the Lord rather than heeding the counsel of those who do not carry with them the voice of the Spirit.

You and I should always turn to the Lord and seek His direction while we are on this journey.  Yes, this is another message of encouragement that ends up focusing on the final judgment of the Lord!  Sadly, we have gotten away from preaching and teaching about God’s judgment but we need to know and live our lives with the knowledge that God is watching and will judge where we end up.  If we travel through life with this mindset,  then we will certainly move in a direction towards the land of promise by the Lord.

Thought: For the Wandering Soul: Give Me Direction

By Rev. Leo H. McCrary II – May 1, 2022 Responsive Reading – Isaiah 30:15-26 Key Verse – Isaiah 30:21

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25 symptoms of a wandering soul, “we travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.”.

“To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.” – Bill Bryson

The above quote will undoubtedly put, anyone who has been bitten by that most infectious travel bug, in their feels. Immediately. We're the group that has no intentions of settling down. The group that fantasizes about that next adventure. The group that lives to experience new things and places, whether its a day trip to a nearby town or a flight around the world. We're the wandering souls and these are some of our symptoms.

1. You’ve dreamed of meeting your future spouse in a foreign land.

2. you have this ideal, romantic fantasy trip you’ll take with your significant other one day., 3. you randomly search airfares to dream destinations/plan itineraries for trips you aren’t even going on., 4. you wish ryanair would come to america and start offering $30 flights abroad., 5. some of the most content moments in your life were spent on a plane or train with your headphones on or a book in front of you., 6. the idea of graduating and starting the perpetual grind that is a “career” deeply saddens you., 7. when getting to know someone one of the first questions you ask is, “what is your dream travel destination/if you could be one place in the world where would it be, 8. people react like this when the words, "when i was abroad...", leave your mouth., 9. you're fascinated by foreign languages., 10. you make an effort to befriend people with different cultures and nationalities from yourself., 11. you have a deep interest in maps and political geography. as a matter of fact, you probably have a map or globe in your abode., 12. you have a phd in “minimalist packing.”, 13. someone, probably a parent or authority figure, has labeled your desire to travel and not settle down “irresponsible” or some other gear-grinding synonym., 14. you like to flip through your passport and look at your stamps., 15. traveling through the schengen area in europe is kinda bittersweet because you’re probably not going to get any stamps…, 16. you look at a lot of your old travel photos., 17. you cook/eat foreign cuisine as much as possible., 18. you’ve been asked “where did you get that (insert article of clothing)” and you respond “italy” while the inquirer was expecting something like “banana republic.”, 19. you have random clock/weather locations saved on your phone from around the world., 20. you’re always on the lookout for career opportunities abroad., 21. travel blogs are an addiction., 22. you like indie adventure films., 23. the idea of spending the weekend in an 8-bed hostel dorm excites you., 24. you’re okay with cyclical nature of wanderlust. the only cure is to travel more, but more travel leads to more wanderlust., 25. “home” is where your next adventure takes you., subscribe to our newsletter, 19 lessons i'll never forget from growing up in a small town, there have been many lessons learned..

Small towns certainly have their pros and cons. Many people who grow up in small towns find themselves counting the days until they get to escape their roots and plant new ones in bigger, "better" places. And that's fine. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought those same thoughts before too. We all have, but they say it's important to remember where you came from. When I think about where I come from, I can't help having an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for my roots. Being from a small town has taught me so many important lessons that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

1. The importance of traditions.

Sometimes traditions seem like a silly thing, but the fact of it is that it's part of who you are. You grew up this way and, more than likely, so did your parents. It is something that is part of your family history and that is more important than anything.

2. How to be thankful for family and friends.

No matter how many times they get on your nerves or make you mad, they are the ones who will always be there and you should never take that for granted.

3. How to give back.

When tragedy strikes in a small town, everyone feels obligated to help out because, whether directly or indirectly, it affects you too. It is easy in a bigger city to be able to disconnect from certain problems. But in a small town those problems affect everyone.

4. What the word "community" really means.

Along the same lines as #3, everyone is always ready and willing to lend a helping hand when you need one in a small town and to me that is the true meaning of community. It's working together to build a better atmosphere, being there to raise each other up, build each other up, and pick each other up when someone is in need. A small town community is full of endless support whether it be after a tragedy or at a hometown sports game. Everyone shows up to show their support.

5. That it isn't about the destination, but the journey.

People say this to others all the time, but it takes on a whole new meaning in a small town. It is true that life is about the journey, but when you're from a small town, you know it's about the journey because the journey probably takes longer than you spend at the destination. Everything is so far away that it is totally normal to spend a couple hours in the car on your way to some form of entertainment. And most of the time, you're gonna have as many, if not more, memories and laughs on the journey than at the destination.

6. The consequences of making bad choices.

Word travels fast in a small town, so don't think you're gonna get away with anything. In fact, your parents probably know what you did before you even have a chance to get home and tell them. And forget about being scared of what your teacher, principle, or other authority figure is going to do, you're more afraid of what your parents are gonna do when you get home.

7. To trust people, until you have a reason not to.

Everyone deserves a chance. Most people don't have ill-intentions and you can't live your life guarding against every one else just because a few people in your life have betrayed your trust.

8. To be welcoming and accepting of everyone.

While small towns are not always extremely diverse, they do contain people with a lot of different stories, struggle, and backgrounds. In a small town, it is pretty hard to exclude anyone because of who they are or what they come from because there aren't many people to choose from. A small town teaches you that just because someone isn't the same as you, doesn't mean you can't be great friends.

9. How to be my own, individual person.

In a small town, you learn that it's okay to be who you are and do your own thing. You learn that confidence isn't how beautiful you are or how much money you have, it's who you are on the inside.

10. How to work for what I want.

Nothing comes easy in life. They always say "gardens don't grow overnight" and if you're from a small town you know this both figuratively and literally. You certainly know gardens don't grow overnight because you've worked in a garden or two. But you also know that to get to the place you want to be in life it takes work and effort. It doesn't just happen because you want it to.

11. How to be great at giving directions.

If you're from a small town, you know that you will probably only meet a handful of people in your life who ACTUALLY know where your town is. And forget about the people who accidentally enter into your town because of google maps. You've gotten really good at giving them directions right back to the interstate.

12. How to be humble.

My small town has definitely taught me how to be humble. It isn't always about you, and anyone who grows up in a small town knows that. Everyone gets their moment in the spotlight, and since there's so few of us, we're probably best friends with everyone so we are as excited when they get their moment of fame as we are when we get ours.

13. To be well-rounded.

Going to a small town high school definitely made me well-rounded. There isn't enough kids in the school to fill up all the clubs and sports teams individually so be ready to be a part of them all.

14. How to be great at conflict resolution.

In a small town, good luck holding a grudge. In a bigger city you can just avoid a person you don't like or who you've had problems with. But not in a small town. You better resolve the issue fast because you're bound to see them at least 5 times a week.

15. The beauty of getting outside and exploring.

One of my favorite things about growing up in a rural area was being able to go outside and go exploring and not have to worry about being in danger. There is nothing more exciting then finding a new place somewhere in town or in the woods and just spending time there enjoying the natural beauty around you.

16. To be prepared for anything.

You never know what may happen. If you get a flat tire, you better know how to change it yourself because you never know if you will be able to get ahold of someone else to come fix it. Mechanics might be too busy , or more than likely you won't even have enough cell service to call one.

17. That you don't always have to do it alone.

It's okay to ask for help. One thing I realized when I moved away from my town for college, was how much my town has taught me that I could ask for help is I needed it. I got into a couple situations outside of my town where I couldn't find anyone to help me and found myself thinking, if I was in my town there would be tons of people ready to help me. And even though I couldn't find anyone to help, you better believe I wasn't afraid to ask.

18. How to be creative.

When you're at least an hour away from normal forms of entertainment such as movie theaters and malls, you learn to get real creative in entertaining yourself. Whether it be a night looking at the stars in the bed of a pickup truck or having a movie marathon in a blanket fort at home, you know how to make your own good time.

19. To brush off gossip.

It's all about knowing the person you are and not letting others influence your opinion of yourself. In small towns, there is plenty of gossip. But as long as you know who you really are, it will always blow over.

Grateful Beyond Words: A Letter to My Inspiration

I have never been so thankful to know you..

I can't say "thank you" enough to express how grateful I am for you coming into my life. You have made such a huge impact on my life. I would not be the person I am today without you and I know that you will keep inspiring me to become an even better version of myself.

You have taught me that you don't always have to strong. You are allowed to break down as long as you pick yourself back up and keep moving forward. When life had you at your worst moments, you allowed your friends to be there for you and to help you. You let them in and they helped pick you up. Even in your darkest hour you showed so much strength. I know that you don't believe in yourself as much as you should but you are unbelievably strong and capable of anything you set your mind to.

Your passion to make a difference in the world is unbelievable. You put your heart and soul into your endeavors and surpass any personal goal you could have set. Watching you do what you love and watching you make a difference in the lives of others is an incredible experience. The way your face lights up when you finally realize what you have accomplished is breathtaking and I hope that one day I can have just as much passion you have.

SEE MORE: A Letter To My Best Friend On Her Birthday

The love you have for your family is outstanding. Watching you interact with loved ones just makes me smile . You are so comfortable and you are yourself. I see the way you smile when you are around family and I wish I could see you smile like this everyday. You love with all your heart and this quality is something I wished I possessed.

You inspire me to be the best version of myself. I look up to you. I feel that more people should strive to have the strength and passion that you exemplify in everyday life.You may be stubborn at points but when you really need help you let others in, which shows strength in itself. I have never been more proud to know someone and to call someone my role model. You have taught me so many things and I want to thank you. Thank you for inspiring me in life. Thank you for making me want to be a better person.

Waitlisted for a College Class? Here's What to Do!

Dealing with the inevitable realities of college life..

Course registration at college can be a big hassle and is almost never talked about. Classes you want to take fill up before you get a chance to register. You might change your mind about a class you want to take and must struggle to find another class to fit in the same time period. You also have to make sure no classes clash by time. Like I said, it's a big hassle.

This semester, I was waitlisted for two classes. Most people in this situation, especially first years, freak out because they don't know what to do. Here is what you should do when this happens.

Don't freak out

This is a rule you should continue to follow no matter what you do in life, but is especially helpful in this situation.

Email the professor

Around this time, professors are getting flooded with requests from students wanting to get into full classes. This doesn't mean you shouldn't burden them with your email; it means they are expecting interested students to email them. Send a short, concise message telling them that you are interested in the class and ask if there would be any chance for you to get in.

Attend the first class

Often, the advice professors will give you when they reply to your email is to attend the first class. The first class isn't the most important class in terms of what will be taught. However, attending the first class means you are serious about taking the course and aren't going to give up on it.

Keep attending class

Every student is in the same position as you are. They registered for more classes than they want to take and are "shopping." For the first couple of weeks, you can drop or add classes as you please, which means that classes that were once full will have spaces. If you keep attending class and keep up with assignments, odds are that you will have priority. Professors give preference to people who need the class for a major and then from higher to lower class year (senior to freshman).

Have a backup plan

For two weeks, or until I find out whether I get into my waitlisted class, I will be attending more than the usual number of classes. This is so that if I don't get into my waitlisted class, I won't have a credit shortage and I won't have to fall back in my backup class. Chances are that enough people will drop the class, especially if it is very difficult like computer science, and you will have a chance. In popular classes like art and psychology, odds are you probably won't get in, so prepare for that.

Remember that everything works out at the end

Life is full of surprises. So what if you didn't get into the class you wanted? Your life obviously has something else in store for you. It's your job to make sure you make the best out of what you have.

Navigating the Talking Stage: 21 Essential Questions to Ask for Connection

It's mandatory to have these conversations..

Whether you met your new love interest online , through mutual friends, or another way entirely, you'll definitely want to know what you're getting into. I mean, really, what's the point in entering a relationship with someone if you don't know whether or not you're compatible on a very basic level?

Consider these 21 questions to ask in the talking stage when getting to know that new guy or girl you just started talking to:

1. What do you do for a living?

What someone does for a living can tell a lot about who they are and what they're interested in! Their career reveals a lot more about them than just where they spend their time to make some money.

2. What's your favorite color?

OK, I get it, this seems like something you would ask a Kindergarten class, but I feel like it's always good to know someone's favorite color . You could always send them that Snapchat featuring you in that cute shirt you have that just so happens to be in their favorite color!

3. Do you have any siblings?

This one is actually super important because it's totally true that people grow up with different roles and responsibilities based on where they fall in the order. You can tell a lot about someone just based on this seemingly simple question.

4. What's your favorite television show?

OK, maybe this isn't a super important question, but you have to know ASAP if you can quote Michael Scott or not. If not, he probably isn't the one. Sorry, girl.

5. When is your birthday?

You can then proceed to do the thing that every girl does without admitting it and see how compatible your zodiacs are.

6. What's your biggest goal in life?

If you're like me, you have big goals that you want to reach someday, and you want a man behind you who also has big goals and understands what it's like to chase after a dream. If his biggest goal is to see how quickly he can binge-watch " Grey's Anatomy " on Netflix , you may want to move on.

7. If you had three wishes granted to you by a genie, what would they be?

This is a go-to for an insight into their personality. Based on how they answer, you can tell if they're goofy, serious, or somewhere in between.

8. What's your favorite childhood memory?

For some, this may be a hard question if it involves a family member or friend who has since passed away . For others, it may revolve around a tradition that no longer happens. The answers to this question are almost endless!

9. If you could change one thing about your life, what would it be?

We all have parts of our lives and stories that we wish we could change. It's human nature to make mistakes. This question is a little bit more personal but can really build up the trust level.

10. Are you a cat or a dog person?

I mean, duh! If you're a dog person, and he is a cat person, it's not going to work out.

11. Do you believe in a religion or any sort of spiritual power?

Personally, I am a Christian, and as a result, I want to be with someone who shares those same values. I know some people will argue that this question is too much in the talking stage , but why go beyond the talking stage if your personal values will never line up?

12. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be?

Even homebodies have a must visit place on their bucket list !

13. What is your ideal date night?

Hey, if you're going to go for it... go for it!

14. Who was/is your celebrity crush?

For me, it was hands-down Nick Jonas . This is always a fun question to ask!

15. What's a good way to cheer you up if you're having a bad day?

Let's be real, if you put a label on it, you're not going to see your significant other at their best 24/7.

16. Do you have any tattoos?

This can lead to some really good conversations, especially if they have a tattoo that has a lot of meaning to them!

17. Can you describe yourself in three words?

It's always interesting to see if how the person you're talking to views their personal traits lines ups with the vibes you're getting.

18. What makes you the most nervous in life?

This question can go multiple different directions, and it could also be a launching pad for other conversations.

19. What's the best gift you have ever received? 

Admittedly, I have asked this question to friends as well, but it's neat to see what people value.

20. What do you do to relax/have fun?

Work hard, play hard, right?

21. What are your priorities at this phase of your life?

This is always interesting because no matter how compatible your personalities may be, if one of you wants to be serious and the other is looking for something casual, it's just not going to work.

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Challah vs. Easter Bread: A Delicious Dilemma

Is there really such a difference in challah bread or easter bread.

Ever since I could remember, it was a treat to receive Easter Bread made by my grandmother. We would only have it once a year and the wait was excruciating. Now that my grandmother has gotten older, she has stopped baking a lot of her recipes that require a lot of hand usage--her traditional Italian baking means no machines. So for the past few years, I have missed enjoying my Easter Bread.

A few weeks ago, I was given a loaf of bread called Challah (pronounced like holla), and upon my first bite, I realized it tasted just like Easter Bread. It was so delicious that I just had to make some of my own, which I did.

The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients

2 tsp active dry or instant yeast 1 cup lukewarm water 4 to 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 cup white granulated sugar 2 tsp salt 2 large eggs 1 large egg yolk (reserve the white for the egg wash) 1/4 cup neutral-flavored vegetable oil

Instructions

• Combine yeast and a pinch of sugar in small bowl with the water and stir until you see a frothy layer across the top.
• Whisk together 4 cups of the flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl.
• Make a well in the center of the flour and add in eggs, egg yolk, and oil. Whisk these together to form a slurry, pulling in a little flour from the sides of the bowl.
• Pour the yeast mixture over the egg slurry and mix until difficult to move.
• Turn out the dough onto a floured work surface and knead by hand for about 10 minutes. If the dough seems very sticky, add flour a teaspoon at a time until it feels tacky, but no longer like bubblegum. The dough has finished kneading when it is soft, smooth, and holds a ball-shape.
• Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and place somewhere warm. Let the dough rise 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
• Separate the dough into four pieces. Roll each piece of dough into a long rope roughly 1-inch thick and 16 inches long.
• Gather the ropes and squeeze them together at the very top. Braid the pieces in the pattern of over, under, and over again. Pinch the pieces together again at the bottom.
• Line a baking sheet with parchment and lift the loaf on top. Sprinkle the loaf with a little flour and drape it with a clean dishcloth. Place the pan somewhere warm and away from drafts and let it rise until puffed and pillowy, about an hour.
• Heat the oven to 350°F. Whisk the reserved egg white with a tablespoon of water and brush it all over the challah. Be sure to get in the cracks and down the sides of the loaf.
• Slide the challah on its baking sheet into the oven and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through cooking. The challah is done when it is deeply browned.

I kept wondering how these two breads could be so similar in taste. So I decided to look up a recipe for Easter Bread to make a comparison. The two are almost exactly the same! These recipes are similar because they come from religious backgrounds. The Jewish Challah bread is based on kosher dietary laws. The Christian Easter Bread comes from the Jewish tradition but was modified over time because they did not follow kosher dietary laws.

A recipe for Easter bread is as follows:

2 tsp active dry or instant yeast 2/3 cup milk 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1/4 cup white granulated sugar 2 tbs butter 2 large eggs 2 tbs melted butter 1 tsp salt

• In a large bowl, combine 1 cup flour, sugar, salt, and yeast; stir well. Combine milk and butter in a small saucepan; heat until milk is warm and butter is softened but not melted.
• Gradually add the milk and butter to the flour mixture; stirring constantly. Add two eggs and 1/2 cup flour; beat well. Add the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring well after each addition. When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes.
• Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.
• Deflate the dough and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide the dough into two equal size rounds; cover and let rest for 10 minutes. Roll each round into a long roll about 36 inches long and 1 1/2 inches thick. Using the two long pieces of dough, form a loosely braided ring, leaving spaces for the five colored eggs. Seal the ends of the ring together and use your fingers to slide the eggs between the braids of dough.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place loaf on a buttered baking sheet and cover loosely with a damp towel. Place loaf in a warm place and let rise until doubled in bulk, about 45 minutes. Brush risen loaf with melted butter.
• Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown, about 30 minutes.

Both of these recipes are really easy to make. While you might need to have a day set aside for this activity, you can do things while the dough is rising or in the oven. After only a few hours, you have a delicious loaf of bread that you made from scratch, so the time and effort is really worth it!

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Home Worship Planning History of Hymns History of Hymns: 'Where Shall My Wondering Soul Begin'

October 09, 2019

October 2019

History of Hymns: 'Where Shall My Wondering Soul Begin'

By Beth R. Holzemer

“Where Shall My Wondering Soul Begin” By Charles Wesley The United Methodist Hymnal , 342

Where shall my wondering soul begin? How shall I all to heaven aspire? A slave redeemed from death and sin, a brand plucked from eternal fire, how shall I equal triumphs raise, and sing my great deliverer’s praise?

“Where shall my wondering soul begin?” — an apt question to ask when facing the formidable task of presenting, arguably, the greatest hymn writer of our faith, the venerable Charles Wesley (1707-1788). Born in Epworth, Lincolnshire, England to Anglican cleric and poet, Samuel Wesley (1662-1735), and Susanna Wesley (1669-1742), whom many consider the Mother of Methodism, Charles was the eighteenth of nineteen children. He spent many hours at his mother’s knee receiving a classical education along with his siblings. He was later educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford, where he was ordained. While at Oxford, Charles formed a prayer group with fellow students in 1727; his older brother, John, joined them in 1729. Other students ridiculed this “Holy Club” and dubbed them “the Methodists” because they were methodical and disciplined in their Bible study, speech, and lifestyle. The brothers traveled to the United States in 1735, but Charles returned to England the following summer, having been poorly received by the settlers he had been sent to shepherd. No doubt John Wesley spoke for both of them when he wrote in his journal, “I went to America to convert the Indians, but, oh, who shall convert me? Who, what, is he that will deliver me from this evil heart of mischief?” (J. Wesley, Journal , p. 29)

A life-threatening sea voyage provided the answer. A group of Moravians shared passage to America with the Wesleys in January of 1736 when a vicious storm arose. While the English passengers panicked and screamed in terror, the German Moravians remained calm, prayed, and sang and tended to their despairing fellow passengers. So profoundly touched by the living out of their faith was Charles that he experienced an evangelical conversion. On Pentecost Sunday, May 21, 1738, he wrote in his journal, “I have found myself at peace with God, and rejoiced in the hope of a loving Christ . . .. I saw that by faith I stood” (C. Wesley Journal , 1738, n.p.). While it cannot be proved with certainty, scholars generally agree that the hymn referred to in the following quotation is “Where Shall My Wondering Soul Begin” (Dudley-Smith, 2013, n.p.). Charles Wesley’s journal entry continues (May 23, 1738):

At nine, I be­gan an hymn up­on my con­ver­sion, but I was per­suad­ed to break off for fear of pride. Mr. [John] Bray, com­ing en­cour­aged me to pro­ceed in spite of Sa­tan. I prayed Christ to stand by me, and fin­ished the hymn. Upon my af­ter­wards show­ing it to Mr. Bray, the de­vil threw in a fiery dart, sug­gest­ing that it was wrong, and I had dis­pleased God. My heart sunk with­in me; when, cast­ing my eye up­on a Pray­er-book, I met with an an­swer for him. “Why boast­est thou thy­self, thou ty­rant, that thou canst do mis­chief?” Up­on this, I clear­ly dis­cerned it was a de­vice of the en­e­my to keep back glo­ry from God (C. Wesley Journal, 1738, n.p.).

“Christ the Friend of Sinner.” John Wesley included it in his Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists (1780), omitting the sixth stanza. It has found inclusion in our hymnals of 1836, 1837, 1847, and 1849—with various verses omitted in each iteration. It was then excluded from hymnal publication until its restoration in 1964. The United Methodist Hymnal (1989) includes stanzas 1-3, 5, and 8.

In the rhetorical style of the great hymn writers of the eighteenth century, including Isaac Watts (1674-1748), Charles puts forward six questions within the first three stanzas.

Stanza 3 poses two questions:

And shall I slight my Father’s love, or basely fear his gifts to own? Unmindful of his favors prove, shall I, the hallowed cross to shun, refuse his righteousness to impart, by hiding it within my heart?

Stanza 4, omitted in The United Methodist Hymnal , answers these questions dramatically:

No! though the ancient dragon rage, And call forth all his host to war, Though earth’s self-righteous sons engage; Them and their god alike I dare; Jesus, the sinner’s friend, proclaim; Jesus, to sinners still the same.

Wesley borrows actual phrases and concepts from this hymn for his more famous, “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing” (1739), thought to have been composed on the anniversary of his conversion. Take, for example, the uncommon word “antepast” found at the end of stanza 2 of “Where Shall My Wondering Soul”:

I should be called a child of God! Should know, should feel my sins forgiven, blest with this antepast of heaven!

Quite literally, an “antepast” is synonymous with an appetizer, but Wesley uses it here to tantalize us with a foretaste of heaven, the deliciousness of eternal life with God. In earliest hymnal editions, the text includes “An Antepast of Heaven” as a subtitle. Compare this with the final stanza of “O for a Thousand Tongues,” composed a year later (1739), where “antepast” becomes “anticipate,” a more common, but less colorful word:

In Christ, your head, you then shall know, shall feel your sins forgiven; anticipate your heaven below, And know that love is heaven. ( The United Methodist Hymnal , 57)

Similarly, in stanza 5, Wesley uses a phrase he would repeat. The stanza begins in “Where Shall My Wondering Soul”:

Outcasts of men, to you I call, harlots and publicans and thieves; he spreads his arms to embrace you all, sinners alone his grace receive.

In “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing” (1739), using the same phrase and the theological appeal to the sinner, Wesley reframes the focus from others – “Outcasts of men, to you I call” – to now include himself – “crimes as great as mine.” The following stanza, omitted from many hymnals, appears near Wesley’s original eighteen-stanza hymn:

Harlots and publicans and thieves, in holy triumph join! Saved is the sinner that believes from crimes as great as mine. ( The United Methodist Hymnal , 58)

Wesley extends his list of sinners in “O for a Thousand Tongues” to make a point in the penultimate stanza:

Murderers and all ye hellish crew, ye sons of lust and pride, believe the Savior died for you, for me the Savior died. ( The United Methodist Hymnal , 58)

The original sixth stanza of “Where Shall My Wondering Soul,” omitted from the hymnal, echoes this one with archaic language that is nearly incomprehensible to our ears:

Come all ye Madalins in Lust, [a reference to Mary Magdelene as a prostitute] Ye Ruffians fell, in Mudres [Murderers] old! Repent and live: Despair and Trust; Jesus for you to Death was sold; Though Hell protest, and Earth repine, He dy'd for Crimes like yours – and mine.

Charles Wesley minces no words in convicting humanity of the heinous crimes for which Christ sacrificed himself. In fact, from our modern perspective, we might wonder if Wesley’s focus on the various illicit activities of his time might have been an obsession. British Wesleyan hymn scholar J. R. Watson suggests that the mention of “harlots and publicans and thieves” was a reference to problems of crime, prostitution, and unfair taxation in London in 1738. Specifically, “Harlots were something of an obsession in the London of the 1730s . . ..” (Watson, 1997, p. 227). It is in the context of an extensive list of “sinners” that Wesley labels himself the “chief” of sinners in the original first line of the final stanza of “O for a Thousand Tongues”: “With me, your chief, you then shall know. . ..”

Three days, on May 23, after the hymn’s composition, Charles Wesley writes in his journal, “Toward ten, my brother was brought in triumph by a troop of our friends, and declared, ‘I believe.’ We sang the hymn with great joy, and parted with prayer” ( C. Wesley Journal , 1738, n.p.). Yes, John Wesley experienced his conversion and a strangely warmed heart a mere three days after his younger brother. And this is the hymn they sang.

The United Methodist Hymnal includes no music or suggested hymn tunes for this text. The Methodist Hymnal (1964), sets the text to FILLMORE, attributed to Jeremiah Ingalls (1764-1838). It may also be sung to SAGINA, the tune now associated with Wesley’s famous “And Can It Be that I Should Gain” ( The United Methodist Hymnal , 363), with some adaptation.

Sources and Further Reading:

Timothy Dudley-Smith, “Where Shall My Wond’ring Soul Begin.” The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology. Canterbury Press, accessed August 12, 2019,

http://www.hymnology.co.uk/w/where-shall-my-wond’ring-soul-begin .

Fred Gealy, Austin C. Lovelace, and Carlton R. Young, eds. Companion to the Hymnal (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1970).

“The Moravians and John Wesley” Christianity Today: Christian History (July/August 2019): christianitytoday.com .

J. R. Watson, The English Hymn: A Critical and Historical Study (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997).

“Charles Wesley | English Clergyman,” Encyclopedia Britannica . Retrieved 13 March 2019: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Wesley .

Charles Wesley, The Journal Of Charles Wesley , The Wesley Center Online: http://wesley.nnu.edu/charles-wesley/the-journal-of-charles-wesley-1707-1788/the-journal-of-charles-wesley-may-1-august-31-1738 .

John Wesley, The Journal of John Wesley (Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 1951), http://www.ntslibrary.com/PDF%20Books/Wesley_Journal.pdf .

John Wesley and Charles Wesley, Hymns and Sacred Poems (Bristol, 1743).

Beth R. Holzemer, M.M., is Director of Traditional Music and Worship at First United Methodist Church, Hopkinsville KY, and a member of the Fellowship of United Methodists in Music and Worship Arts.

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Jewel Will Still Save Your Soul

Artifice is out, mental health is in, and Jewel’s been ready for this moment her entire life.

At age 15, Jewel moved out of her turbulent home in rural Alaska and hitchhiked several hundred miles to attend a powwow. Sitting in a large circle, she froze when a talking stick was passed to her. Later, she was taken aside by two “uncles,” who told her the future of her life would depend upon learning to speak from her heart. It was there that she also heard the story of the raven, which she recites to me from memory.

“There was a gathering every full moon of all the creatures of every kind,” she says. “One day, the two-leggeds [humans] didn’t show up, so Great Spirit sent out the raven, which was then a beautiful white bird, to look for them. The raven flew for days and found the two-leggeds wandering lost on the edges of the wilderness. The raven called to them, but they could no longer understand the language, and the raven turned black with grief. The raven flew back to the fire and said, ‘The two-leggeds have lost the language of knowing how to speak to all of us, to nature.’ ”

Today, in a nondescript cinder block building behind a Food 4 Less shopping center in the Van Nuys section of Los Angeles, a raven named Shadow is biting Jewel’s index finger. She gracefully extends her hand so as not to drip blood onto the ivory folds of a borrowed gown, grimacing ever so slightly as a turntable spins her like a life-size music box dancer.

“Cut!” yells creative director Matthew Rolston, one of the multiplatinum recording artist’s longtime collaborators, whom she’s called upon to help her shoot a hologram of herself for The Portal: An Art Experience by Jewel , opening on May 4 at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas.

If all goes as planned, a hologram of Jewel with Shadow perched on her hand will greet visitors at the start of the 90-minute immersive experience. Its centerpiece is a reflective art walk through the museum’s contemporary wing, narrated by Jewel, featuring 10 pieces she’s selected from the museum’s collection that represent what she calls the “three spheres” of existence (more on that later), as well as two of her own artworks: a stunning portrait of her 12-year-old son, Kase, that she made after taking a two-week oil painting clinic last spring in Rome, and a sculpture. There’s also a nightly outdoor choreographed 200-piece drone light show, during which visitors will be invited to wear headphones to listen to a conceptual song written and recorded by Jewel.

The crew assembled today might be tasked with creating an apparition, but the bird and the blood are very real. Shadow’s handler suggests increasing the speed of the turntable to minimize the length of time between treats. Meanwhile, a hairstylist has procured a leaf blower to provide a gentler wind effect than the industrial fan currently blasting Jewel’s face, making her eyes water and her strawberry blonde bangs stick straight up on either side of her forehead. Rolston shouts, “Action,” and filming resumes.

Born Jewel Kilcher, the nearly 50-year-old singer-songwriter is no stranger to working with animals, having spent much of her childhood on a 600-acre homestead with no running water in Homer, Alaska (population: roughly 6,000). Perhaps you’ve caught one of her cameos on Alaska: The Last Frontier , a reality series following the hardscrabble life of her extended family, which has aired on the Discovery Channel for 11 seasons. For a time, she also lived on a working Texas ranch with her now ex-husband, former rodeo cowboy Ty Murray (Kase’s dad).

Still, working with Shadow was “intimidating,” she admits the following morning over avocado toast and bacon. Apparently, the handler had asked her to feed the bird so it would feel rewarded being around her, “and it just fricking went for me,” she says. “Luckily I didn’t bleed on the dress—that was an archival Valentino piece.”

There is little risk of a bird attack this morning, but she’s still opted for something more casual: a studded leather jacket, jeans, and white tee. “I’ve always been intrigued by ravens,” she explains, recalling the anecdote from the powwow. “I liked the idea of the raven being the animal that brings humans back into harmony with our surroundings.”

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Striving for harmony has been a recurring theme in Jewel’s life, as has a near-constant oscillation between adversity and almost uncanny good fortune. When she was eight, her mother left the family, and her dad moved Jewel and her two brothers to the homestead in Homer. The stress of single parenthood and his own abusive childhood led her father to self-medicate with alcohol and repeat the cycle of abuse, she says—hence her decision to move out at 15. Around this time, she received a partial scholarship to attend the prestigious Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan. She raised half of the remaining tuition at a benefit concert, using the skills she’d learned yodeling and performing in hotels and bars with her father as a child. A generous donation from Homer celebrity Tom Bodett (of Motel 6’s “We’ll leave the light on for you” fame) made up the difference.

After graduation, she wandered a bit, eventually landing in San Diego to live with her mom, who was having health issues and could no longer work. They both wound up homeless when a boss refused to pay Jewel after she refused his sexual proposition. Jewel was living in her car and playing coffeehouses when she was discovered at age 19, eventually going on to sell over 30 million albums, with her mom serving as her manager. By 29, as she writes in her 2015 memoir Never Broken , she came to the realization that her wealth had been mismanaged to a degree that she was left millions of dollars in debt.

Jewel says she has since made critical changes to her business operations and is in a much better place. She’s even begun the difficult work of repairing her relationship with her father, who made the decision to get sober in his sixties. “Learning about my dad’s childhood, I could not believe how well he raised us,” she says. Things were so bad for him, she adds, that arriving for his tour of duty in Vietnam “was the first time he felt safe.”

She also has compassion for her mother, but they are, for now, estranged. “I don’t have a relationship with her. I don’t think I ever will. But I know I can heal anyway,” she says. “I don’t need the movie moment where she comes back and apologizes. I still get to live the life that I want to live. My happiness is mine. I think the real abuse is what we do to ourselves when the decisions we make are based on our trauma. The real freedom we give ourselves is being able to make decisions not based on that trauma.”

Which brings us back to The Portal’ s “three spheres,” a philosophy Jewel has developed over the past 20 years working in mental health with two groups she cofounded: the Inspiring Children Foundation, which helps underprivileged youth and families through leadership development and mentorship programs, and Innerworld, a virtual community where members can address mental health challenges anonymously with the help of tools and guides trained in cognitive behavioral immersion.

“Each of us navigate these three spheres every day, often without knowing it,” she explains. “There’s your inner world, the seen sphere—the outer world—and then there’s the unseen world, which is just anything that gives you a sense of awe or wonder. I think mental health is a result of our three spheres being in alignment. So if my job is also my passion, or if I think my partner knows my secret self, or if I find a way to act on my spiritual practice in the real world, I’m much happier.”

Coming from anyone else, this all might sound a little woo-woo, but with Jewel, you can tell she is following the Native elders’ advice and speaking from her heart, as well as from a place of self-sufficiency and resourcefulness honed out of necessity in the wilds of Alaska and on the streets of San Diego. This life directive is on literal display in everything she does, from her triumphant run as the Queen of Hearts on the sixth season of The Masked Singer to her semi-frequent TikToks, in which she shares snippets of life from her rustic home in the Colorado Rockies.

Her generosity feels bottomless. By the end of our two-hour-plus brunch, I have concrete action plans in place for reimagining my writing career and strengthening my seven-year-old’s sense of self-esteem. And at no point does it feel as though she’s feigning an interest in my personal life to deflect questions about her own. She’s an open book, even divulging her thoughts on rumored beau and Yellowstone star Kevin Costner: “He’s a great person,” she says, blushing, adding that “the public fascination is intense for sure.”

“Jewel has a magnetic personality,” says Crystal Bridges executive director and chief diversity and inclusion officer Rod Bigelow. “She just invites you in. She is very cognizant that she has been a high-profile individual for a long time, but she’s a person who just has this overwhelmingly welcoming spirit, and the museum is founded with the idea of welcoming all, so it was a match right away.”

Following her art museum debut, Jewel will co-headline two legs of a tour with Melissa Etheridge (another leg features the Indigo Girls, who’ve been enjoying their own renaissance thanks to a memorable moment on the Barbie soundtrack). The entire shebang should scratch the itch for unadulterated singer-songwriter sublimity sparked by Tracy Chapman’s duet with Luke Combs at the Grammys this past February. “That was a healing moment for the world,” Jewel says of the performance. “People don’t give sincerity enough credit for how powerful it can be.”

She should know, having endured more than her fair share of criticism, whether for earnest lyrics like “In the end, only kindness matters” or her 1998 poetry book, A Night Without Armor . Take, for instance, the book’s featured review on Amazon.com, which includes backhanded compliments like, “Solid by celeb-poet standards, and a fair bit of it is actually sort of readable.” But the thing a lot of people are coming around to realize, it seems, is that Jewel’s not wrong. In the end, many of society’s current ills stem from a lack of kindness.

When I bring up her upcoming tour, Jewel points out that Etheridge was one of the first musicians to give her a break, having invited her to perform in 1995 on her VH1 series Duets . “She was a brand-new, sweet thing,” Etheridge says, pointing out that the appearance aired before Pieces of You , Jewel’s debut album, had taken off. “John Sykes, who was running VH1 at the time, played me some of her music, and I was like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’ It was a great time for women in music.” Despite the undeniable success of Lilith Fair, which pulled in $60 million in ticket sales during its three-year run in the late ’90s, promoters have been reluctant to try something similar in the decades since, Etheridge says. “I’ve been telling people for years it’s okay to put two women on a bill.”

Since having Kase—and especially since her 2014 divorce—Jewel has taken a more strategic approach to her music career. “Realizing I was going to be a single mom at 40, and that the music job is just moving 24/7, I knew I had a big decision to make,” she says. “It reminded me of being 18 and homeless; my whole life got disrupted. Divorce is obviously super painful, and you have to redefine everything. I wanted to make a living, but I wanted to do it authentically. Given my upbringing, I shouldn’t mother well or be a natural parent. So that meant I had to take it very, very seriously. For me, motherhood inspired a whole new level of healing, a new set of behavioral tools, and required creating a different life that had more stability because the music industry is just incredibly unstable. Creating a different income source and building a wellness company was really interesting to me, and creatively and intellectually stimulating.”

Taking a break from touring made perfect sense, but since the beginning of her career, she has prioritized her own happiness and mental health. “I remember the moment [I was discovered],” she says. “All my hair stood up. It felt that scary. Fame is like engaging with a very dangerous substance. If you don’t have a plan, it’s very toxic, like handling uranium. I knew that with my background and my trauma, it would be bad. I’ve seen enough biopics of musicians to know my movie doesn’t end well. So I made a promise to myself that my number one job was to learn to be happy. I never had a need to be known or applauded. I really had a need to express myself and to connect. That’s just how I’m wired. Knowing that really helped me navigate and make what I hope are really good choices.”

She recalls being offered a spot on MTV’s The Real World shortly after getting signed. “My label was like, ‘There’s this new thing called reality TV. You’ll live in a house’—and at this point I’m still in my car—‘and you’ll have roommates and be filmed 24 hours a day.’ They were like, ‘The whole world is going to watch you go from being homeless to making an album.’ I would’ve been famous by the time it was launched, but I just knew it would be bad for me, so I said no.”

She’s less distrustful of social media, drones, even AI. “It’s trained on preexisting things, so it’s always going to be somewhat derivative,” she says, pouring more tea into her cup. “I think what’s interesting is that we didn’t figure out how to program the heart. We’ve figured out how to program the mind. And that’s what my art is about: How do you get into the heart? To me, whether it’s with drones or holograms, technology just helps you find different ways of telling a story.”

To her point, a couple of days after we meet, Jewel posts a TikTok offering $100 to whoever can guess what caused the cut on her index finger. The guesses range from “freak flossing accident” to “Kevin Costner wrangled ya!” but no one offers up “raven bite.” Nearly three decades in, Jewel is still keeping us guessing.

This article appears in the May 2024 issue of ELLE.

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